Phil > I'm afraid we are on a collision course.
Yes, that's certainly one scenario and the one that has been building up for a long time. But there are others -- there have to be, otherwise we haven't left the Stone Age -- and all our religion and all our knowledge and all our diplomacy are worth nothing.
> When there is a lack of good will and trust, when there is an abundance of hatred and suspicion and a long history of conflict, nations revert to arms and warfare.
Jews have lived amongst Muslims since the beginning of Islam in 700 AD. And, despite the Zionist propaganda to the contrary, they were very happy to do so. In fact, the Golden Age of Jewry is said to be in Spain in the 15th Century under Muslim rule and before the rise of Christianity there (That's not taking into account the present Golden Age in the US).
But the problem is actually that of the UN -- the organization which created the State of Israel in 1948 but omitted to mention its boundaries with the proposed country for the Palestinians. Thus both Israelis and Palestinians are victims of UN incompetence, call it what you will. It was also mooted at the Oslo Accords that the pre-1967 war borders should be those of the Israeli State, but this didn't suit Israel which had built settlements in the occupied land. As you know, Rabin wanted to do the land for peace deal but he was murdered as was Sadat some years previously. Since the time of Rabin's death the situation became polarized and Arafat's intransigence didn't help either with his intifada.
The new approach to the problem (A Clean Break) was the brainchild of the neocons who also wrote the policy document for US foreign policy (PNAC). This, in fact, is a plan for the virtual destruction of all Israel's neighbours and a redrawing of their boundaries and relationships. But as is perfectly clear from this, and also the new stand-off with Iran, the local Palestinian - Israeli polemic about a boundary between Israel and Palestine has become the recipe for a world war. The situation has become further complicated by the rise of the Christian Zionists in the US who are probably more militant and in favor of the State of Israel than even the Jewish right-wingers because they believe the end of the world is at hand and it seems to me they are doing their best to bring it about.
> There are many aspects to this problem which seem to be unsolvable, given the intransigence and irreconcilable differences of both the Jews and the Moslems.
Two fighting dogs will only stop fighting when one is dead or someone intervenes to stop the fight. Since the UN is incompetent and the US is unwilling to act against Israel, as they see it, no-one else is prepared to step in. But now, since the fight involves not only the dogs themselves, maybe there will be a more concerted effort on the part of outsiders to do something? But, as you say, the nuclear aspirations of Iran, seem to prevent the likelihood of that happening.
All I can say is that the present situation doesn't benefit either Israel or the US and I only hope that sanity and reason can prevail before they do something stupid and create a situation which, in fact, is to their further detriment. |
