Missional Explorer

Addressing Conflict through Bridging Narratives

I was recently introduced to a newsletter by a close friend.  Because he knows of my new found interest in peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, Tom introduced me to Eric who lives in Jerusalem and occassionally puts his thoughts into writing in the form of a newsletter.  One of Eric's recent newletters featured notes from an address by Dr. Ilan Pappe who has done extensive work/writings on the conflict in the Middle East.  While all of Dr. Pappe's comments were signficantly challenging, one particular concept--the need in any conflict to find/develop a "bridging narrative--I found to be especially fascinating.  In Dr. Pappe's own words,  "It is a historical concept that in fact to create peace you need a bridging narrative. You need both national sides, each has their own historical narrative, but if they want to contribute to peace they have to build a bridge narrative."

Since reading these words, I have been pondering the importance of "narratives" in general and, in the midst of conflict, "building bridge narratives" in particular.  In any conflict (especially a long, seemingly intractable conflict such as what exists between Israelis and Palestinians), each side, unknowingly or not, creates a "narrative" of the struggle, a history (or story) which serves to explain and/or justify the ongoing actions and attitudes that each has towards the other.  For example, the Israelis have created a significant narrative of their history (including but not restricted to the Holocaust, the Wars with surrounding Arab countries, the Palestinians, etc.) which is not only assumed to be true in it's totality but is intentionally inclucated in the lives of every Israeli citizen.  The results color not only the past but the present and future as well including any interaction they may have with the "other" side of a conflict, in this case the Palestinians.  The Palestinians, of course, have done he same with regard to Israelis. 

The good news of narratives is that they are highly successful in unifying people together in building a cohesive and coherent consensus with regard to identity and purpose with a justification of specific attitudes and actions regarding the "other".  But, asks Dr. Pappe, what if significant aspects of each narrative are wrong. . . either wrong in their assumptions of "self" and/or the "other". . . or wrong based on a false view/presentation of history?  Which is exactly why, in the midst of any conflict, Dr. Pappe advocates finding/creating a "bridging narrative", a narrative that is open to re-assessing misleading perceptions of history as well as mistaken perceptions of the present.

I confess that I am presently fascinated with "narratives" at every level of my life including the reality that I/we live within existing (and often competing) narratives daily.  For example, I live within  narratives of my family-of-origin, my own family, narratives as an American, and most of all the Narrative of Jesus.  At what point do those narratives need to be examined and questioned as to their authenticity, trustworthiness, and truth?  And am I open to (a) changing my view of reality based on the journey of examining narratives (b) bridging narratives that will help create personal peace and reconciliation between myself and the "others" in my life and/or realities of larger conflicts in the world around us and (c) evaluating all competing narratives in light of the MetaNarrative presented by Jesus?

Nationalisms and the Gospel

Lest anyone find my recent postings unbalanced or unfair, let me once again reiterate the dangers of ALL nationalisms as truly incompatible with a Gospel commitment to the Kingdom of Jesus.  Here are two recent readings which illustrate the point.  The first is an interview conducted by Christianity Today (questions in italics) with Ugandan-born theologian Emmanuel Katongole.  The second taken from an article by Israeli author David Miller.

CT:You've lived in three continents and in four countries, and your parents were from yet another country, Rwanda.  How does your story affect your understanding of God's mission in the world?

Katongole: Being an immigrant can be a blessing.  God's mission, as I read it in 2 Corinthians 5:17, is a new creation.  God is reconciling the world to himself.  And there is a sense of journey that is connected with that.  When, later on, Paul says that "we are ambassadors of God's reconciliation, God is appealing through us," he is inviting us into a journey toward a new kind of community.  People looking at Christians should be confused.  Who are these people?  Are they black?  Are they white?  Are the Americans?  Are they Ugandans?  In Revelation, John sees people drawn from all languages and tribes and nations: an unprecedented congregation.  Living on three continents has deepened my understanding of the church as such a congregation; at the same time, it has heightened my sense of Christian life as a journey and of what it means to live as a pilgrim, a resident alien.

CT:That is reminiscent of the name Christians gave themselves in Acts, "people of the Way."

Katongole: That is, the way of Jesus.  I also take that to mean people on the way, on pilgrimage.  We have settled too easily.  Instead of living out that story of journey toward a new creation, we tend to live out the stories of nationality.  And then we forget what it means to journey.  It's not difficult to see why we settle, because our nations or tribes or races try to convince us that life can't get any better than this.  They ask us, "Where would you want to go?  Why would you want to leave?"  This is not just something that happens in a superpower like America.  Even small nations like Rwanda, even small tribes, have an America-sized imagination of themselves.  The challenge that Christianity faces in our time is the challenge of tribalism.  .  .  Many of us feel we are beyond that, but the dynamics of national identity remain.

David Miller puts it even more explicitly and to the point in the Middle East: "Nationalism and the Gospel are forever and eternally opposed.  The former engenders hatred, the latter love.  Let me ask my fellow Israeli believer, "Are you first an Israeli, of first a believer?"  Which allegiance is higher?  Let me ask the Christian Zionist, "Are you first a Christian, or are you first a Zionist?" We must remember that our true citizenship is in Heaven (Phil. 3:20).  Let us also remember that Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight" (Jn. 18:36).  We can be sure, that if we find ourselves striving in the interest of a nationalist, political point of view, we are fighting servants and are not serving the interests of the Kingdom. . . Let me ask of my Arab brothers and sisters the same question I ask of my fellow Jewish believers: "Are you first an Arab or are you first a Christian?  To which kingdom does your allegiance belong?". . . I cannot say it strongly enough: Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is the way of peace, not a political, nationalistic substitute on either side.  When one is committed to Jesus, sides (Israeli  & Palestinian) disappear and love conquers.  I don't see a political solution to the very complicated West Bank situation in the near future, though I earnestly hope for one.  I personally urge my government to do all possible to arrive at the negotiating table.  However, I realize that even if both sides operate in good faith, which they are seemingly both getting further and further away from doing, that we might learn to love our enemy and so make him our friend."

Heavy words on nationalism that American followers of Jesus must also ask of ourselves: Are we first an American or first a follower of Jesus?  Which allegiance is higher??

Dilemma of Reconciliation With Both Sides as "Victims"

Just finished my second book by Rashid Khalidi called The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood which has reinforced what we have heard/seen in our recent trip to this region.  Summarizing this first (external) dilemma in his final chapter "Stateless in Palestine" and continuing in our search for reconciliation possibilities in this part of the world (I took this picture of a mosaic on the left near a kibbutz that is known for reconciliation work among Christians, Jews, and Arabs), Khalidi compares the two peoples this way:

"In spite of their vigorous sense of collective national identity, the Palestinians never succeeded in creating an independent state of their own, and have no sure prospect in the future of ever having a truly sovereign state, or of possessing a contiguous, clearly demarcated territory on which to establish it.  Beyond this, for their entire modern history--since 1917--they have suffered from a series of traumatic impositions.  These included the denial of their very existence and their legitimacy as a national entity by Great Britain, the Zionist movement, and much of the rest of the world; domination and repression by a range of foreign powers; repeated expulsions from their homes, including the expulsion of over half their number in 1948; and over two generations of harsh, alien military occupation for many of them.  In consequence of the lived experience of their own recent past over several generations, the Palestinians are thus understandably prey to profound, justified, and realistic fears of being destroyed and dispersed as a people.

By contrast, the Israeli people today have a very powerful state, one that has been in existence for over fifty-eight years.  They nevertheless harbor intense fears of their own, for their state's continued survival and their survival as a people.  These are born mainly of a recent history of discrimination persecution, expulsion, and genocide against Jews that took place primarily in Europe, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, all of this against the background of a two-thousand-year-old history of expulsion and persecution. . . Moreover, this is a state that fully and completely controls a territory--Israel together with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip--that today has a bare and rapidly shrinking overall Jewish majority.  These fears are powerfully reinforced by a peculiar Israeli narrative of their recent experience in Palestine, whose subtext is a specific reading of millennia of Jewish history.  This narrative sees the Israelis as the continuing victims of those they have decisively defeated, dispossessed, and dispersed, although they have been victorious in very military conflict they have engaged in over the nearly sixty years of existence of their state.

Clearly, for both peoples in Palestine, the Palestinians and the Israelis, this sense of victimhood (a sense that almost by definition involves a claim of exclusive victimhood) is underpinned by existential fears that in turn produce enormous anxiety about establishing a state, or for preservation of an existing state, in both cases as a shield against further misfortune."

From our experiences and conversations in the Middle East, this mutual sense of having been "victimized", past and present, presents a huge challenge to reconciliation and forgiveness in the Middle East both individually and collectively.  The only hope I see is if/when allegiances can be placed to identities beyond specific nationalisms, letting go of the legitimate and collective pain/unforgiveness that each side seems to hang onto however pathologically.  (One of our trip leaders referred to this dynamic as "bonding to our pain".)  It is my sense that God alone--the Creator God who transcends local, tribalistic, and/or culturally biased claims proclaiming God is on "my side"--is the only allegiance that can trump these powerful and local nationalisms.  Absent this Universal God, all nationalisms (including the equally powerful American nationalism) would seem to be guaranteed success in eliciting and manipulating emotions of fear, hatred, and mistrust whenever they wish.  But if primary identities and allegiances can be re-discovered in this Universal God Who stands above/beyond local cultures yet paradoxically works uniquely and contextually within every culture, I think it is possible to rise above the petty "gods" of nationalism that command our allegiance.  In my heart and mind, herein lies our only hope.      

A Two-State Solution to the "Palestinian Problem"?

I see in the paper today that President Bush last week called for a peace conference of nations that support a two-state solution to the "Palestinian problem".   Quoting David Ignatius in the Washington Post, President Bush "used language intended to woo the Arabs, referring to Israeli 'occupation of the West Bank' and saying that peace must include 'agreement on all the issues, including refugees and Jerusalem.  Casting aside implications that the "problem" is primarily Palestinian as well as the perceived hypocritical, unbalanced, and unquestioning American support for one side alone over the past 30+ years, what would seem to be the current prospects for a two-state solution?

In a 1991 letter of assurance to Palestinians prior to the Madrid Peace Conference, the U.S. declared it's goals to include an end to the Israeli occupation, emphasizing that nothing should be done that would be "prejudicial or precedential to the outcome of the negotiations".  This, in itself, presents a huge problem in 2007 because, as Rashid Khalidi correctly points out (and we saw this first hand on our trip), "From the grim perspective of at least the past six years of Palestinian history of intifada and crushing Israeli repression, of consolidated and constantly expanding Israeli settlements, it is clear that this entire teleology. . . is very much open to question.  Whatever may happen in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, independent, sovereign Palestinian statehood seems as far off as ever.  Some sober analysts now feel that an irreversible situation has been created by nearly four decades of Israeli occupation and settlement, and that Palestinian statehood, and with it a two-state solution, are now in fact completely impossible. . . [particularly] if a "Palestinian state" is taken to mean a viable, contiguous, sovereign, independent state on the entirety of the 22 percent of mandatory Palestine constituted by the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in June 1967." 

With this in mind and as we talked with both Israelis and Palestinians during our trip, questions regarding a two-state solution were met with "probably not in our lifetime".  Wherein, then, lies hope for peace, for forgiveness, and for reconciliation?  More on this in the days ahead. 

Could We Be Wrong (Part 2)?

Following up on yesterday's theme, could we as American evangelicals be wrong:

3.  By allowing ourselves to live in a time/reality of what author Rashid Khalidi calls "historical amnesia" where we choose to ignore that (a) most of our current "enemies" in the Middle East were once American allies, patrons, and bedfellows of American self-interest including Usama Bin Laden, the late Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Afghani mujahideen in fighting the former Soviet Union and even Hamas who, in it's earliest days, was given support by Israel (as Khalidi suggests, "One hears little about this history in the United States today, perhaps out of deference to the individuals and institutions that directed and executed American policy during the Cold War") and (b) our support of "democracy" in the Middle East is based on self-interest at best and hypocrisy at worst and is therefore extremely limited given our support for the current regimes that are very un-democratic including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.  Regardless of American rhetoric in support of "democracy", the facts-on-the-ground as seen by those in the Middle East suggest that Americans support democracy only when it is in our own best self-interest to do so.  Hence, we actively reject the popularly elected Palestinian government of Hamas (portrayed in the media as the "bad Palestinians" despite the fact that Hamas still draws immense support from the Palestinian people primarily for it's lack of corruption and it's effective system of social support) in favor of Fatah (now portrayed in the media as the "good Palestinians") who, in the words of Khalidi, have "lost much of its legitimacy and credibility due to its failure to negotiate more effectively with the Israelis, to provide protection, security, or proper governance for the 3.6 million Palestinians under its sway, and to deliver effective leadership for the struggle of the entire Palestinian people for the recovery of national rights" and is now, in reality, surviving in the West Bank mostly propped up by Western financial support. 

4.  In allowing our own ethnocentrism and overseas inexperience to "blind" us into accepting without question the media agendas that are commonly set before us.  When we were in the Middle East, we saw first hand the differences between the reality we experienced vs. the images we've been given by our media re: Arabs in general and Muslims in particular, Israel, Palestinians, etc.  Khalidi reinforced my experience in the Middle East by saying "There has been little coverage of certain types of Middle Eastern news in the United States.  This virtual blackout has largely been a function of American media self-censorship.  Especially on television. . . there has been little detailed reportage on conditions in the Israeli-occupied territories (indeed of the very fact that there is an Israeli occupation, maintained by violence), and there has been little coverage of routine domestic repression, violations of human rights, and restrictions on democracy and freedom of expression in America's Arab allies and client states.  Such reports are common in the media of Europe and the rest of the world, and even in Israel."  So why are we not getting the full story here?????

5.  In branding/namecalling anyone who questions American foreign policy in the Middle East as "unpatriotic", "anti-American", "liberal", or "not supporting our troops"(all of which I have been accused of, by the way).  The facts-that-I-encountered-on-the-ground suggest that we are ham-handing our way into a culturally myopic abyss with precious little understanding of the history and culture of the people we are dealing with.  So we end up not only calling each other names when hard questions are asked but we continue to delusionally insist that our view of the rest of the world is entirely correct; that all Arabs are Muslim, right? (even though we know intuitively that all Americans are NOT Christians); that all Muslims are terrorists and support violence against Westerners; that there are "good" Palestinians (Fatah) and "bad" Palestinians (Hamas); that the U.S. has always supported democracy in the Middle East and has been a objective peacemaker between Israeli and it's surrounding Arab neighbors; that self-interest in general and our need for oil in particular have never been factors behind American foreign policy; that faceless Arabs despise our freedom, resent our culture, and practice a religion that preaches hatred; finally that we have never acted with less than full integrity with all our dealings with Middle Eastern governments especially in supporting fledgling democracies (try googling Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran). 

I am obviously struggling deeply with how we, as Christ-followers in America, tend to see the history of our country through rose-colored glasses. . . American history in general (if all of the founders of the U.S. were evangelical Christians, how is it that Thomas Jefferson compiled his own "Bible", cutting out everything supernatural because miracles, in his words, were "irrational": check it out at www.amazon.com under The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus) but also specific to the Middle East.  Am I, in reality, all the names people have called me: unpatriotic, anti-American, liberal, against-the-troops?  Absolutely not!!  But what a sorry state we have become if, by merely asking questions. . . legitimate questions of history, culture, politics, etc.. . . one is called all these hoary accusations.  To close with a bit of pointed humor, I've recently seen two bumper stickers that I think should at least nag at any serious follower of Jesus: The first is a clever take-off of the marketing brilliance of WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) but instead reads WWJB (Who Would Jesus Bomb?).  The second is even more poignant and reads "I think when Jesus says we're supposed to love our enemies, it means we're not supposed to kill them."   

So how do follow God's Missio Dei by working for reconciliation in the Middle East and in our country as well?

Could We Be Wrong (Part 1)?

In reflecting on our recent trip to Israel and the West Bank and after multiple conversations and reading both here and in the Middle East, I am beginning to ask some some serious questions from viewpoints that are historical, political, Biblical, and theological.  Broadly speaking, I am asking these questions under the the heading of "As Americans who are evangelical Christ-followers, could we be wrong:

1.  In assuming a false end-times theology and expectation where the modern nation-state of Israel is an exact equivalent to "God's Chosen People" and therefore must be supported in all their choices and actions, right or wrong?   I am encouraged that one of the key goals I found at Bethlehem Bible College is their strong desire to re-examine, re-imagine, and therefore challenge conventional "end times" theology as it has been viewed by the West for many years.  My strong suspicion is that, dispensationalism, a relatively recent belief system which was once considered an extremist (and discredited) fringe element of western evangelicalism has now gained traction within mainstream evangelicalism so as to become an almost unquestioned part of our faith.  Contrary to popular belief, the Left Behind series of books co-authored by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye is not only false in it's theology but incredibly damaging in the broad sweep view it assumes to be true re: the end of the world.

2.  In not only supporting the modern nation-state of Israel, right or wrong, but even worse ignoring our Christ-following brothers and sisters in the Arab world?  This is another reality-on-the-ground I discovered in the Middle East as Palestinian Christians are rightly asking Western Christians "Why have you turned your backs on us--your brothers & sisters in Christ-- in your unquestioned support of mostly secular Israelis???"  As I have previously blogged, I have no question that God loves both peoples equally, both Israelis and Palestinians.  But I also have no question that God also hates injustice in all it's forms and, in that sense, I am struggling with Israelis as those who have, without question, been the "oppressed" down through history have now become the "oppressors" in that region of the world.

Even if my questions stir up a hornet's next of criticism, I think my questions are legitimate.  And I want to share more uncomfortable questions in the coming days, questions that I am asking myself and questions that I am asking you!  Your response?

Recommending Rashid Khalidi

I just finished and highly recommend Rashid Khalidi's Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East for anyone wanting a culturally sensitive perspective of what's going on in the Middle East today.  Khalidi was recommended to me by one of the "guests" we encountered on our recent trip to Israel and the West Bank, a guest who has lived in the Gaza for the past 3 years and is very familiar with the politics and culture of the region (and is not Palestinian).  In fact, I liked this first Khalidi book so much that I have a second book on order at the library.

There is much wisdom in Khalidi's words.  I found him to be a very articulate and balanced "interpretor" of Arab peoples, culture, and current realities/perspectives on the ground in the Middle East.  Khalidi acknowledges the complexities and tragedies on all sides yet takes Americans (as a fellow-American) to task for our refusal to look beyond the managed information and images we encounter in the media daily.  Khalidi unpacked what we encountered ourselves in conversations and experiences in the Middle East: the present vacume of visionary leadership among both Israelis and Palestinians. . . after almost 60 years of war, polls presently show that both sides (70% of both populations) are exhausted and want peace yet often feel hopeless under present leadership options; the destabilization and despair among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza after 40 years of occupation; the self-serving snail pace of negotiations between both sides re: issues of boundaries, water, Jerusalem, and sovereignty amidst the ever encroaching (and land grabbing) Israeli settlements which constantly and intentionally change the "facts on the ground" for any final agreement; the unbalanced media treatment of Arab issues in general and the Palestinian situation in particular where (a) Hamas is consistently grouped with al-Qa'ida as a "terrorist threat" to the U.S. despite having never threatened the U.S. (b) Hamas has won the hearts of the Palestinian people who cannot understand the Western hypocrisy and duplicity of undermining democratic elections when we don't like the results (c) the general failure of the western media to report a balanced view of both sides, only one example being while the Israeli civilian casualties in the second intifada was widely trumpeted (6,752 mostly unarmed civilians), the casualties among Palestinians from Israeli aggression were actually four times higher (26,053 mostly unarmed civilians). 

Bottom line, I highly recommend Rashid Khalidi based on both his insight and our recent experiences in Israel and the West Bank.  And I'm already looking forward to reading and experiencing more.  As for the distorted information and images we seem to be getting from our media daily, I would love to hear your "take".  Do you think we, as Americans, have a general failure in understanding the culture and peoples of the Middle East?

Musalaha

"Musalaha" is an Arabic word meaning forgiveness and reconciliation. As mentioned in my previous posting, the founder and director of the Middle East organization called Musalaha, Salim Munayer, is planning a Denver visit in late November.  I have exchanged several emails with Salim exploring how I might be able to help him network with like-minded and like-hearted folks here in Denver.  If you have an interest in meeting Salim and joining with a gathering we may put together, could you let me know.  Salim is a huge risk-taker for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East and, from a missional standpoint, I see reconciliation as one of God's favorite missions.  In other words, whenever and wherever one sees reconciliation happening, God's fingerprints are probably all over it.  So, if God is doing it, I'd like to participate, too.  If you feel the same way specifically about what Salim is doing, please let me know. 

The Dilemma of Democracy in the Middle East for American Foreign Policy

I have just begun reading a book on the Middle East recommended by tabula gaza (previous post) entitled Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East by Rashid Khalidi.  Already I am challenged by what Khalidi is suggesting about the U.S. dilemma re:democracy anywhere in that region.  The official U.S. policy has been to support establishing democracy in the Middle East but, as Khalidi implicitly suggests, perhaps we need to be aware of probable results.   Just one thought from Khalidi:

"Commentators on the right and left noted that (before the war in Iraq) neither muscular nationalists like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, nor the neoconservative members of (those) who surround them and held key posts throughout the bureaucracy. . . had ever been noted as advocates of democratization of the Arab world.  This is not surprising since real democracy in the region would mean the free expression of the popular will, including, in all likelihood, calls for removal of U.S. bases in the Middle East, support of the Palestinians, and opposition to the Israeli occupation and settlement of Palestinian lands, all of which are abhorrent to the neocons."

Khalidi wrote these words in 2004.  In 2006, the world saw democracy first hand in the Middle East when Hamas came to power in a Palestinian election that, by all independent accounts, was fair and incontestable.  Western countries were, of course, surprised by the results (despite Khalidi's foreshadowing words) and, because we/they did not like the results, proceeded to work towards hypocritically sabotaging this fledgling democracy.  Which all begs the question and the dilemma: Do we in the U.S. truly want democracy in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East?  If so, it appears that we must be prepared for some more uncomfortable results.

Responding to Tabula Gaza

I continue to delight in several contacts we made in the Middle East including a friend who goes under the blogger name of tabula gaza.  For first hand accounts and commentary of what is going on in Gaza beyond what our media is discussing, check out his blog at www.tabulagaza.blogspot.com.

I've been dialoguing with tabula gaza about a number of things but here is one of my comments which I posted on his blog.

"Tubula gaza, this as you asked it, is the question of the moment: "Why is it that an elected government (Hamas) is required to carry out a coup. . . to establish an authority which was presumed to be gained from what, by all accounts, was a patently fair and democratic election (Jan. '06)"?

I would suggest that a second question for Americans and Europeans is also this: "Why is Fatah suddenly labeled as 'the good Palestinians' while Hamas continues as 'the terrorists'? For those of us in the U.S., the party line in the media remains that we are suppposed to reject Hamas because (a) "they do not recognize Israel" (without stating the obvious problem: which Israel in terms of boundaries is supposed to be recognized?) and (b) "they are not renouncing violence as an expedient political means" (without condoning the use of violence whatsoever, I don't believe that Hamas is alone in using this means).

So I echo Jimmy Carter's assertions and add my own that our American foreign policy of division is currently based on a predictably ethnocentric view of the world with all the fear and ignorance this entails. Will we ever find leaders (Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, Europeans) who will have the courage to transcend this narrow self-interest view of the world?

In an article this week in the U.S. based Time, Columnist Joe Klein asserts that, in the coming political season, Americans are in a serious mood, wanting courage from their candidates. He identifies courage in five directions, one of which is Foreign Policy and National Security where he comments thusly: "Belatedly, the (Bush) Administration has attempted to revive diplomacy in the Middle EAst. But diplomacy isn't a spigot you turn on and off; it is a tepid stream of meetings and consultations. It is not for those with attention-deficit disorder; it requires patient, intensive listening to oft-repeated positions and grievances, the eternal search for a comma that will appease both sides. For that reason alone (and I love this next phrase), it would be wonderful to have a President with lots of stamps in his or her passport or a President who speaks a foreign language fluently or has lived overseas. . . or has spent time in negotiations with foreign leaders"

Let us hope for this kind of experience and courage in our leaders be they Israeli, Palestinian, European, or American.