Shunning politics is counteractive, because peace is a political interest; because politics is dignifying; and because by shunning politics we leave it to the monopoly of the enemies of peace.

Identity issues - politics - and peace

The ill wind, the hatered and misanthropic ideologies that are at the root of war and conflict, are all aided by the intrinsic impotense of the entire global peace miliue. The root causes of said impotence are:

1. The habit of peace lovers to shunn and shy away from rational and critical discussion to controversial questions: briefly, their aversion to controversy.
2. The habit of peace lovers to shunn and shy away from politics.
3. The habit of peace lovers to shunn and shy away from basic political issues, and from issues that pertain to the inter-relations between politics and our deepest sentiments. The paradigm of these is the issue of national identitiy in general and the need for responsible and peaceful nation building in particular.

There is a truly stupendous ammount of honest good will, of real zest, of inspired initiatives and of selfless readiness to contribute. All these are manifest all over the world including - nay, especially - here in Israel. All this has been going to waste and will continue to do so as long as we continue to observe the taboo on basic controversial political questions. Neither will it help to continue calling the conflicting views over such questions "different naratives", chanting that they all are "legitimate", that we must "accept the other", and have "dialogue": Our shying away from discussing basic controversial political questions empties all these from meaning and renders them mere mantras and religious chants.