Alright Already

Serious for a minute, I shall now eradicate any good will still pointed in my direction by a few friends who have strong opinions about this issue toward one side or the other, other than the one about to be expressed.

For over 60 years now there has been a problem in the Middle East. In 40 years it will be 100 years, and if the past is any indicator not much will change from now to there. But the world has been on the brink of World War III - what, twice? Three times? - over the ongoing argument in the region. It is the centerpiece of any random manifesto espoused by any random terrorist group (I won't insult Islam by calling any of them Muslims). One side says the world created a phony state to appease its guilt over attempted genocide and in so doing displaced the lives and livelihoods of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of innocents. The other side says there is precedent going back thousands upon thousands of years as to why they should be there.

The Palestinians under Arafat were once classically described by a pundit whose name I wish I could recall as a group that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Israelis hide behind a wall that conveniently says if you criticize Israel you are a bigoted anti-Semitic. When an Egyptian leader worked on peace his own people killed him. When an Israeli leader worked on peace his own people killed him. Every US President and a slew of leaders from all over the world have crashed and burned trying to find peace in the Middle East. In fact the only US President that accomplished anything there happened to have been one of the greater disasters in Presidential history for other reasons. And the wingnut factions from both sides see nothing wrong with blowing up birthday parties or bulldozing somebody's house without so much more than a warning six seconds before they start the engines, unless they're just using a rocket to respond to the other guy's.

The thing of it is... I don't know, actually, why we give a shit any more.

All conflict has its own dynamics. It ends or continues for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons it continues is because those in conflict find some advantage in its continuing. When conflict no longer has a benefit one side or the other, or both, work seriously to resolve it. No matter what has been tried, it seems, the conflict in the Middle East never seems to solve. A cynical man can wonder, if the previous premise is true, if this thing just won't go away because those involved don't really want it to.

Power bases in the Middle East - specifically those belonging to Israelis and Palestinians - seem to very much depend on the attitude of the leadership toward the other side. Get too friendly and you may be killed. Maintain a constant, affordable level of intransigence and you may be in power for years and years. And if that is true the coin of the realm in this region isn't oil or water, it's intransigence. Because that is what gets you power. It fuels more stuff than oil in those parts.

If a President seems too friendly to the Palestinians there is a groundswell of chatter about how he isn't willing to stand by our best friend in the region, the only democracy in the Middle East and he flaunts losing money and votes in the next election. So in the campaign he's got to categorically state that we will maintain our ties to our best friend in the region. It doesn't matter that this is fallacious. Israel has engaged in espionage against the US in the past, Turkey has been a democracy just about as long and has steadfastly supported the US in its actions against other countries who are culturally closer to Turkey than to Israel, but what the hell who is counting. We go on with our act never noticing that whenever we say only democracy or best friend in the region we're slapping Turkey right in the chops. Yet they remain. But, in the campaign, his local opponents will picture him sidling up to terrorists and giving a terrorist fist-bump to his wife, for God's sake.

If a President connects strongly to Israel he incurs the wrath of wild-eyed morons with a hard-on for the 8th century who think that killing people, whose only real crime was that they went to work one day, by the thousands is a holy thing that will please God. He is also accused of ignoring an enforced diaspora of innocent people and he's dashed most hopes of seeming to be an honest broker the next time he gets a halo up his ass and wants to bring peace to the Middle east.

And if he tries to navigate a middle ground, because of the severe polarized version of politics we live under now in this country, everybody hates him. Right, Left, John and Jane. No matter who tries what it isn't good enough. There is always a sticking point that brings everything to a full stop. Every few years they go back to killing each other's children and then we have a reconciliation and then it breaks down on intransigence and there's tanks and rockets and extremists on both sides and then it stops and we talk some more. until somebody mentions Jerusalem and here we go again.

I think the time has come, and has long passed, for someone - anyone - to stand up and say you people are screwy. Enough. Alright already.

At some point - since we can't criticize Israel without someone saying we're anti-Semitic and we can't criticize the Palestinians without someone wanting to blow us up - the right course of action is (finally) going to be I don't care anymore. You guys figure it out for yourselves. I'm busy with other, more important shit than your shit.

It won't happen, of course, because there's too much political capital to be gained and lost by preserving the conflict. It helps energize your base one way or the other and there's enough money an influence tied to which side you are on to get anybody to say it. But it ought to be said. It ought to be said because it's already beyond stupid.

But in 2048, mark my word, there will still be political leaders in our country who will put forward the idea that if we elect them they will help bring peace to the Middle East. And that will happen because any time a man or woman of morals and courage who is either Israeli or Palestinian stands up to fix it - meaning a reasonable compromise - he or she will be killed, viciously, by the very forces of intransigence that are benefiting from the conflict. Unreasoning pride and obtuse willfulness pass for policy there. And they have condemned their own future generations to the dance.

It's long since time to quit listening to the music.