It sees that this debate is once again degenerating because of extremist viewpoints. In times of conflict, there is always a tendency to demonize the opponent, and everyone that isn't helping your side. There are a lot of groups involved in this conflict, directly and indirectly. Most of them have little or no influence on the others. I think it helps to consider all the subtleties rather than simply classifying each player as being in the right or wrong.
It is a naive mistake, for example, to blame the Lebanese government for not disarming Hezbollah. It would be nice to believe that just because they are assigned the responsibility that they would automatically have the power. They don't. Real Politick means you have to play the cards that are dealt and you can't just whine about how unfair your hand is. Each player is going to do what it can to advance its goals. The only way to end the conflict is to let some player win or change their goals so that they are no longer incompatible.
Most of the history of negotiations in the mideast has been a process of ensuring that all those incompatible positions are protected to some degree. The hope was that, if an actor felt less threatened and wasn't backed into a corner, that it would be less aggressive. That strategy doesn't work. It never did. Each concession to one player is automatically at the expense of the rest precisely because its goal were furthered rather than altered.
The creation of Israel by colonial powers started this mess. They were trying to address a terrible wrong, but did so at the expense of innocents. They created a state based on racism and religion in a militarily nearly indefensible location. Just what kind of cake were they expecting to bake with that recipe?
To the credit of the Israelis, they built a largely secular democracy with only the minimum of apartheid needed to maintain their goal of a Jewish state. The problem is that the goal itself is incompatible with any other kind of society that wants to share the same ground. The only possible outcomes are
1) Israel destroys all threats to it,
2) Israel is destroyed,
3) The conflict drags on because the U.S. continues to buy a stalemate,
4) The goals change to become compatible.
#2 is the most likely to continue as no one seems to be seeking #4. The only plausible way to reach solution #4, imho, is for the goal of the state of Israel to change from "being a Jewish state" to "being a state were Jews can live freely and safely". The one-state option for Israel & Palestine was actually the most popular among both Israelis and Palestinians until the current intifada. The governments and special interest groups would not have their interests advanced by such a solution, so the conflict drags on. |
