Just as in Ireland, the Indo-Pak sub-continent and Korea, there is no “political” solution to the Arab/Jew face-off in the Middle East. I’ve been observing it closely for just over half a century, and my conclusion (reached I have to say by around 1990) is that the tangled net of culture, religion, extremism and obduracy traps every mediator in its random trawl.
Such problems are not political at all, they are culturally tribal. And the Middle East conundrum in particular cannot even be explained (let alone solved) by the science of DNA….for beyond Iran, the vast majority of antagonists are semites. Scrape a sample off Netanyahu’s skin, compare it to that of Assad….and they will be found, ethnically, to be identical.
Yet so much of all this source of death and destruction is – on the surface – about Who owns What. The indigenous struggle of the Palestinian people (the liberals keep telling me) is all about “self-determination”.
But the evidence for that case is at best flakey. I do not accept that Israel’s right to exist or not can be based on any kind of “land occupation rights” argument. Who is or is not “indigenous” in the Middle East depends on where one starts the clock ticking. Thanks to our peaceful General ‘prophet’ Mohammed, most of the Arabs et al who are where they are now are so thanks to the diaspora he caused by offering them the convert-or-die option 1500 years ago.
As for borders, using the Islamist measure of Millennial memory, we’d go back to King David’s Israel, which the most recent researches show was almost exactly the same size and shape as contemporary Israel. I don’t condone that approach, because lionising the distant past is what gives Islamism its appeal.
Yes, I know Israel acted illegally in 1947. But every single nation surrounding Israel has acted illegally at least once over that period to effect violent governmental change by murdering its Head of State. And had the French and British been left to deliver on the promise made to the Jews in 1945 (having screwed the Arabs in 1926) there would still be no Israel. Begin knew this, which is why he acted: you among us who despise imperialism, can you blame him?
The word terrorism is bandied about a great deal. The Jew Monachem Begin was the terrorist/freedom fighter whose gang blew up the King David Hotel in 1947. He went on to grow up and become Israel’s PM: the sole Jew who has ever signed a genuinely well-meant MidEast peace agreement…..with Anwar Sadat of Egypt. Sadat was then promptly assassinated.
The Slog 