http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_060723_rob_kall_3a_middle_eas.htm
July 23, 2006
Middle East Wiggle Room-- To Be Bought at a High Price, But Not
Optional
by Rob Kall
The US is solidly supportive of Israel as a country.
That's really not negotiable.
Where there is wiggle room is how the middle east conflict is handled,
how the US leans on Israel, how Iran and other power players lean on
the Palestinians, Lebanese and the various "terrorist" groups, how the
US works with Israel's other neighbors, how the main issues on the
table are dealt with.
I know there are highly divergent opinions here and I'm writing with
some ignorance, but probably more knowledge than many.
My series of articles on the middle east have been and continue to be
an effort to expand the dialogue beyond the usual recriminations--
particularly among progressives, but also among all parties.
I expect to continue to be accused by proponents on both sides of
being pro-Isreal by some and anti-semitic and anti-Israel by others as
I attempt to walk the narrow tightrope, with the aim of increasing the
"dimensionality" of the discussion.
Some observations:
The idiotic disaster in Iraq will almost certainly end up costing the
USA over a trillion dollars-- in military, rebuilding costs and
perhaps most expensive, in paying for the health care of over half a
million military personnel over their lifetimes.
What a tragic, insane unnecessary waste of money, for which the Bush
Administration, virtually all Republicans and many Democrats who
supported the war and failed to question the WMD claims are to blame.
But this puts the money on the table-- a trillion dollars.
What if we drastically changed the budget for PEACE in the middle
east.
What if the US started investing a lot more money, tens, or even
hundreds of billions of dollars in good causes-- reaching a settlement
with all the Palestinian claimants who are seeking right of return?
What if the US, and its allies, and the moderate Arab states, as a
means of competing with the extremist Islamofascist sects that fund
madrassas that teach hate, got together and funded billions of dollars
in schools, hospitals, cross-cultural sharing, educational exchange
programs that built relationships between westerners and Arabs?
What if we out-spent the Iranians in helping the Lebanese, the
Palestinians...?
I fear there would still be a problem-- xenophobic extremist,
fundamentalist Islamists who believe that only insulated Muslim
societies are acceptable.
Just as Americans must face the challenge of sorting through the WAY
they support Israel and the Christian fundamentalists who support
conflict in the middle east because they gleefully believe it is
moving them towards the rapture, Arab cultures MUST face the challenge
of dealing with Islamic extremists who would foment conflict to
further their goals of removal of western influences from the
"pan-Arabic" world, extremists who have their own version of an
armageddon with middle east conflict and the return of the messiah.
Give those challenges...
Some of the biggest issues on the table include;
-Palestinian right of return
-Israel returning all land it did not have before 1967
-Recognition of Israel's and Palestine's rights to exist as countries
-end of hostilities by groups like PLO, HAMAS, Hizbollah, Fatah, etc.
or elimination of them by the governments of each country
-release of prisoners
-peaceful coexistence
-Palestinian right of return
When we see terrorist enemies of Israel elected democratically in
Palestine and Lebanon, it is not difficult to see why Israel would
resist having their country flooded with people who would potentially
elect terrorists.
I just don't see this issue going anywhere.
The other side is that Palestinians have family homes, burial grounds,
where Israel now keeps them away.
I believe this demand is one that is used to kill deals for peace.
Throughout the world, people are displaced for reasons of eminent
domain-- when dams are built and places flooded, when the government
deems that the peoples' land is needed for a bigger cause.
In a just situation, those people are reimbursed for their loss and
transplanted in a fair way.
There are precedents for this.
This should be an issue that can be worked out.
-Israel returning all land it did not have before 1967
The US did not give back the land it took from the Native American
tribes.
Israel will not give up the land it has.
My guess is that it is unlikely that Israel will give up any parts of
Jerusalem or the Golan Heights for a long time, if ever.
The ultra-orthodox Israelis have settled occupied lands as a way to
make it more difficult to release what they see as greater Israel, or
Samaria.
These fundamentalist extremists are part of the problem.
Israel must, if necessary, forcefully remove them.
While it is at it, Israel should discontinue it's policy of expempting
the most warlike hawkish members of its society, these right wing,
extremist fundamentalist ultra-orthodox Jews from the draft.
Let their sons and daughters be put at the same risk that they are
willing to send other Israelis to face.
It seems unfair, undemocratic even, that these war hawks are exempted.
Since they consider less religious Jews to be "less" Jewish than them,
they tend to be bigoted and even racist.
The Israeli people need to vote these warhawks out of power, and
change their laws so their children are exposed to the same military
risks as the rest of the Israeli people.
It's pretty similar to here in the US, where we have chickenhawks
running their wars, not sending their children.
But it's worse in Israel, where they have a draft.
That said, I still don't think that Israel will ever willingly give
back Jerusalem.
It took Jerusalem from Jordan, not the Palestinians.
Of course it could be argued that the Palestinians were living in the
part of Jerusalem Israel took from Jordan.
And the way things stand now, with Syria, Israel would be crazy to
release the Golan Heights.
Syria is still an active enemy of Israel, and it seems that any
possibility of return of the Golan Heights would happen gradually,
with Syria first showing a few years of consistent peaceful goodwill.
-Recognition of Israel's and Palestine's rights to exist as countries
Most of the world already recognize the right of Palestine to exist as
a nation and the right of Israel to exist was acknowledged by the UN
almost 60 years ago.
The Arabs who want to see Israel eliminated and the Jews who would
have the Palestinians removed from all of the west bank and environs
have to be seen as part of the problem.
It is interesting that some see the final solution as one country.
It's hard to imagine, but perhaps with two, or three houses of
government-- a jewish, a muslim and a third house, some Solomon would
figure out would balance things out-- might work.
I only mention it because what has been tried so far has not worked,
and this wild idea stretches the envelope.
We need to go outside the box to find solutions.
-release of prisoners
and
-end of hostilities by groups like PLO, HAMAS, Hizbollah, Fatah, etc.
or elimination of them by the governments of each country
Israel's neighbors need to take responsibility, if there is to be
peace, for assaults upon Israel that originate in their territories.
They can't throw up their hands and refust to accept responsibility
for violent attacks.
They have to work things out with Hamas, Fatah, PLO, Hizbollah, etc.
or they have to arrest them and prevent them from engaging in
violence.
They have to act as sovereign nations and take responsibility.
If they do that, then Israel could release most of their prisoners to
their neighbors.
Then, the neighbors could determine on an individual basis whether to
release the prisoners or not.
And the neighbors would be responsible for capturing, sentencing and
incarcerating any new prisoners caught engaging in violence that could
set up renewed conflict, which some terrorists have as their goal.
Israel would really have to TRUST Palestine and Lebanon to do the
right thing here, and if they fail to do their job, the same situation
would recur.
-Peaceful Coexistence
There are a lot of power players who have huge interests in keeping
the conflict going.
I've written about them here
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kall_2c_ro_060719_casting_blame__2c_find.htm
Even if all the issues between the Israelis and the Palestinians are
resolved, in a way that both sides can tolerate with neither side
feeling they got too good a deal, all the outside players will have a
major influence on whether peace ensues.
It is not realistic to fantasize that all the players will pull back
from their machinations and allow peace to emerge.
Conflict has valuable payoffs for totalitarian Arab regimes, acting as
a distraction from the problems at home.
Then there are the more distant players-- China, North Korea,
Pakistan, the Taliban-- they must all be included in mapping out the
whole "system" of influence that affects the middle east.
I didn't say it was easy.
But at least here, I've laid out some areas where supporters of both
sides can discuss issues.
I don't see how the continued listing of Israel's war crimes, going
back 90 years, by supporters of the Muslim neighbors, or listing of
the terrorist attacks by Israelis and Israel's supporters, and support
for violence on either side supports hope for progress.
We have to talk.
We have to look for new solutions.
We have to break out of patterns that we've been locked into that have
not been working.
Americans have to be able to feel they can fully support Israel while
also talking about ways that Israel can change, if necessary under
duress.
Arabs must deal with supporting the Palestinians while finding
solutions that protect the Palestinians from mechanations perpetrated
by Islamic extremists who don't have peace in their agenda.
Power brokers on both sides must lean on all the conflicting parties
to compromise in a stepped process that builds trust and they should
it expect to have to spend a lot more than they have been spending.
Americans may balk, but the alternative is an explosion in the costs
for oil, with gasoline tripling or quadrupling in price, and with
countless other products and industries affected.
Spend tens or hundreds of billions now, or the US economy is at risk
of implosion, with trillions lost and US hegemony at risk as well.
__________________________________________________
Mr. Kall proposes some interesting possibilites and some naive
conjecture.
Harry
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