Fundamentals on bringing peace to Israel-Palestine

Some thoughts on the principle of an Israeli and Palestinian Confederation, a simulation of thought and discussion.

Some observations and thoughts about bringing peace to Israelis and Palestinians

BY RAY HANANIA

FREE/Palestine Israel Thought Simulation/Sunday Feb. 2, 2025

I engaged this week in the Israeli-Palestinian Confederation simulation led by Josef Avesar and I believe these are some principles that Palestinians need to achieve and Israelis must accept in order to achieve peace.

Two sides must have some sense of equality in order for peace to be achieved.

There is an imbalance between Israelis and Palestinians, especially in politics but mainly in media and communications. Palestinians need to improve their communications and become more effective in educating the public in a positive manner.

www.IPConfederation.org

There are three steps to move from simulation to reality.

· Education, inform

· Engagement, involvement (must be measurable); build and grow the organization

· Activation comes from engagement and representation/participation

Challenges

The most important challenge facing peace activists is creating and conveying effective communications. In doing so, activists should remember are these:

1 - “Perception is reality.”

2 - It’s not what you say but how you say it.

3 – Speak with identified and brief understandable purpose.
You can’t just talk and ramble, even if it is based on historical fact. You have to talk in a compelling way. You have to have a clear easily to understand point. You have to know exactly what it is you want the audience to remember. The most the audience can remember is 5 bullet points. They won’t remember the entire narrative; the story and you should not allow them to combine the lengthy story in a point; and, you should not let an audience determine what you think is important – you have to define for them what you think is important. You must give them the point and drive it home over and over again in an effective manner.

4 – In a debate, you win the audience by friending them, identifying with them and making yourself appear to be them. Americans and the West reject unfamiliarity. If you look different your narrative is questioned and viewed as untrue.

5 – We have a community structural problem, especially in America. When I think of Palestinian leadership I think of the term “President for Life.” Their actions and organizations exploit Palestinian suffering, but they are intended to empower themselves forever. There is no democracy currently, and without democracy you can’t have an effective collaboration of ideas, discussions or achieve mutual respect.

When trying to identify the problem preventing peace, most Palestinians people focus on the imbalance of power between Palestinians and Israelis, and most Israelis ignore the issue.

But the real problem is more about perception and the failure of the Palestinians to effectively communicate their cause, their experience, their narrative and their rights to the right audiences.

Palestinians and Arabs are emotional people. They speak to themselves. When you ask them one question, a simple question, you get a two-hour long answer. No one is thinking about the process of effective communications. They don’t focus on points that the audience can embrace and pour too much information onto their audiences making it difficult for audiences to understand.

Israelis and Palestinians love to talk and argue their narratives, often in a disengaged way from the audience.

It’s not what you say but how you say it.

Truth is not defined by facts but by people and the human nature of familiarity acceptance, trust and acceptance. The more an audience dislikes you, the less they understand your problems and the less they desire to understand your problems.

The Israelis have mastered communication in a large part because they have no opposition challenging their communication’s effectiveness.

It started with books and publishing like the fiction Novel “Exodus” by Leon Uris, who was commissioned by a pro-Israel PR professional in America hired by Israel’s government to write Israel’s story. The Israelis knew that if Americans would embrace their story they would always be on top and they would achieve their goals. Exodus by Leon Uris is an extreme fictional distortion of the conflict, a one-sided portrayal of Arabs as “baby killers,” an image worse than the perception of the Nazis. It became a best seller. Fiction is more compelling to audiences in dealing with history than academic dissertations filled with precise accurate facts.

Exodus became a movie starring Paul Newman, one of the most popular actors in America.

Palestinians have never tried to confront and correct the perception in an effective professional communication manner.

We currently lead with our emotions trying to convince a people who deep down hate or don’t trust us. It doesn’t work.

That’s why Israel’s government can lie and why even the worst Palestinian truth is challenged as not just a lie but the worst kind of lie, an exaggeration of made-up facts.

That’s why American audiences shrug when they hear that Israel has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, and shriek when they hear that one Israeli was killed.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON ME

I live what I believe. Justice. Respect, Oppose hate. Oppose violence.

It’s easy to be discouraged, angry, and emotional,l and harder to remain focused on achieving peace

We need less talk more action and engagement, through more understanding and knowledge and better and balanced communications

Israel needs to recognize Palestinian rights to the land

Israel needs to allow Palestinians to return to Palestine/Israel

Please leave a comment on these ideas.