The Middle East - The Solution!

[jshore]

*Originally posted by Shayna *
xanakis, hon, your interest in peace and offer of suggestions are noble indeed. But did you read the website I linked to? Please do. They are not interested in compromise, now or ever.

Shayna, I agree with you that xanakis is being simplistic here, but I think you are too in some ways. I agree that there is a “they” who are not interested in compromise, but the “they” is not all Palestinians. The “they” is rather the more extremist elements on both sides of the conflict. The key question is how to prevent these more extreme elements from dictating the course of events. So far, we haven’t been able to figure out a way since it is much easier to break things than to build things. (Witness: ability of Hamas et al to derail the peace process, ability of a Jewish extremist to assassinate Rabin…) Alas, I wish there were some easy answers.

[jshore]

By the way, I just read an articles today that my parents sent me on the whole Palestinian–Israeli issue with particular emphasis on the Jerusalem issue. It is from the New York Review of Books and is available here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/14624

I’ll quote you the last paragraph which sort of sums of the pessimistic viewpoint of the author—

The political deadlock runs parallel to the mutual lack of human empathy. For all its newly found dovishness, an editorial cartoon in the liberal Ha’aretz recently depicted the current Intifada as the infestation of a human body by a pack of vicious vermin. I saw only one letter to the editor protesting this cartoon. It came from one Klement Messerschmidt, a German resident in Jerusalem. He protested the utter dehumanization of the Palestinians implied in the drawing, which was reminiscent of Nazi cartoons. “Has no one on Ha’aretz felt uncomfortable with the use of this loaded metaphor?” The only reaction that seems appropriate now is despair.