A Path Toward Peace

“If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.” – Robin Williams

Like a lot of people around me, I can't make sense of what is going on in the Middle East.  There is so much hatred being spewed, so much misinformation being spread, so much anti-semetic and anti-Arab sentiment permeating the fibres of every discussion that I don't know where to begin to sort things out.  What I do know is this - the people of Israel are entitled to a secure homeland, free from fear of attack by their neighbours and the Palestinian people are entitled to a secure homeland, free from fear of attack by their neighbours.  

Every night on the evening news, I watch the casualty count grow.  Dead Israeli children.  Dead Palestinian children.  That the count is greater on one side than on the other is irrelevant.  The common denominator is that they are children and now they are dead.  Not a single one of them deserved their fate.  Not a single one of them had anything to do with this fight that has been raging for more years than we can count.  When is enough going to be enough? How many dead children will it take before we figure out that the way we've been negotiating peace agreements just doesn't work?  

Here is my proposal. Let's turn the negotiations over to the mothers.  No more politicians.  No more men.  Just mothers.  Let's see how long it takes for a group of Israeli and Palestinian women to figure out how to find an agreement that will save their children.  If the idea seems simplistic - it is.  Doesn't mean it won't work.  Just means that I too am a mom and I know I'd do anything to protect my child and so would every other mother I know.