Recall Rice; Send Walker
This morning, as I pondered the options open to the Israelis in their fight with Hezbollah, I flashed back to the advice the noted foreign affairs specialist and novelist Alice Walker offered in The Village Voice back in October 2001. (Remarkably, the link still works after almost five years.) Her advice for the United States:
In a war on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden will either be left alive, while thousands of impoverished, frightened people are bombed into oblivion around him, or he will be killed in a bombing attack for which he seems quite prepared. But what would happen to his cool armor if he could be reminded of all the good, nonviolent things he has done? Further, what would happen to him if he could be brought to understand the preciousness of the lives he has destroyed? I firmly believe the only punishment that works is love.
Could that be the strategy that the Israelis should pursue with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader? Perhaps if the Israelis reminded him of all the good things that Hezbollah has done in Lebanon; what if the Israelis took to the streets carrying banners proclaiming their love for Hezbollah and Nasrallah, maybe then the captured Israelis would be released, the rockets would stop hitting Israelis towns and cities, the crisis would come to an end, and Hezbollah would disarm itself.
Bush should recall Condoleeza Rice and appoint Alice Walker as the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East. Love is the answer.
