Why Is There A The Middle East Conflict?
Let’s deconstruct the conflict and look at all its parameters:
1) The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is how the pro-Arab camp refers to it. It claims Israel is oppressing the Palestinians and that, as a result, the entire Middle East remains unstable, and will continue to be unstable unless the Palestinians have their own state.
2) The Arab-Israeli conflict is how Israel defines the situation. Until the Oslo process began, Israel claimed the conflict existed because: “The Arabs don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.” Now Israel says the conflict continues because the Palestinian leaders “support terrorism.”
These conclusions are fed to the Arab and Israelis peoples so as to enable them each to take the high moral ground and focus their hatred on each other. And this in turn directs their attention away from their number one enemy: the foreigners.
By having the Arabs believe Israel is at fault for “oppressing” the Palestinians, while having Israelis believe the conflict exists because the Arabs fail to recognize the Jewish state or seek its destruction (i.e. support terrorism) the foreign interests succeed in hiding the bigger picture: what the foreigners are doing when it comes to controlling the Arab nations’ only natural resource, and how they are selling massive amount of weapons to the oil-producing regimes.
To keep up this fraud, the foreign elements must control the national leaders of both peoples, and ensure that the mainstream media don’t stray too far from the cover stories: “Israel is acting immorally against the Palestinians” or “Palestinian leaders support terrorism.”
Creating either a viable Palestinian state or peace between Arabs and Jews is not the goal of the foreigners. Whether stated publicly or not, their intention is to extend the Middle East conflict, not resolve it. Unless this basic truth is understood by Arabs and Jews, the foreign elements, via the mainstream media, will continue to manipulate the perception of both sides as to why the conflict continues.
Taking the high moral ground in the Middle East conflict
The only way the foreigners can sustain the conflict is to have each side blame the other for its continuation. In this way neither side can discover the real causes, which are the oil and arms deals made between the rich oil states and the foreign powers. One aspect of the conflict serves as convenient camouflage for the other.
To keep this fraud in place, the “moral argument” is employed to have the world focus on the “morality” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In this way, everyone is forced to take a side. The pro-Arab side claims Israel is morally flawed, while the pro-Israel side claims the Arabs are morally flawed.
Thus any public discussion is structured in such a way that the peoples in the region and those abroad are forced to believe one side’s claim or the other. The pro-Israel version is that the Arabs want to destroy Israel and are employing terrorism to reach this goal. The pro-Arab side claims Israel’s actions against the Palestinians are immoral because they violate the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and their human rights and dignity. In short, the parameters of the debate consist of choosing sides. No other option is given. No other participant in the conflict is presented.
In spite of all the vested foreign interests at work in the region, namely oil and arms, the entire discussion of the conflict centers on one of these two positions: either you are pro-Israel or pro-Arab.
This moralizing is the way the foreigners control the debate so that the actual causes are never allowed to surface. Israel’s national leaders can moralize about how inhumane Arab suicide bombers are; Palestinian leaders can moralize about how horrible Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is. The US State Department can moralize about Israel’s human rights record. The Jews in America are morally aligned with Israel; the countries of the Third World identify with the Arabs. The Europeans are perceived to be anti-Israel. The Christian fundamentalists in the US support Israel for moral reasons. The Israeli Left takes the high moral ground when it publicly condemns its own government for its treatment of the Palestinians. The Israeli Right waves a finger at Yasser Arafat and proclaims: “Arafat is not doing enough to stop terrorism.” The Palestinians claim Sharon is not "serious about peace" .
“The Palestinians must learn they will never achieve anything through violence,” says one group. “The Palestinians deserve their own state,” declares another
Yet with all this “morality” flying around, nobody ever points a finger at the foreign countries or accuses them of acting immorally by selling arms to Middle East dictators and exploiting the natural resources of the region.
Instead, people around the globe are told what to believe regarding the reason for the continuation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as if their opinions and feelings are actually relevant to what is happening on the ground.
This long-distance exercise in morality is what the media focus on when nothing much is happening in the region, to point out how important “peace in the Middle East” is for everyone. Yet the only thing about such stories that can be believed is that the continuation of the conflict is important to the media.
Why the Middle East conflict never gets solved
Everyone in the world is morally bound up with the Arab Israeli conflict. Yet can it be possible that the entire conflict is based on the lack of morality of one side or the other? Can all that has happened in the region over the past half century be the result of one people not behaving nicely toward the other? What other regional conflicts are defined in this way? What other regional conflicts continue for more than a half a century, look like they are finally being solved, and then come roaring back in the way the Middle East conflict has?
Let’s think for a moment, and ask: Do regional wars and conflicts continue for seven decades because one side isn’t acting nicely toward the other? Is the conflict’s existence merely due to the actions of each or both sides – the 5 million Jews and the 4 million Arabs – who simply don’t like each other?
Can that really be the answer?
That is certainly the way the mainstream press and the academic world present it. Oil and arms sales are never part of the explanation. How could so many newspapers and TV stations miss out on this side of the region’s affairs and focus solely on “new peace initiatives”?
One could argue, with justification, that the Israelis are not acting nicely toward the Palestinians – that they oppress them, restrict their movements, blow up their houses, etc. But that alone still doesn’t account for the continuation of the conflict. The Israelis are right when they argue that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and the Palestinian leadership hasn’t done enough to crack down on terrorism, but that too doesn’t explain why this 75-year-old conflict is still with us.
And while it may even be true that the Arabs don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, Israel doesn’t stop existing because of that. The refusal of the Arabs to recognize Israel’s existence is not the reason why the Middle East still festers.
So why has this conflict been going on for nearly a century?
Not only does the Middle East conflict continue to exist, it actually gets worse decade after decade. What other regional conflict actually looks like it is being solved, and then, 10 years later, returns to a state much worse than before?
What is special about the Middle East?
One unique thing about the Middle East conflict is that it is institutionalized.
Think of the annual budgets for all the organizations whose sole purpose is to do “Middle East moralizing.” How much does it cost to fund all the activist organizations, the lobby groups, the news publications, the charities, the think tanks which exist solely to cast blame on either the Israeli or Arab side?
The Middle East conflict is a “cottage industry” in the US and Europe. It isn’t that way with other regional conflicts. Why is it that way with this one?
The pro-Israel camp has its lobbies, organizations, think tanks, magazines, support groups, Internet user groups, etc. which put out one simple message: “The Arabs are wrong; we’re right. We are more morally upstanding than them.” The pro-Arab camp has its lobbies, organizations, think tanks, magazines, support groups, and Internet user groups which put out one simple message: “The Israelis are wrong; we’re right. We are more morally upstanding than them.”
Both sides are basically saying the same thing to the other side: “you’re morally deficient, you’re not acting nicely, and it is because of you that we don’t have a solution.”
What is incredible is that each side is right, and for the most part, each side’s argument is valid. Each side does do terrible things to the other, and both are morally deficient. Yet that still doesn’t account for the continued existence of the conflict.
Consider. The Arabs say: “The media in America is controlled by the Zionists and our side never gets a proper hearing,” while the pro-Israel camp says, “The media is anti-Israel.” Both claims have a basis of truth, yet they cancel each other out. The same is also true when the Palestinians claim that Israel is “denying the Palestinians a state.” The Israeli version is “The Arabs don’t recognize the Jewish state.” Two completely balanced arguments serve to keep the claims of both sides in perfect symmetry.
The media are responsible for promoting this “morality” aspect. If a politician in the US or Europe says: “I am disturbed by Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,” that becomes a media item, even though the statement had nothing to do with what happens on the ground.
Thousands of kilometers away, in Europe and the US, the Middle East conflict has a life of its own. The obsession that the mainstream media have about anything and everything to do with the Middle East proves that the mainstream media are responsible for sustaining it. The conflict would have faded away long ago, if it weren’t for this media attention.
This is important because, before we can look for a solution to the Middle East conflict, we need to determine why it exists in the first place.
Why should we support the establishment of a Palestinian state as a way to bring peace to the region if the lack of such a state is not the reason for the conflict? While it may be desirable to the Arabs to have a viable Palestinian state, and while the Palestinians certainly deserve their own national territory, we must ask ourselves: “Does the conflict exist just because the Palestinians don’t have their own state?”
Perhaps all those on the pro-Arab side should think about what would happen if a Palestinian state is created, yet doesn’t lead to prosperity and stability? The mere existence of a Palestinian state will not solve the regional conflict. Thus perhaps the absence of a Palestinian state is not the reason why peace does not exist today.
If the foreigners were truly interested in peace, and believed the creation of a Palestinian state would serve that goal, they would have forced Israel to accept it decades ago. They didn’t, and not because Israel controls the US political process, as some Arab intellectuals believe, but because they don’t want peace in the Middle East. That is why Arafat was allowed to funnel most of the $4 billion in foreign aid the Palestinian Authority received from 1993-2000 into 17 different security forces, rather than using the money for socio-economic development.
Compared to other regional conflicts caused by wrongs committed by one side on the other, the continued existence of the Middle East situation makes no sense. By now it should have either been resolved or have petered out.
Why does this problem never get solved?
Chapter Two
Israel is not the number one enemy of the Arabs
While Israel may be perceived as a threat to the Arab world, the actual threat comes from the foreigners who for decades have been corrupting Arab leaders and exploiting their nations’ natural resources. The foreigners are the reason the Palestinians has had such a miserable 50 years. Sometimes the foreigners keep Arabs and Palestinians oppressed via Israel, sometimes they do it on their own; the end result is the same – the Arabs get screwed.
It is foolish to blame Israel for the continued existence of the conflict. Israel had no reason to want to enflame the conflict with the first intifada, or the second one. The last thing Israel wants is for the whole world to be talking about how Israel must create a state for the Palestinians. Thus Israel has no reason to ignite the conflict.
Israel doesn’t keep the Arab-Israeli conflict simmering, and thus can’t be blamed for the instability in the Middle East. While what Israel may do to the Palestinians is wrong and harmful, it is not the reason the conflict continues.
So by blaming Sharon or the Likud party, the Arabs are playing right into the hands of the foreigners. The foreigners want all Arabs to focus their anger at Israel so they won’t catch on as to how the foreigners are controlling their nations’ resources and corrupting their leaders. The Middle East conflict began long before Sharon, the Likud or the West Bank settlements came into the picture. By having the Arabs focus on Israel as the culprit, nobody will look at the foreigners and realize the truth.
If Arabs want to know who their number one enemy is, they have to go right back to the beginning, when the foreigners first started to colonize the Middle East. While the formation of Israel was part of that colonizing effort, the Jews weren’t the ones who put the deal together. The Jewish people have also been used and exploited by the foreigners, but in different ways.
If the role of the foreigners in the Middle East was exposed, the Arabs could then choose between one of the other two sides: Israel or the foreigners.
Before making that decision, all Arabs, and especially the Palestinians, should remember that from 1948-1967, Israel was responsible for huge rises in the standard of living of the Israeli Arabs, just as it was with the West Bankers and Gazans from 1967-1992. Despite all the wrongs Israel may have committed against the Palestinians, then and now, the fact remains that the Israelis were the only non-Arab population interested in raising their standard of living and quality of life.
The foreigners – with all of their aid, peace plans, initiatives, road maps and UN refugee agencies – were never able to do that. For 50 years the Palestinian refugee problem remained unsolved because the foreign powers did not want it solved. Certainly Israel would have been in favor of putting the refugees in permanent homes, and would have done so if they had been permitted to. The foreigners didn’t let Israel do that, and instead had the UN administer the needs of the refugees so that the refugee problem would remain unsolved – all in order to keep the conflict alive.
So who is the true friend of the Arabs of Palestine, and who portrays themselves as such but keep the tragedy going, year in, year out? With which religion do Arabs have more in common, Judaism or Christianity? Who is better equipped to help the Palestinians develop their economy, Israelis or the foreigners?
To solve the conflict, both Arabs and Jews must realize that they are not each other’s number one enemy, and that a third element is the reason the regional conflict continues. If we want to solve this seemingly never-ending human tragedy we must first understand where it comes from, and why it is still here. Then we can prescribe a remedy.
To get that ball rolling, the Arabs must see that Israel isn’t responsible for creating the tension and hostility in the Middle East. It isn’t Israel which is keeping radical Arab leaders in business; Israel isn’t that powerful. The foreigners are bigger and stronger than Israel. If they wanted Israel to stop all settlement activity and withdraw to the 1967 border, they would have long ago forced Israel to do that. The existence of the settlements is the foreigners’ guarantee that there will always be a reason to shake a finger at Israel.
The foreigners never get tough with Israel because solving the conflict is not their end goal. If the western countries boycotted Israel economically, broke off diplomatic relations, and cut off foreign assistance, the Israeli national leadership would do anything the foreigners demanded. This doesn’t happen because the foreigners want the conflict to continue.
When Arabs accept the argument that “we hate America because of America’s support for Israel,” they are serving the foreign agenda. Arabs should hate America for what America has done to them directly – for corrupting Arab leaders, for keeping the Arab masses socially and economically backwards, for exploiting the Middle East’s natural resources, and for wasting the Arab nations’ financial resources on arms instead of regional economic development.
Jews and Arabs must realize that despite what foreign leaders say in public, the last thing they desire is peace in the Middle East. Since the first intervention by the British in the first decade of the 20th century, the primary cause of strife is the foreign elements and their desire to control the region’s natural resources.
The Arabs are not a threat to the State of Israel
For the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict the Israeli public has been told two lies: that the Arabs in general – and the Palestinians in particular – are a threat to the continued existence of the Jewish state, and that the reason there is no peace in the region is because the Arabs don’t “recognize” Israel.
Why would any country call its own existence into question by insisting that its neighbors acknowledge that it exists?
What it really means is that if an Arab country does acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, it can expect something in return. So if Israeli diplomatic strategists had been smart, decades ago they would have announced that, the Israeli government doesn’t acknowledge the existence of any Arab country. Then, if an Arab country decided to acknowledge Israel’s existence, and asked what Israel would give it in return, Israel could say, “Israel will acknowledge your country’s existence.” Instead, Israeli leaders called their own nation’s legitimacy into question by asking the Arabs to grant it legitimacy.
Israel is, therefore Israel is, and no recognition from any country – Arab or otherwise – is needed to confirm that fact. It matters not at all if Tunisia, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Libya, Syria or Iraq fails to acknowledge Israel’s existence. In the past half century, not only has Israel survived without her existence being acknowledged by the majority of the Arab world, it has flourished.
The claim that the Arabs threaten Israel’s existence is also wrong. Even if the Arab world wanted to destroy Israel, this doesn’t mean it can. Israel has the seventh largest military infrastructure in the world, and is technologically light years ahead of the Arab world. Despite Israel’s clear military superiority, its national leadership keeps the Israeli public focused on the “Arab threat” so that the Israelis will continue to believe they are embroiled in a conflict with the whole Arab world.
To dispel the notion that the Arabs are a threat to Israel, take a close look at any Arab country. They are usually overpopulated, undereducated, economically undeveloped, and led by a dictatorship. No Arab country is able to produce its own weapons. No Arab country possesses any significant technological abilities, or has any real political or economic influence in the world.
So why should Israelis be afraid of Arab nations?
The only reason why Arab dictators are feared by the Israeli public is because the world’s media present these dictators as “radicals” and “disturbers of regional peace” when in fact their nations are helpless, powerless, poor and weak.
Why should Israel fear that Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein could destroy or seriously harm the Jewish state when we know that all the weapons and military technology Iraq has acquired is from companies in the US, Britain, France, and Germany? If Israelis were to fear for their security, they should point a finger at these countries and accuse them of trying to destroy Israel by supplying military technology and weapons to “unstable” Arab dictators.
But that isn’t what the Israeli national leadership tells its citizenry. It tells them “Arabs want to destroy Israel” rather than direct their collective anger at the western countries that approved these weapons sales. By doing so, it keeps the Israeli public convinced that the Arabs are the reason why the conflict continues.
Another falsehood presented by Israel’s leaders – particularly those on the Right – is that if a Palestinian state were created it would promote terrorism and those terrorists would threaten the security of Israel. While terrorism is a problem for Israel, it doesn’t pose a threat to her existence.
And while the Palestinian Authority definitely promoted terrorism right from the start of the Oslo Accords, the terrorism never came anywhere near destroying the Jewish state.
Since the early 1980s, Israel’s leaders have been warning that Iran is “five years away from attaining nuclear weapons.” Twenty years later, on June 5, 2003, Israel’s foreign minister declared that “Iran would have Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by 2006.”
Why do Israeli national leaders try to scare the Israeli public into thinking the Arabs are a much bigger threat than they really are?
Homo Est Deus 