“The stridency and uncompromising violence of language increases the further away from scene of the conflict you go. The Palestinians and Israelis who have to live with it all on the ground are tired, dispirited and exhausted. All they want is peace.”
Quote from a person of Palestinian origin with whom we were speaking at a briefing meeting on the conflict, arranged by the American Task Force on Palestine
The people keeping the conflict in Palestine going are not really the Israelis or the Palestinians, but the Christian Right and the Jewish lobbies in the United States, plus, of course, the current President of the United States, chosen by his god to bring about armageddon and the endtime, as prophesied. To this end he and his secretary of state are deliberately stoking every conflict in sight, arming those so far unarmed, upping the anti on every occasion, causing the deaths of thousands of their own “side” and uncounted deaths among mere Arabs, not to mention refusing to talk to the so-called Axis of Evil countries.
Who could not be a reflective, rational Epicurean, faced with these brutalist horrors?
Yes, faced with these “brutalist horrors” we respond as rational, compassionate human beings. I wonder if to the degree that we become profoundly engaged — demonstrations, how we vote, letters, meetings, pushing back– are we straying from Epicurus’ injunction about staying away from politics?
I’d rather think that while we may seem to violate the urging to stay out of it, we’re holding on to a larger value in Epicurus — pursuit of truth among all those who care about the lives of our fellow creatures.
“The people keeping the conflict in Palestine going are not really the Israelis or the Palestinians”
That strikes me as completely naive. Yes, there are some Evangelicals who anticipate the Apocalypse, but this has been going on longer than they’ve been interested. It’s pretty basic: a Jewish state was created, lots of Arabs were displaced and subsequently shafted first by Arab governments and later by Israel, which in turn is convinced, not entirely without evidence, that its neighbors want to destroy it. The Palestinians won’t stop responding to occupation and Israel won’t stop seeing occupation as a defense against the responses — and also as a claim on religiously promised land. The conflict is quite endemic.
I beg to disagree. When the conflict in Northern ireland reached a point of intolerability, the mass of citizens cried “enough is enough”, and forced the 2 extremist parties to sit down and work out a resolution to the problem (of course , 9/11 helped, because at last Americans were forced to stop financing terrorism in Northern Ireland). Be that as it may, if you read Haaretz and listen to the many still moderate Palestinian Arabs who come and give talks in Washington, you get a feeling of exhaustion. This simply cannot go on. Everyone knows the outlines of an acceptable plan; only thre extremists on both sides are stopping progress.
We have now a great opportunity to come to a settlement, because both the Arab states and Israel are frightened of Iran, and Israel has taken a scary bloody nose in the Lebanon. I agree that the religious “right” have faded, but AIPAC exists to maximize the State of Israel. Moderate and intelligent Jews want nothing to do with this and back peace moves. But Condi, useless, wittering Condi, has her blinkers on, and thinks in terms of white and black. Hamas black, Israelis white. End of conversation as far as she is concerned . In order to “help” the situation the US government has been actually arming Fatah to crush its opponents, has stopped the Israelis talking to Syria etc etc..
But recent polls in both Palestine and Israel support a settlement based on the Geneva Accords. It has to happen, and will happen. Just get the current US government out of the picture, and let pragmatists have a go.