The Arab-Israeli Conflict

After 60 years of conflict, peace will be hard to come by. Undoubtedly, Israel has made many mistakes that have exacerbated the situation but the main problem has always been an Arab world lack of desire for peace and the absence of a reliable Palestinian counterpart that could guarantee the implementation of a peace treaty. For the first thirty years the Arab world refused to accept the UN partition resolution and concentrated on trying to find a way to get rid of Israel. It kept the Palestinians in refugee camps and used their plight to further its goals, both international and internal. Hatred of Israel was a convenient whipping boy to compensate for authoritarian regimes and lack of economic progress. After the Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Jordan came to the conclusion that a cold peace with Israel was more advantageous; however, they encouraged - Egypt in particular - anti-Israeli street sentiment. As for the Gulf states, they pulled back from outright confrontation and financed terrorist groups on condition that they refrain from acts of terrorism within their borders. Like the USA created the Afghan monster, so the Sunni Arab Kingdoms created the Islamic Fundamentalist monster. There can be no doubt that the ultimate goal of Al Qaeda is to overthrow the existing Arab regimes and substitute them with Fundamentalist ones that strictly observe Sharia. Furthermore, the minority Shiite sect, lead by non-Arab Iran, is another major threat to all the Sunni governments; that is why these regimes talk with a bifurcated tongue: officially - for street consumption - they are critical of Israel and of its forceful reactions to Palestinian terrorism. but privately they hope that Israel will succeed in doing away with Hamas and with Hezbollah, both common enemies. Immediate and long-term ceasefires, as well as a permanent peace treaty, depend exclusively on the Arab world. Were it unanimously - or almost - prepared to withdraw all support from terrorist groups and tell the Palestinians that they can count on economic and political backing only if they are willing to forgo terrorism and accept the two-state solution, hostilities would cease immediately and all efforts could be concentrated on peace and reconstruction. As for the argument being made about disproportionate response is bogus. This is not a matter of tit for tat but, rather, a matter of trying to put an end to the shelling of Israeli cities and towns near the Gaza strip and, should Israel have resorted to directing thousands of shells on Gaza, in view of the strip's population density, thousands of civilians would have been killed instead of a few hundred people, most of them Hamas terrorists. This, of course, would be welcomed by Hamas since they care only about their political agenda and consider Palestinian civilians ass an expendable commodity. Finally, the humanitarian issue, while very real, is the fault of Hamas. Had they not engaged in terrorism the border with Israel would be open and, had they used their tunnel to Egypt to bring in medicines, food and other supplies rather than weapons, there wouldn't be a humanitarian issue. The present situation reminds me of the mischievous little boy who keeps throwing pebbles at a bigger boy and, when the latter beats him up, runs to hide behind his mother's skirt crying that the bully is picking on him.

Comments

[Selina]

Well, I was all in favor of the war, improving the life of the poor Israelis living for many years in the line of fire, as well as hopefully improving, in a roundabout way, the life of the poor Gazanites. But here we are, the war is over and the scuds, although less, keep falling... We keep bombing tunnels in Gaza, so, I ask myself, except for that momentary excitement of war, and that euphoria of righting a wrong I think most Israelis felt, where did it get us? All seems status quo, we suffer here, they suffer there and poor Gilad is still there, a prisoner with no Geneva rights, for all of us a son/friend/brother. How is it that I always think: “well, the situation cannot get worst than this”, and it always does… G-d knows what this new right winged extremist government will bring… I was seriously thinking of leaving till they are in power, but then I hope they will fail soon. Then one never knows, maybe the right wing will make some sort of peace, a good one not for sure, but something. They have done it before. Anyway, never a dull moment here, lets just hope that the economic crisis will not get much worst here or we will have much bigger problems to face than the Hamas.