Walk for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, May 17, 2009

Introductory Remarks by Janet Settle

Today’s Walk is the final event in CJPIP’s 2008-2009 season. The season has had as its theme, “Breaking through Silence and Censorship: The American Conversation on Israel/Palestine.”

We expect a lot from language, ascribing to it the power of divine creation, definitional precision, effective negotiation, cultural expression, and conceptual clarity. In Aristophanes’ words, “By words the mind is winged.” But at the same time, we often regard language with suspicion, ascribing to it manipulative dishonesty and distortion. Language can be ambiguous, and political language can be particularly slippery. At times, we utterly dismiss its importance. During the past presidential election, language itself became an explicit focus for political debate as voters weighed, on the one hand, the contention that “Speeches don’t put food on the table,” and on the other hand, the contention that “It’s true that speeches don’t solve all problems, but what is also true is that if we cannot inspire the country to believe again, it doesn’t matter how many policies and plans we have.” Ultimately, words did matter. Our nation has been engaging with renewed vigor in issues that have vexed us – some since our nation’s founding such as racism and the limits of the state’s authority; some more recently, such as torture.

Words continue to matter. They matter because, although past history can be memorialized in numerous expressions – music, visual arts, maps, and house keys – it is within language that we find the space to shape history as it is being lived. We need the immediacy, the plasticity, the built-in collaborative and self-critiquing potential of language to craft the history of this moment. And we need unfettered exchange to critique the past and build the future.

Critiquing the past is often an exercise in breaking open the language of our cultural assumptions. The Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine has, for several years invited speakers who engaged in principled, disciplined examination of many of the stumbling blocks in discourse about Israel and Palestine. We have hosted speakers who have analyzed the role of the Holocaust in politics and identity, the history and currency of Zionism, the status of Israeli Arabs within the Green Line, and the Apartheid framework in Palestine. By approaching these sensitive topics with intellectual rigor and responsible analysis, we seek to free the discourse from rhetorical tripwires – to create space for conversation that can mold a new history. By inviting speakers representing a broad range of thinking on the issue, we seek to engage all of us in sifting and selecting ideas, thereby making building the future a community enterprise.

This conversation is not without risk. There is risk for both speaker and listener. We have heard from many of our past speakers and will hear again today from people who have paid a price for speaking out on Israel/Palestine issues. Even those who listen to these speakers and who read critiques of Israeli policy are accused of everything ranging from naivete to a dangerous new anti-Semitism. As we listen and engage, we face the enormous responsibility of recognizing the breadth of thinking that challenges received wisdom and of selecting an uncharted path. It is hard to take the leap of faith required to relinquish comfort, but we engage in the language of doubt, critique, and conceptual wrestling so that we can free our minds to sprout the wings we need to build our new history.

We are fortunate today to have with us four speakers who know intimately what it means to take such a leap of faith – who have, and continue to challenge the limits of political discourse in an effort to challenge received wisdom and engage in the business of building a future built on principles of justice.