Boreal

FAREWELL POSTINGS

A Path to Peace Between Palestinians and Israelis

June 7, 2025

Draft

One of my first memories is of a man crying. I had been playing with his son in a sandbox that afternoon. It was not a real sandbox, just a pile of sand dumped in the middle of a muddy driveway. The boy's father, who was in the gravel hauling business, came home at the end of the day—unaware that his son was still playing on the pile of sand—and drove over him.

My older sister took me to my friend's house to see him one last time. I was standing in front of the open coffin admiring how good he looked in his tidy little suit and tie, his black hair combed back all slick and shiny, when the tiny coffin started rocking back and forth and a voice started to shout. I looked up and noticed a man with his hands resting on the open end of the coffin, jerking it back and forth and yelling, “Wake up! You're not dead; wake up!” (Réveilles toé! T’es pas mort; réveilles toé!) over and over again. The man was crying, with big tears running down his face.

I was reminded of that memory last night as I was sitting at my favourite patio going over what I thought was the final draft of Farewell Postings while taking in the sights and sounds of Elgin Street on a Saturday evening. There were the girls and the well behaved dogs out for a walk with their owners, but it was the families that held my attention, many had to be from the Middle East.

For some reason, along with the memory of my dead playmate’s crying father was that of Palestinian fathers crying over the corpses of their dead children, 10 of them following an Israeli missile strike that appears to have targeted a group of boys and girls playing foosball on a Gaza street. When I got home I took another look at the CNN video showing their lifeless bodies next to a foosball table damaged by shrapnel, and I started to cry.

Israeli precision-guided munition likely killed group of children playing foosball in Gaza, weapons experts say

CNN March 3, 2024

The New York Times as also reported, on a number of occasions, on what the evidence suggests is the targeted killing of children by the Israeli Defense Forces. Whether it is rogue elements of the IDF or official policy that is the cause of all this grief, it has to stop, and we do this by stopping the killing and looking for common ground.

The Arabs of Palestine could have easily overwhelmed the Jews of Palestine at any point following the Muslim conquest of the territory in 638, but they didn’t, only to find themselves at their mercy. They will not make that same mistake again.

Israel must show some humility and compassion before it is too late, and that means scaling down, not up, the Zionist dream before it becomes a holocaustic nightmare and the world shrugs, leaving it to reap the whirlwind.

We could start a dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis beginning with when Muslim Arabs and Jews got along. The Jews would, as a matter of course, have to acknowledge that they made a mistake when they denied Muhammad’s prophethood; in effect, recognizing the Palestinians as equals. Discussions like those that undoubtedly took place during the drafting of the Constitution of Medina would follow with the intent of drafting an agreement to govern a two-state Federation.

Had it not been for the Jews of Medina Islam would have been stillborn. The Jews of Medina joined their Arab neighbours to save Muhammad from certain death by granting him, and his followers, asylum when his Meccan kin were hot on his heels intent on killing him for preaching what they considered an intolerant and hateful message that would have anyone who did not heed that message destined to burn in Hell for an eternity.

Muslims and Jews initially got along like family; after all, they both worshipped the same god and both traced their lineage to the biblical Abraham. Muhammad, under the newly created Constitution of Medina, was even granted authority to arbitrate disputes between Muslims and Jews, in part, because of his knowledge of the Torah.

The Koran, apart from a brief self-serving interpretation of the life of Jesus and his mother, is very much a synthesis of Jewish beliefs and pagan traditions.

Even before Muhammad’s flight to Medina, Allah was so impressed by the Jews that He gave them the Holy Land.

7:137 And We bequeathed to the people who were held to be weak the eastern and western parts of the land which we had blessed (the Holy Land); and the fairest Word of your Lord in regard to the Children of Israel was fulfilled, because of their endurance; and We destroyed the houses and towers which Pharaoh and his people were building.*

It all fell apart when the Jews of Medina insisted that Muhammad could not be a prophet of Allah because God only spoke to mankind via His Chosen People.

Before the breakup, Muslims prayed in the direction of Jerusalem, but that would change as mistrust and animosity developed between the two Semite people. In the following verses Allah gives His reasons for this about-face (no pun intended).

2:142 The ignorant among the people (among the Jews and polytheist Arabs) will say: “What caused them (the Prophet Muhammad and the believers) to turn away from the former Qibla towards which they used to turn (Jerusalem)?” Say: “To Allah belongs the East and the West. He guides whom He wills towards the Right Path.”

2:143 And thus We have made you (the Muslim nation) a just nation, so that you may bear witness unto the rest of mankind, and that the Messenger may bear witness unto you. We did not ordain your former Qibla except that We may distinguish those who follow the Messenger from those who turn on their heels (return to disbelief). It was indeed a hard test except for those whom Allah guided. Allah would not allow your faith to be in vain. He is Clement and Merciful to mankind.

2:144 Surely, We see your face turned towards heaven (yearning for guidance through revelation). We shall turn you towards a Qibla that will please you. Turn your face then towards the Sacred Mosque (the Sacred Mosque of Mecca, the Ka’ba); and wherever you are turn your faces towards it. Those who were given the Book (the Jews and Christians) certainly know this to be the Truth from their Lord. Allah is not unaware of what they do.

2:145 Were you even to come to the People of the Book with every proof, they will not follow your Qibla, nor will you follow their Qibla. Nor will some of them follow the Qibla of the others. And were you to follow their desires after all the knowledge that came to you, surely you would be one of the evil-doers.