Palestine
By: Louay Safi
Palestine: Prophetic Principles over Prophecies outlines the emerging patterns of the struggle for freedom and justice; of unfulfilled promises, dashed hopes, untold misery, and the long search for the elusive peace in Palestine. For 60 years modern Israel flourished as the Palestinian pain and suffering grew, and Palestinian anger gave birth to new generations of fighters who draw meaning from their life of suffering by challenging the Israeli occupation. As Israel, backed by western powers, pushes harder to assert its religious claims over Palestine, and as Palestinians, supported by Muslim societies, push back to assert their human and political rights, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict becomes the epicenter of political pressure of great proportions that threatens to shake world peace to its foundation. It is about time that a new thinking starts to take shape in the West about the future of the Middle East. Not only for the sake of the Palestinian community, but also for that of the Jewish community as well, a genuine and just peace must be pursued. It is about time that the Palestinian misery is put to an end and a new political dynamic is set in motion in the Middle East. There is a great urgency to bring reason, justice, and humanity to the bloody and vicious exchange that dominates the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. This tract is an open call to end Palestinian suffering and prevent the impending earthquake from taking its ugly toll. It calls for rejecting parochial solutions inspired by historically bound prophecies and faulty interpretation and for adopting solutions rooted in the prophetic principles of justice and compassion and in the universal commitment to human rights and dignity.