In Israel, conflict strikes close to home every day, and war is intimately known to each and every citizen. Although the more intense a conflict becomes, the more a resolution is desired, it becomes increasingly difficult over time to forget the past and start over, showing that picking regretful memories of past experiences lead to conflict. This can be shown not only in the Middle East, but also in many other areas throughout time, such as India and Pakistan, Russia and Chechnya, and even France and Germany. The point is that a dialogue in Israel is not the only essential approach to peace. It also requires a change in principles on the part of both sides. It is imperative that prejudice becomes a non-issue. If an agreement is struck, it must address both the Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints because it must be absolutely permanent. If a half-hearted agreement is all that is achieved, the conflict will begin afresh in due time, and all diplomacy would have been for naught. Cooperation, confidence, tolerance, and understanding are what will end the clashes in the Middle East, and in the rest of the world.
It seems that another reason for conflict is that the leaders of the opposing sides do not realize that war can never be in their best interest. War is detrimental to each conflicting populace within itself, as well as relations between the societies. It might at first appear to be beneficial to gain land or power, but the impact on the people is so damaging that the state becomes weakened as a whole. The leaders represent the populations, and they must consider the impact that conflict creates. The emphasis should not be on the glory of the nation, but rather on the interests of the people in it.
Peace begins with the individual, and grows from there. Mahatma Gandhi once said that "the golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will never all think alike and we shall always see Truth in fragments and from different angles of vision.
