WELCOME
“There are no dangerous thoughts. Thinking itself is dangerous.”
Hannah Arendt
The intention of Re-Think the Middle East (RTME) is to help elevate the quality of public discourse regarding the future of the Middle East and the roles played by the United States and the international community in creating that future.
The mission of Re-Think the Middle East is to:
Provide a forum for introducing new possibilities into the marketplace of ideas;
Provoke thinking; and
Present opportunities for frank exchanges on conflict issues.
Old ideas, old arguments, and old peace plans for the Middle East are periodically dusted off, repackaged, and relaunched, with the hope that maybe this time something useful will come of it all. In the Middle East, change is constant; nothing is static. Yet the same ideas for resolving conflict have been on the table now for more than a decade, during which time peace and progress have remained elusive. As circumstances change, we must re-think what can usefully be done to improve conditions and to settle the region’s violent disputes.
The shape of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement has been well known for years, we are told. The same is said of a prospective Syrian-Israeli peace deal. There must be “a lack of political will” that keeps the inevitable from occurring. But what if that is not the whole story? What if there has never really been a meeting of the minds between the parties in conflict? Then we might want to explore new ideas, new approaches, and new steps to allow the parties to reach across the divide that still separates them.
Now is the time to look anew at ways to move towards peace between Israel and her neighbors, and, more broadly, among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Middle East.