Martin Luther : Peace is more important than all justice;
was
and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but
justice for the sake of peace.
“Each one has to find his peace from within. And
peace to be real must be unaffected by outside
circumstances.” Mahatma Gandhi
"Peace can only last where human rights
are respected, where the people are fed,
and where individuals and nations are
free."-- 14th Dalai Lama
Peace.
Justice deals with punishment. Peace has to do with
forgiveness and understanding.
Sometimes both can occur simultaneously, but when it comes
down to it this fallen world seems to tend toward seeing them
as mutually exclusive.
"Justice" is why we have so many wars - it's actually revenge,
because there's no equality of mindset between the warring
nations and punishment almost always exceeds the "crime"
that's been committed.
"Peace" is why so many people put up with abuse - it's
actually enabling more abuse. True peace would have a
mutual understanding of the situation and an agreement
toward abolishing the hurtful behaviors and extending true
(non-manipulative) forgiveness between parties.
Justice promotes an environment of fear. Peace promotes one
of TRUE love (patient & kind & truthful & protecting &
trusting & hopeful & persevering & unfailing - not envious or
boastful or proud or rude or self-seeking or easily-angered or
grudge-keeping or evil-doing) as outlined in 1Cor13.
I vote peace.
Jumblatt says civil peace more important that
justice
AFP / iloubnan.info - September 17, 2010
BEIRUT - Democratic Gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt
raised to LBC channed on Thursday evening, concerns over the
repercussions of the  indictment act of the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon, set to prosecute the assassins of former Prime Minister
Rafic Hariri, and said, "Civil peace is more important than justice".
The STL, he said, was politiczed since the Deutsch magazine "Der
Spiegel" reported on May 9, 2009 that the indictment act would
charge Hezbollah in Hariri assassination. He added that the most
frightening would be a "Sunni-Shiite conflict", if the indictment 
issued, because the STL was "essentially related to Prime Minister
Saad Hariri".
Jumblatt stressed the necessity of "an open-hearted meeting"
between Hariri and Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, in
coordination with Damascus. "Justice could not be done to the
martyrs who passed away since 2005 through bloodshed in
Lebanon",Joumblattended.
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Introduction to post
Please note, if you are bored of my rant, just skip straight to the
moral dilemas. This post is probably best for the philosophical.
I have been exposed to the middle east problem for quite some time.
When one goes to a Palestinian meeting, they will talk about
occupation this and occupation that. They will also say things like 'the
Palestinians are desparate because of the occupation. If the Israelis
really wanted the Palestinian militants to stop attacking Israel, then
they should undo the root cause of the Palestinian suffering: the
occupation'. By 'occupation', I assume they are talking about the
Israeli road blocks and checkpoints and security fence and the
general military presence that is making Palestinian life so difficult.
So a week later, one starts talking to the zionists. Why don't you end
the occupation so that the Palestinians stop attacking you, I go. They
go, 'because the Palestinian demands are threefold. 1) Israeli end
the roadblocks etc aka the occupation, 2) Israel give the Palestinians
all the territory up to the green line including East Jerusalum and 3)
that Israel accept the 'right of return'. They then say that the
Palestinians will not stop killing Israelis until every one of the all three
criteria are met. Whilst, they go, they are prepared, and are in fact
happy to end the occupation, and after considerable pain, they are
prepared to even accept 2, 3 is an abolute no go. They say that the
'right of return' is simply the demand whereby the decendants of
millions of Palestinian refugees from wars 50-60 years ago get Israeli
citizenship thus turning Israel into a second Palestinian state. They
then say, it is nothing more than an attempt to destroy the state of
Israel dressed up in the launguage of 'rights'. The issue, they say, is
nothing to do with occupation because they are prepared to end it but
only if the Palestinains stop attacking them. Unfortunately, they go,
were Israel to end the occupation without the Palestinians agreeing
to stop killing Israelis, Palestinians would then kill hundreds of even
thousands of innocent Israelis with impunity.
So it seems to me that there is hope. The Palestinians main
greavence is that they are occupied. Israelis say that they are only
too happy to end the occupation in exchange for an end to the killing.
Therefore, from what I've heard, Palestinians should agree to stop
attacking innocent Israelis in exchange for Israel dismantling the
checkpoints etc. Hope.
Back to the Palestinian supporters. 'occupation occupation
occupation' they go. So I put to them the one question. If Israel were
prepared to dismantle every checkpoint and roadblock, would you be
prepared to live in peace with it? Suddenly, for the first time, the
Palestinians mention that they would not. They explain that they
would want a complete withdraw to at least the green line including
East Jerusalem. So, q. no. 2. Would you be prepared to live in peace
with Israel if they end the occupation AND they withdraw to the green
line?? Lo and behold, no. They say they must have 'just peace' or
'refugees rights' too(depending on who you ask). 'What are "refugees
rights" or "what is a 'just peace'" I ask. 'The right of every refugee to
return home', which included all grandchildren of the original
refugees returning to Israel. I asked them, would you really not be
prepared to have peace with Israel without the right of return?
Afterall, how are the Israelis ever going to accept peace when the
bottem line is that the Palestinians must take demographic control of
Israel making it 2 states for 1 people: the Palestinians, I ask. Their
answer was 'because you can't have peace without justice'.
Can't have peace without Justice
This was the keystone of the Palestinian side. This is the argument
that they have used for effectively making zero comprimises. Any
comprimise, they say, is a comprimise on justice and 'you can't have
peace without justice'.
Clearly, peace comes before justice in most situations. So, I argue,
the Palestinians need to give up their notions of Justice. I
acknowledge that it might be a 'painful' sacrifice, but who ever said
peace making was easy? Instead, they must try to find a formula of
sharing the land in which both the Israelis and the Palestians will be
able to happily live together and the right of return must be
renounced or traded in full when making a settlement.
Clearly the same applies to Israel, but unfortunately in my
understanding, the Israelis are far more advanced in the concept of
comprimise than the Palestinians. However, the Palestinians argue
that since Israel 'stole' Palestine Israelis have no rights to anything so
they see an Israeli comprimise as merely 'giving back to Palestinians
what is rightfully theirs'. Again, this argument is backed up by notions
of Justice that require sometimes going into libraries and trouling
through books hundreds of years old to extract an historical justice
from them, and even then go back or forward another 50 years and
you could end up with a very different result.
However, I have recently realised that it is not so simple as merely
ignoring justice altogether.

This was something that the Palestinian supporters just slipped in

almost expecting any further questioning to go away because it
sounded profound. However, the more I analysed it, the more absurd
it sounded.

For starters, what is Justice? Justice is merely one sides view of

justice. Ask Israelis what Justice is, they have a very different view.

So I looked for a time when Justice was the most important principle
in resolving a conflict before the sometimes contradictory principal of
peace making. I found ww1. When the allies beat Germany they
made Germany pay a humiliating settlement. All in the name of
Justice, so we were told. However, it was more like victors Justice, or
even revenge than actual Justice. Regardless, the Germans were
humilitated and most historians are agreed that one big factor that
encouraged Germans to vote for the national socialists (NAZI party)
and start WW2 was this humiliation. This was justice before peace.
Then at the end of WW2, there were no reparations and no signing
treaties in embarrassing places. The principal of peace was thus tried
over the principal of extracting justice. And it worked. Germany has
since recovered and become a leading nation in human rights.

Further, if Justice is more important than peace, what is to stop the

French from making a claim on England as the English stole England
from them. Or what is to stop the Vikings making a claim against
England or France for the same reasons. And then surely the
Romans now have a claim against all three. WHERE DOES IT
END???