Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say "I am strong." — Joel 3:10
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. — Isaiah 2:4 & Micah 4:3
Kassam Rocket Menorah - Sderot Israel Swords to Plowshared, NYC
Swords to ploughshares is a concept in which military weapons or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications. The plowshare is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit mankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword, a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The common expression "beat swords into plowshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups.
The most famous sculpture of this phrase can be found at the United Nations, A less famous, folk art version was seen upon our visit to the kibbutz at Sderot on the border with Gaza. Here the menorah candles are kassam rockets fired from Gaza that landed upon the kibbutz. This kibbutz is the target of numerous terrorist rocket attacks, the latest being Monday, August 11, 2008.
The juxtaposition of images captures the two realities of Israel and Palestine. Is security based upon military might, walls and fences, checkpoints and prisons, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, terrorist attacks and suicide bombers? Or is stability and security achieved only through dialogue, conflict resolution, economic development? One great surprise of my trip to the Holy Land was the revelation that very few Israelis know any Palestinians, speak their Arabic language or appreciate Palestinian culture. Many more Palestinians speak both Arabic and Hebrew, come into daily contact with Israelis at border checkpoints, in military outposts in the Occupied Territories and the Israeli settlements that ring West Bank towns choking off their growth and separating farmers from their lands.
The resident of Sderot who gave us a tour that included a look across the fence, security barrier and military outpost into Gaza spoke of their presence as being Israel’s first line of defense in the sense that they establish the boundaries of Israel, serve as an early warning system for any Arab attack upon Israel and contain the terrorists. Later we learned that only a few Gaza residents ever crossed into the kibbutz, usually in order to steal crops to carry back, hardly the activity of terrorists. Rocket attacks do terrorize the entire kibbutz with its bomb shelters and blast proof roofs over schools. No connection is made however to the terror of residents of Gaza who live under fear of Apache helicopter attacks, jet fighter bombings and armed incursions. Both sides in this conflict have grown to live with post traumatic stress as a way of life.
The kassam rocket menorah was a point of pride to our kibbutz guide. It reminded her of the verse from Isaiah in a totally straightforward way of peace through strength. The irony of the sculptural composition brought to mind the slogan of the U.S. Air force’s Strategic Air Command carrying armed nuclear bombs in flight 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, “Peace is Our Profession”. Living under the threat of mutually assured nuclear annihilation was a strange kind of peace in the 1960’s for Americans. Living under the fear of Arabs (Christian and Muslim) and under the state terror of Israel and the settler terror of Jewish extremists is an equally strange kind of world.
In this context the work of a nearby kibbutz resident to foster dialogue between Israelis and Gazans, the work of the Women in Black to witness every Friday in Jerusalem for an end to the occupation of the West Bank, the peaceful weekly protests spreading across the Occupied Territories saying “No” to illegal settlement expansion and restriction of Palestinian movement are small glimmers of hope in a land dominated by headlines of fear and violence. Seldom or never are grassroots stories of hope told in the U.S. press. The success of our delegation lies in the body of experience we have acquired listening to people of all types, roles in life and portions of Israel and the West Bank speak of their lives, their hopes and fears, their work for peace with justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said that the arc of history is long but inevitably tends toward justice. Peace with justice will come to the Holy Land with so many good people trying to find their way out of the impasse of old ways of thinking. It may take decades or longer, but it is inevitable that the people of the Holy Land will eventually have to come to terms to one another’s desire to coexist with human rights administered equally for all.
May the kassam rocket menorah rust away to be replaced by new plows and pruning hooks bringing peace and prosperity to both the new and the ancient residents of the Holy Land.