The Road Map to Peace in the Middle East is too small. It needs to include the entire Islamic world.
The major obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is the Islamic world's rejection of Israel as a Jewish state. The 55-year-old State of Israel still does not exist on maps produced in Islamic countries. All road maps to peace in the Middle East will come to a dead end until the sovereign State of Israel is included on Arab world maps.
This obstacle to peace can be overcome, however, by drawing a new Islamic map derived from Islamic art and thought. The Arab conflict with Israel is an aesthetic problem that calls for a shift in perception. Historian of Islamic art, Elisabeth Siddiqui, writes in the Arabic Al-Madrashah Al-Ula, that art is the mirror of a culture and its world-view. She emphasizes that there is no case to which this statement more directly applies than to the art of the Islamic world. "Not only does its art reflect its cultural values, but even more importantly, the way in which its adherents, the Muslims, view the spiritual realm, the universe, life, and the relationships of the parts to the whole."
Islamic art teaches Arabs to see their world as a continuous geometric pattern that extends across North Africa and the Middle East. They see Israel as a blemish that disrupts the pattern. It is viewed as an alien presence that they have continually tried to eliminate through war, terrorism, and political action. Palestinian Authority television labels Israel as a "cancer in the body of the Arab nation." Its emblems, publications and web sites show the map of Israel labeled Palestine. Israel does not exist. Former Iranian president Rafsanjani expressed his longing for a day when an Islamic nuclear weapon could remove the "extraneous matter" called Israel from the midst of the Islamic world.
A perceptual shift that can lead to a genuine peace can be found in Islamic art and thought. In Islamic art, a uniform geometric pattern is purposely disrupted by the introduction of a counter-pattern that demonstrates that human creation is less than perfect. Only Allah creates perfection. Rug weavers from Islamic lands intentionally weave a patch of dissimilar pattern to break the symmetry of their rugs. Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Imam of the Italian Muslim community, who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Sciences by decree of the Saudi Grand Mufti, writes, "The idea of underlying the Divine infinitude and the human fallacy by including some 'voluntary defects' in works of art is common in Islamic art, and extends to tapestry, painting, music, architecture, etc."
Israel can be drawn on Islamic maps as a small patch of blue and white on a large green rug running from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of India. If the contiguous Islamic world from Morocco to Pakistan were the size of a football field, Israel would be a football placed in the middle of the field.
Shaykh Palazzi quotes from the Koran, sura 5:20-21, to support the Arab world's need to switch their viewpoint and recognize the sovereign right of the Jews over the Land of Israel as the will of Allah: "Remember when Moses said to his people: 'O my people, call in remembrance the favor of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the people. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and then turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.'"
Peace will come from a fresh metaphor in which the Arabs see Israel's existence as Allah's will. A shift in viewpoint, where Israel is perceived as the necessary counter-pattern in the overall pattern of the Islamic world will usher in an era of peace. The Islamic world needs to recognize Israel as the realization of its own aesthetic values. Only after it draws new maps that include Israel can peace be achieved.
The major obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians is the Islamic world's rejection of Israel as a Jewish state. The 55-year-old State of Israel still does not exist on maps produced in Islamic countries. All road maps to peace in the Middle East will come to a dead end until the sovereign State of Israel is included on Arab world maps.
This obstacle to peace can be overcome, however, by drawing a new Islamic map derived from Islamic art and thought. The Arab conflict with Israel is an aesthetic problem that calls for a shift in perception. Historian of Islamic art, Elisabeth Siddiqui, writes in the Arabic Al-Madrashah Al-Ula, that art is the mirror of a culture and its world-view. She emphasizes that there is no case to which this statement more directly applies than to the art of the Islamic world. "Not only does its art reflect its cultural values, but even more importantly, the way in which its adherents, the Muslims, view the spiritual realm, the universe, life, and the relationships of the parts to the whole."
Islamic art teaches Arabs to see their world as a continuous geometric pattern that extends across North Africa and the Middle East. They see Israel as a blemish that disrupts the pattern. It is viewed as an alien presence that they have continually tried to eliminate through war, terrorism, and political action. Palestinian Authority television labels Israel as a "cancer in the body of the Arab nation." Its emblems, publications and web sites show the map of Israel labeled Palestine. Israel does not exist. Former Iranian president Rafsanjani expressed his longing for a day when an Islamic nuclear weapon could remove the "extraneous matter" called Israel from the midst of the Islamic world.
A perceptual shift that can lead to a genuine peace can be found in Islamic art and thought. In Islamic art, a uniform geometric pattern is purposely disrupted by the introduction of a counter-pattern that demonstrates that human creation is less than perfect. Only Allah creates perfection. Rug weavers from Islamic lands intentionally weave a patch of dissimilar pattern to break the symmetry of their rugs. Shaykh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Imam of the Italian Muslim community, who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Sciences by decree of the Saudi Grand Mufti, writes, "The idea of underlying the Divine infinitude and the human fallacy by including some 'voluntary defects' in works of art is common in Islamic art, and extends to tapestry, painting, music, architecture, etc."
Israel can be drawn on Islamic maps as a small patch of blue and white on a large green rug running from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of India. If the contiguous Islamic world from Morocco to Pakistan were the size of a football field, Israel would be a football placed in the middle of the field.
Shaykh Palazzi quotes from the Koran, sura 5:20-21, to support the Arab world's need to switch their viewpoint and recognize the sovereign right of the Jews over the Land of Israel as the will of Allah: "Remember when Moses said to his people: 'O my people, call in remembrance the favor of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the people. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and then turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.'"
Peace will come from a fresh metaphor in which the Arabs see Israel's existence as Allah's will. A shift in viewpoint, where Israel is perceived as the necessary counter-pattern in the overall pattern of the Islamic world will usher in an era of peace. The Islamic world needs to recognize Israel as the realization of its own aesthetic values. Only after it draws new maps that include Israel can peace be achieved.