Most of the Middle East commentaries leave space for the criticizm that they are ritual and that they do not offer solution patterns. This also holds for Samuel Huntington's theses about the clash of civilizations, as accurately as they may represent the zeitgeist. But they do not indicate ways out of the conflict. Rather, they remain on the level of describing the situation. This will result in an uneasy feeling in the reader, a feeling of helplessness and fear, which in turn supports the political fear- and control-thinking that generates the clash of the civilizations.

The most important point of departure into a peace in the Middle East is the readiness from all involved sides to be self-critical . As after all these long years a large total of guilt has accumulated, self-criticizm is a difficult thing and hardly anybody faces this confrontation voluntarily. The most ready people will be the ones from the periphery of violence, that is the peace activists on each opposing side. To concentrate on them to start the dialogue seems to make more sense than to concentrate on the soldiers and the extremists.

The only evil is ignorance, said Buddha, and thus bringing things to consciousness means moving towards happiness and peace. Bringing the pictures to consciousness on which our decisions and judgements depend. Bringing to consciousness also that the place Yad Vashem is situated unfar from living suffering Palestinians. Bringing to consciousness that Iraq is called to account with the help of the UN, but Israel not. And bringing to consciousness that the relationship between Jews and Germans can by no means be called normal, only that you can hardly talk about this subject in public, because it is too sensitive, too close, too private.

Another method to de-escalate conflicts is to be instrumental in avoiding that people talk around the subject with arguments that do not meet. In cognitive linguistics there is the concept of "frame restructuring", meaning the harmonization of two pictures (frames, scenarios). Let's take, for example, the concepts of Zionism and of Jihad. Both are as abstract concepts as they are frequent in use in the Middle East War, and they are one of the main causes for misunderstanding. These concepts are like a box of which nobody really knows the content. In the respective in-group, these terms are identity-building and positive, in the respective out-group all negative pictures are projected into them. It is important to decompose abstract key concepts like Zionism and Jihad, terrorism and democracy, in order to come to comparable units, so that one can understand what people really mean by their concepts. Subsequently, a new picture can be structured which does justice to each group and their pictures, without doing injustice to another group. To want peace means to localize the core of the conflict and to overcome it. This overcoming has - as far as I can see and I hope to be wrong here - not yet been seriously brought on the way.

Moreover, the Israel Palestine War is too much viewed in terms of material categories which does not do justice to the situation, but is typical for the public side of our societies. As if it was only about soil and water! Of course the soil issue is one of the most important issues in the practical creation of the State of Palestine, (which is also wanted by the UN). But it is also and foremost about freedom and independence. And freedom and independence are in the first place things which one can feel, and not things which one can possess. It is, for example, possible to create and to manifest Palestine without making that dependent on material property and soil. Of course not as a substitute, but as an identity-building measure. For this purpose I propose the project "Virtual Palestine". A detailed map of Palestine can be exposed in the internet (,without denying Israel). If you click on the cities you reach detail information. Cities and towns can be mapped like in a computer game and all businessmen and artists and private people can settle in their town, and even their street. Every Palestinian can here make immediate use of their right of return and can give a home to their stories, their photos and their memories.

This virtual Palestine already exists, but there is hardly a consciousness about it. And it is spread over thousands of webpages made by people who hardly know each other. Yet it only needs some coordination and the support of an acknowledged personality from the Palestinian establishment to virtually make Palestine a unit. This is a practical possibility to build the Palestinian identity and to strengthen it without always focussing on the enemy. When, for instance, the Palestinian refugees or their descendants can return to their villages in this virtual way, then this does no harm or violence to the Israelis. The respect for the enemy demands to not undermine the right of existance of Israel. At the same time, memorial places can come into being through the virtual rebuilding of destroyed villages which will lead to relieve the Palestinians and thus will have a positive effect on the conflict. It can also be helpful to learn mastering the conflicts within the Palestinian society in a virtual surrounding.

Such a website should not be political in the first place, yet it should give space to all the political views. It is the people who stand in the center. When the people come to learn about each other they understand what Palestine is. It is not the land, it is the people.

Read the full article: Palestine, Israel, and the Pictures