Israel and Palestine

Lord Sacks Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sacks (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to add to the words of other noble Lords on what we might learn about the pursuit of peace in the Middle East from the life of a man who did more than most to that end, the late Prime Minister and President of Israel, Shimon Peres. He was one of a remarkable generation of Israel’s founding fathers who began as hawks and ended as doves and who showed no less courage in pursuit of peace than they had done in the course of war. He was the last of that generation, and the older he became, the younger his vision grew. He never despaired of peace with the Palestinians, no matter how many times he failed. In 1996, he set up the Peres Center to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians by bringing people together in their shared humanity, through medicine, healthcare, sport, the arts, business and the environment. In July of this year, he launched the Israel Innovation Centre to harness new communications technology to build virtual bridges where physical ones did not yet exist.

The last time I was with him, he was already in his 93rd year. Somebody asked him how he stayed so young. He replied, “First, you have to count your achievements, then you have to count your dreams. If your achievements outnumber your dreams, you are already old. If your dreams outnumber your achievements, you are still young”. He lived the words of the Prophet Joel:

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people … your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions”.

Where others despaired, Shimon Peres dreamed dreams.

WB Yeats once wrote: “In dreams begin responsibilities”. Now that Shimon Peres is no longer with us, his dreams have become our responsibilities. What if Her Majesty’s Government were to encourage others to see the Middle East in the way Shimon Peres did? What if there are other paths to peace beyond politics, diplomacy or war? What if trade is the most powerful antidote to war and there is an economic road map to peace? What if education has a role? What if the peoples of the Middle East taught their young not to hate those with whom they will one day have to live? The only way Her Majesty’s Government or any other body will advance the cause of peace will be by communicating to both sides that they are heard, that their fears are understood and that they have to recognise the legitimacy of each other’s existence.

In that context, I salute Her Majesty’s Government’s opposition to today’s UNESCO vote denying the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. The vote itself is an outrage and will achieve nothing but to further damage trust and set back prospects for peace. Shimon Peres knew that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not a zero-sum game, because from peace both sides gain; from violence, both sides lose. Above all, he was right never to give up hope, because when hope is lost, there comes first fear, then anger, then hate. Not by accident is Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah”, which means “The Hope”.

Yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when we atone and then we move on. Surely the time has come for both sides in the Israel-Palestinian conflict to admit wrongs, real or perceived, and to move on. The most powerful thing that Her Majesty’s Government could do is to encourage both sides to continue along the path that Shimon Peres walked as one of the great visionaries of our time.

Middle East

Lord Sacks Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sacks (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grade, for introducing this debate, to which I wish to add one observation. Democracy is not achieved merely by giving everyone the vote. Freedom is not achieved merely by removing a tyrant. They require a sustained effort of education and a balanced supply of information. Without these, democracy can descend into mob rule and from there to a new tyranny, exactly as Plato thought it would. The results of the Arab spring, four years on, are tragic testimony to this truth.

Democratic freedom is sustained by media that take it as their task to present all sides of a complex issue, and by universities that understand the importance of academic freedom, which means giving a respectful hearing to views different from your own. Today, these values are being undermined. The internet and social media mean that people can go through life without encountering views with which they disagree. Some universities have allowed students effectively to ban the presentation of views with which they disagree. A soundbite culture makes it hard for people to understand the complexities of political conflict.

The human mind finds it hard to handle moral and political complexity and can easily avoid it by dividing the world into the good guys and the demons, and concluding that all you have to do to solve a problem is to first silence, then eliminate, the bad guys. Often in the past they were called the Jews. Today, they are called the State of Israel. That is not good for the future of freedom in the Middle East. I urge the Government to do all they can to ensure that our institutions of education and information honour the principle that justice involves audi alteram partem, which means, let the other side be heard as well.

Freedom of Religion and Belief

Lord Sacks Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sacks (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for enabling us again to address this vital issue of religious freedom, and I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for chairing the APPG on International Religious Freedom or Belief. I salute the courage of both of them in confronting perhaps the single greatest humanitarian issue of our time. I add my thanks to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for his warm, wise and inspiring contributions to public life, and wish him blessings in the years ahead.

Three things have happened to change the religious landscape of the world. First, the secular nationalist regimes that appeared in many parts of the world in the 20th century have given rise to powerful religious counter-revolutions. Secondly, these counter-revolutions are led by religion in its most extreme, adversarial and anti-Western form. Thirdly, the revolution in information technology has allowed these groups to form, organise and communicate to actual and potential followers throughout the world with astonishing speed. The internet is to radical political religions what printing was to Martin Luther. It allows them to circumvent and outflank all existing structures of power. The result has been the politicisation of religion and the religionising of politics, which, throughout history, has been a deadly combination. In the long run, it will threaten us all, because in a global age no country or culture is an island.

We must do, minimally, three things. First, given that religious freedom is enshrined as Article 18 in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there should be, under the auspices of the United Nations, a global gathering of religious leaders and thinkers to formulate an agreed set of principles that are sustainable theologically within their respective faiths and on which member nations can be called to account. Otherwise, Article 18 will continue to be a utopian ideal.

Secondly, we must do the theological work. That is fundamental. After the wars of religion of the 16th and 17th centuries, a group of thinkers, among them John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Benedict Spinoza, sat down, reread the Bible and formulated some of the most important ideas ever formulated about state and society: the social contract, the moral limits of power, the liberty of conscience, the doctrine of toleration and the very concept of human rights. These were religious ideals based on the Bible, which is what John F Kennedy meant when he said in his inaugural address that,

“the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God”.

We have not yet done the theological work for a global society in the information age, and not all religions in the world are yet fully part of that conversation. But if we neglect the theology, all else will fail.

Thirdly, we must stand together—the people of all faiths and of none—for we are all at risk. Christians are being persecuted throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Jews are facing a new and resurgent anti-Semitism. Muslims who stand on the wrong side of the Sunni-Shia divide are being killed in great numbers. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Baha’i and others face persecution in some parts of the world. There must be some set of principles that we can appeal to, and be held accountable to, if our common humanity is to survive our religious differences. Religious freedom is about our common humanity, and we must fight for it if we are not to lose it. This, I believe, is the issue of our time.