Burlington city council

Dear Burlington City Council,

Since 1996, I (UVM '81) have been dividing my time between our home in Manchester Center, Vermont and the Kibbutz Ketura campus of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (www.arava.org) where we successfully bring together Israeli and Palestinian students, academics, and researchers. Over the years we also have Jordanian, Moroccan, and international participants (including many from Vermont institutes of higher learning). At the Institute the understanding that nature knows no borders allows for us to address the environmental issues of the region none of which operate within human made national lines of borders. That orientation also allows us to have the most difficult of conversations about the conflict. I can assure you that that process is not easy, and we also are able to create conditions so those very tense moments happen, as they should, without things falling apart. (JPost: "Israel-Hamas war: Lines drawn, crossed between Israelis, Palestinians," https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-774839 )

The other week I came to the conclusion that we can have our opinions, and we should, but it does not mean we have the answer. There are too many factors playing off each. 

I wrote to a friend in Gaza this week, "Just came from the kibbutz vigil for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, these are happening on the 100th day. Perhaps if both sides could feel each other's pain we could move forward to a better reality." He responded: 

We have been working in Gaza for awhile now (https://www.timesofisrael.com/solar-run-machines-that-convert-air-to-drinking-water-still-working-in-south-gaza/) and the Institute is working on a significant plan for Gaza to immediately address its energy and environmental needs through decentralized projects. While much of the world is focusing on the long-term infrastructural needs of Gaza those will be years in the making. Before that there will be immense challenges for the day to day existence of Gaza’s citizens. Through the Institute’s Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy it has a proven effective track record of working in Gaza with local municipalities and local NGOs.   

Our Executive Director, Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, is Palestinian: https://atmos.earth/palestine-israel-de-escalating-conflict-environmental-action/

If the first Intifada put us back 20 years, this war has returned us back 75 years (1948-49) or 100 years. In either case Palestinians and Israelis get to do a do over. - perhaps the only silver lining of this horror. One productive response, to learn from the successes, failures, missed opportunities of the past, and strengthen those individuals and organizations willing to do the hard work together for a better, secure, and just future for all in the region. Related, I said in my graduation speech at the Institute the other week:

"Jawdat described the time here as, 'a big container for confusion and curiosity; that also makes me hopeful.' Take that special container with you, as the world and our lives pen the pages of a complex and, at times, complicated novel. As we have discussed, real peace is messy, including the very different narratives and different orientations of our internal dialogues we all carry within ourselves. Our work is not to see them in conflict, or to make them go away, but to allow them to be heard like notes in a musical score: A polyphony with two or more sounds happening simultaneously; or a polyphonic texture, when two or more independent melodic lines are heard at the same time; or a polyrhythm, when several independent rhythmic lines play at the same time. Compose that song, compose your song. " 

Our work, as difficult and exhausting as it is, goes on. So how can the City of Burlington help? While I understand the passion behind the request for the voters of the city to vote on a pledge related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict its wording leaves some to be desired. As a Palestinian Israeli friend of mine said to me recently we are all stuck in the past so we can't go forward. This is not to say grievances of the past should be swept under the rug, but in terms of what the citizens of Burlington can do I would suggest the following. 

In the asymmetry of the sensational where violence, intolerance, destruction, and hatred work to drown out apostles of a better world, the work of the 180+ Palestinian and Israeli organizations of the Alliance for Middle East Peace (www.allmep.org) must be amplified so Israelis and Palestinians are able to hear music written in a healthier, more cooperative, peaceful and life affirming key.

In his poem “The Diameter of the Bomb,” the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai explores how an individual act of violence expands from its “thirty centimeters” to “distant shores.” The multiplier effect of violence and extremist language far outweighs the affirmative consequences of the programs of Israelis and Palestinians working to change the all too normal despondent status quo - fanatics need to do far less to have greater impact.

Burlington, Vermont can become a beacon of amplification of what can be between Israelis and Palestinians overcoming the sensational that only creates a spiral downward. During Pete Seeger’s career the words on his banjo were, "This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It to Surrender.” The challenge we face is that the forces and voices of violence, hate, and division are much better at knowing how to be heard. The song of peace, goodwill, and cooperation must be sung much louder. The city of Burlington can help, and become an important model in that necessary amplification.

Therefore:

Petition of Legal Voters of the City of Burlington to the City Council and Mayor 

We, the undersigned legal voters of the City of Burlington, hereby petition the mayor and the City Council of the City of Burlington to add the following article to the warning for the annual meeting of the City of Burlington to be held on March 5, 2024. 

Shall the voters of the City of Burlington advise the Mayor and the City Council to adopt the following pledge? 

WE AFFIRM our commitment to raising the voices of Palestinians and Israelis who understand, in the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, "that all humankind is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be - this is the interrelated structure of reality. John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: No person is an Island, entire of itself; every person is a piece of the continent, a part of the main... And then he goes on toward the end to say: any person's death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. And by believing this, by living out this fact, we will be able to remain awake through a great revolution.

WE DECLARE ourselves to amplify the courageous work of the organizations of the Alliance for Middle East Peace so they become the dominant players in the room, and not those of continuous violence and intolerance, and to that end, 

WE PLEDGE to make Burlington a beacon onto those organizations by encouraging our citizens, houses of worship, civic organizations, and educational institutions to learn more about, adopt, and support their work.

Shalom, Salam, Pax.

Michael

Rabbi Michael M. Cohen

Director of Community Relations, Friends of Arava Institute for Environmental Studies

Teaching Students Today So Nations Will Work Together Tomorrow
www.friendsofarava.org
www.arava.org