The Instability of Peace  We live in a world in which certain situations are stable and others are not. A coin on the table is stable facing Heads, and just as stable facing Tails, but completely unstable standing on its edge. Peace seems as unstable as a coin on its edge: precarious, easily toppled, its fall a matter not of “if” but “when”. A few, sowing seeds of discord and strife, can polarize the many and set them against each other. I have felt for a long time that the hard question to confront about peace is not how to get there, but how to make peace a more stable situation. In one sense it seems unconfrontable: getting to peace is daunting enough, but staying there?

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As we watch the war in the Middle East unfold on our television screens, each day bringing new scenes of devastation and horror, more and more I am hearing people say, “This is crazy, there has to be a better way.” These comments are not just coming from my peace and justice friends, the already converted dovish ones I can count on to espouse such things. No, this time I’m hearing this from unexpected quarters, from people I would never have expected it from. Yesterday’s news of 37 children killed in the village of Qana seemed so over the top, so outrageous, that I thought, “that’s it, they have to stop now,” and yet they are not stopping. The rockets continue to rain on Israel and the Israelis will not stop until they feel they have knocked out Hezbollah completely, until they feel safe. And I don’t know when, Hezbollah will ever stop. So we’re probably in this one for a very,very long time.

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