There is a thin line between peace of the brave and peace of the hostage... between compromise - even calculated risk - and irresponsibility and capitulation.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the delicate balance between bravery and surrender in the pursuit of peace.
Ehud Barak's quote suggests that achieving peace is a nuanced process that can be misinterpreted as either bravery or submission. It emphasizes the importance of discerning between genuine courage to seek peace, which involves calculated risks, and the dangers of compromising to the point of capitulation, which can lead to irresponsible choices.
In practice
Use this quote in a discussion about international diplomacy during peace negotiations.
In Israel, there is a peace camp that can convene 200,000 people in central square of this city, on very short notice, and there is a major movement among academics, politicians, thinkers, and public leaders for peace, even at a painful price. On the Palestinian side, you can find them individually here and there, but there is no public movement.
If Israel does not find the way to disengage from the Palestinians, its future might resemble the experience of Belfast or Bosnia - two communities bleeding each other to death for generations.
Israel is much more effective when the Israelis are convinced that we are on the moral high ground: that we are acting not just out of might, but also out of right.
As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.
I cannot penetrate the soul of Arafat. I cannot know in advance whether, behind all the masks, he's the kind of leader who can reach an agreement or whether he wants to be the Moses of the Palestinians, staying in front of the river and not crossing into the promised land.
To think that you can - as a Zionist, Jewish independent state at the end of the 20th century - rule over another people for generations without having any consequences - it's ridiculous.
When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.
In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.
I am so proud of Pakistanis and specifically of our lawyers for speaking out and getting their heads bashed in for a better Pakistan.
I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way.
I don't know any other way to live but to wake up every day armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.
At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.
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