Raymond,
You're seeing just white (Arab) and black (Israeli), and in the process oversimplifying the complex mess that is TransJordan. One day recently the Israelis bulldozed a young girl protesting, and another day the Palestinians killed a bus full of children. So tell me, which of those actions was acceptable?
I think we do agree that it was really not a great idea to shoehorn a bunch of European Jewish zealots into this small area, and expect peace and calm in their relations with the indigenous Arabs. It's likely that there would even have been friction had they been thrown into the tolerant Netherlands. Historically there aren't many successful rapid migrations of this kind, and when a religio-state and expansionist visions are mixed in, the prospects get worse.
Still, modern Israel is a fact that is not going away, is in many ways a remarkable success, and has the potential to be a powerful engine to transform the whole area economically. But this can't and won't happen as long as the Arab/Jew death struggle continues.
There is a concept in operations research called submaximization, which occurs when a system is unnecessarily constrained to perform at less than its maximal potential. The Israelis and the Palestinians are locked into mutual submaximization, their struggle producing substantial loss for both sides--a classic, and unfortunately enduring, "lose/lose" situation. Resolution of the conflict would normally be facilitated by the enormous carrot hanging in front of each side--the substantial gain to be achieved by the Israelis and Palestinians when the submaximization ends. But the carrot hasn't worked, because neither leadership really wants a resolution. The Likudniks in power simply want Eretz Israel, despite tactical statements to the contrary for foreign consumption. The Palestinian leadership (L'etat, ces't Arafat) simply wants to drive the Jews into the sea, despite tactical statements to the contrary for foreign consumption. My take is that, until there is a replacement of leadership on both sides, or a settlement forced by the sole superpower (yeah right!), we'll get nothing but the status quo.
John |
