Depressing Middle East Sunday Musings

The Economist defines "Rats Nest"


"Why Arab countries have so miserably failed to create democracy, happiness, or (aside from the windfall of oil) wealth for their 350 mm people is one of the great questions of our time.  What makes Arab society susceptible to vile regimes and fanatics bent on destroying (and their perceived allies in the West)?  No one suggests that Arabs as a people lack talent or suffer from a pathological antipathy to democracy.  But for the Arabs to wake from their nightmare, and for the world to feel safe, a great deal needs to change."

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"But religious extremism is a conduit for misery, not its fundamental cause."

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"Economic stagnation bred dissatisfaction."

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"But only the Arabs can reverse their civilizational decline."

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"Pluralism, education, open markets: these were once Arab values."  and the key to a better future.

The Economist also states this is not present in the current environment and will require secular Sunni's to lead any improvement.

Palestine could be a source of such leadership as they are traditionally the most secular and educated Arabs.  But Israel is more hell bent on establishing settlements and shrinking the land that is available to any Palestinian state than in fostering a civil Palestinian culture.  The current situation of kidnapping and murdering teenagers is reprehensible on both sides, but is perhaps the logical outcome of hatred fed by 65 years of having no political power and being beaten down on by Israeli security forces on the part of Palestinians and zealotry on the part of conservative Jews in believing they are the chosen ones to live on that land they are seizing.  War's have been fought for thousands of years over land.

I have defended Israel's right to defend itself against outside forces and terrorists since I became aware of their reality when the '68 war erupted and I was 15.  But Israel also has always represented hope for a civil society.  I may not be Jewish in practice, but I was taught that the Jewish people are people of faith, education and achievement with respect for all other mankind.  I am well aware that Hitler would have sent me to a gas chamber because of my birth heritage and believe that the Jewish people need a homeland.

But Israel needs to represent civil society.  When Israeli defense forces behave as thugs they denigrate our heritage and do not represent a civil democracy.  Beating a 15 year old boy who is handcuffed and hooded is also reprehensible.   Never mind that he is screaming, if conscious, that he is an American citizen, it would be equally bad if the person was just an innocent Palestinian.

The only lesson of the Sunni Shia conflict is radicalism breeds more radicalism until one side wins.  I cannot fathom fathom the Jewish people inflicting a holocaust upon Palestinians, which is what it will take for them to win with force. I am shamed that Israeli Defense Forces beat a handcuffed and hooded American citizen.  I will be even more shamed if somehow a 2 State Solution is not found and mass death is the only Israeli solution to their Arab problem which I see as a Ultra-conservative Jewish problem combined with an Arab problem.  How Israel will ever live in peace without a 2 State solution is impossible for me to see.  I don't understand how Israeli's cannot see it.