The Middle East Existed Long Before Bush
I am very tired of the world laying all their troubles on the United States. In specific, the issue of all the problems in the Middle East. Sure, our hands aren’t any cleaner than anyone else’s. But to hear the rhetoric today, it sure sounds like most of the world, and many in our own country, are convinced that the USA single-handedly took the world to the brink of Armageddon!
The chaos there today is not about the oil. At least, not really. Last I checked, Lebanon wasn't exactly a net exporter, neither were Gaza or the West Bank. It's not about the president. Every president since Carter has tried to tackle this issue. It's not about the British. They were only trying to pick up the pieces from the broken Otterman Empire. It's not about '67 or '48 or any particular year. It's not about the UN resolutions or the Holocaust or anything to do with the British.
It's about Jerusalem. Specifically, it's about Haram al-Sharif and the Temple Mount. Everything else is BS. All the reasons that don't mention it are either so that people can take the religion out of the argument, or propaganda meant to give one side or the other the advantage.
The Jewish people can not give up the enduring symbol of who they are, or they are lost as a ethnic group. They must keep Jerusalem and hope against hope that one day they will rebuild the Temple of Solomon, the place where God exists on earth, the only place where a Jewish Priest may be consecrated (if that’s the right word). Without Jerusalem, they are a wondering band of multicultural misfits tied together by a religion. And the bands of that religion would be weakened by abandoning the hope of reacquiring the single strongest symbol on earth of that religion, the Temple.
There are many in Israel today that wouldn’t give two cents for the Temple Mound, or at least they would have you believe that. For them it’s just about us against them. This is our place and we don’t want to give it up or let them win. Don’t believe it. If Israel gave in and surrendered Jerusalem, in a generation or two Israel would revert to Palestine with a Muslim majority.
Neither can the Palestinians give up the hope of gaining Jerusalem, the third most holy city of Islam. Their identity is too wrapped up in beating the Jew and the Infidel and keeping Islam safe. Their ethnic pride is too wounded to be generous to a Western world that too often shows them how far left behind they fell while Europe and America went through the industrial revolution. They dance with joy when misfortune befalls us because they see a certain karmic or divine justice at work, for how else to explain why the nations of Islam are not blessed 10 fold beyond what the heathen are. To ask that one of the enduring symbols of their past supremacy, the Dome of the Rock, now be handed over to those they prevailed over nearly 1000 years ago is too much to bear. Better to die fighting the good fight.
So each side has a cause to build on. After that, it becomes a case of I fight you because your father fought my father because my grandfather fought your grandfather because... Along the way, mistakes were made by both sides, and wounds festered and grew the more putrid. What do you say to two peoples when both honestly believe they are fighting for their, in their view, literally, god given homeland?
Along the way, bad things happened, as they tend to do in wars rooted in emotions and faith. Each side built a laundry list of things to get even for. And those around them took notice and with each piece of aid given, or insult received, built their own interest and investment in seeing one side or the other win.
Now you can add in the oil to this discussion. Or more specifically, now you can show me the money. After all, wars are won and lost not with bullets, but with money. With enough of it, you can stay in power. Just ask your local congressman on that score. But also ask the Saud family. But just money isn’t quite enough. You need more to maintain the people if they are poor, hungry, and looking for someone to blame, as the Shaw of Iran learned the hard way.
Enter Yasser Arafat. He can, for a price, do some PR work for you. He knows exactly who to blame. Look at Israel! How can they have so much when we have so little? How can we leave them in possession of Jerusalem? How can those that aid Israel go unpunished?
And a conflict that was being played out over an area somewhat smaller than the size of New Jersey suddenly becomes global. Arafat’s legacy, in my opinion, should be no less than that of Hitler or Stalin for the harm he has done to the cause of world peace. So how on earth did he win the Nobel Peace Prize again? May God have mercy on his soul, as may he on all of ours.
Half the ills of the world revolve around this single issue. Iran wants nukes because with Iraq in chaos, Iran hopes to become the de facto leadership for the Islamic world, just as Saddam hoped to do before the war. In Saudi Arabia, the government stays in power by redirecting it’s peoples discontent to the Palestinian issue. Al Quida, well if you can’t figure where they tie in, you haven’t been alive for the last five years. And yes, even the United States must get involved in the issue and deal with those we would prefer not to, because (and yes, here is where you get your bone…) of oil. But the point is, we didn’t cause this issue. We are as caught up by it as the rest of the world. But because we survived the cold war as the “lone superpower”, everybody thinks that we must be responsible for everything that isn’t to their liking. It must be a plot!
Sorry, but the problems of the Middle East have their roots in things that happened hundreds and even thousands of years before we stuck our fat noses in it. And there is plenty of other players that should be called on the carpet if you want to call us out. We’re just doing the best we can, same as the rest of you. But I’ll tell you this. If you think any piece of paper peace treaty, or any 10 Oslo Accords will solve this, you are oblivious to history.
The Palestinians and those supporting them are fighting a holy war, and they are fighting to win. Not by any silly rules of warfare developed by European knights and refined by the western world when we discovered how frightening post industrial revolution warfare can be. We had better pay attention. We can deny this is a holy war. We can call it a “War on Terror” if that makes the civil libertarians and atheists happy. But those fighting on the side of Islam know better.
Just a parting thought. Why do they always condemn Israel and the United States in the same breath? Why do lawyers always sue the people or companies with the big money along with the person who committed the act? I bet the answer is similar.