"A peace of no choice"

Alrighty, it's looking like two posts in one day (only on a technicality, thanks to my nocturnal practices) - today's topic of discussion, however, is just too enticing and high-strung not to comment on.

Frankly, it became immediately apparent to me that I'll have to read Lustick's piece, if only for sheer curiosity's sake. The idea is an intriguing one: (though not new, I'm sure): sometimes one must be desperate for peace in order to allow it to actually come to fruition. Things must be so blatantly terrible that there is no other option; it is absolutely imperative that a solution be reached - in which case, we care less so about the details of the solution than the very being of a solution.

This immediately brought to mind David Grossman's Writing in the Dark, a collection of essays I read a week ago, upon recommendation, and have not yet been able to get out of my already busy mind. Today's discussion harkened back to one quote in particular, part of Grossman's speech in Tel Aviv for the memorial of Rabin's assassination:
"Just as there is a war of no choice, there is also a peace of no choice. Because there is no choice anymore. We have no choice, and they have no choice. And a peace of no choice should be pursued with the same determination and creativity with which one goes to a war of no choice. Because there is no choice. Whoever thinks there is, or that time is in our favor, does not grasp the dangerous underlying processes that are already occurring."
Some of these "dangerous underlying processes," of course, are rather obvious - acts of terrorism and massive disruption and uprooting of civilian life, refugee issues, blatant humiliation, constant strife and bloodshed. In case there hasn't been quite enough bloodshed to make you find Lustick's argument a viable possibility at the moment, though (pessimistic, but debatably true), Grossman's comment of "underlying" processes delves even deeper, into the mental and emotional repercussions on all sides. For, "somewhere deep inside, every person knows when he is committing or colluding with an injustice. Somewhere deep in the heart of any "reasonable person" of sound mind, there is a place where he cannot delude himself regarding his acts and their implications. The burden created by the injustice - even if it is repressed - is there, and it has effects and it has a price."

Taking matters at face value, one might assume that all hard-liners, former military officers, etc, would naturally be more hawkish and less inclined to peace - that is, until one takes into consideration today's discussion or, for a more specific example, this conclusion by Yoram Peri in "Ideological Portrait of the Israeli Military Elite": the IDF officer class is "possessed of heterogeneous ideologies with a marked disposition to a liberal outlook." ....In other words, those who have experienced conflict and know the matters for what they are, actually saw with their own eyes and lived the effects and the destruction, are often all the more inclined towards putting an end to it. They are painfully aware of the harsh, unglorified reality of combat, and are thereby all the more aware of the urgent need to end to it. Note: those who played an instrumental role in the founding of Peace Now.

Are current matters horrendous enough to force "a peace of no choice," as Grossman might suggest? I can't help but think that that relies quite a bit upon the individual and their own experience and perspective. ...No time to get into the entangling mess that is a discussion re. potential solutions at the moment, as I must put an end to my babbling. (I do feel the need to say this much, though: I imagine I join the majority of the Western world in insisting that ethnic cleansing is not a viable option.) ...Then again, it's one thing to sit and discuss possibilities - possible solutions or lack thereof, possible uprooting and relocation of thousands of people - and another thing entirely to implement it- or worse, experience it.