Greek Samarian tragedy

Judea and Samaria, the Occupied Territories and the West Bank are three names that describe the complex reality of almost 6,000 square meters of rolling hills punctuated by gentle slopes.  Of all issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is the true Gordian knot, almost irresolvable.

The names reflect the strong emotions attached to this area.  For religious Jews and fervent Zionists, it an integral part of Israel and a homeland, inhabited by Jews as early as there were Jews.  Israel without it is a shadow of itself. For Palestinians, it is their land slowly and unremittingly being usurped by Israeli colonists.  As much as Jerusalem, it is the core of Palestine as they see it. Geographically, it is a beautiful landscape matched by its gentle climate, warm during the day and cool and night. In short, it is a beautiful place prized by conflicting parties.

A naïve person would say that there is plenty of land for everybody.  95% of the population there (and everywhere) simply want to make a living, raise their family and live in peace. With such a preference for pacifism, it would seem obvious that neighbors of different faiths could live in reasonable harmony as they do in the Galilee.

Alas, each side fundamentally wants the other side to disappear, one way or another. This hope for total victory, however improbable, opens the field to extremists among Moslems and Jews to call for hate and violence. The result is absurd: Jewish settlements and Palestinian villages adjoining each other but without relations of any kind due to the heavy distrust of each other. Not only that, a mythical return to the pre-1967 borders is as realistic as a return to pre-Cromwell borders in Ireland.

In my view it is a human tragedy above all. As is generally true in the Middle East, there are no angels and devils in this story, merely two groups of people justifiably insisting on their right to reside in the land of their forefathers. As for the solution, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the answer is blowing in the wind of those beautiful but contested hills.

Victory, Defeat and the Middle East

The Middle East is truly difficult for the Western World to understand.  It seems familiar and similar,  but peculiar and annoying differences keep on popping up.  For example, there are two words existing in all languages (to the best of my knowledge) with clear meanings: victory and defeat.   In regards to war, if your armed forces can or do take over the enemy’s territory, you win.  If you have to ask for mercy, you lose.  Every kid who ever had a fight in the schoolyard understands that.

However, in the Middle East, the words have become confused.  In 1948, 1956, and 1967, both Israelis and Arabs agree that the former won and the latter lost. Since then, Lewis Caroll has taken over, i.e. a word means what I intend it to mean.  In 1973, Egypt and Syria had to run to Russia and the UN and ask for a ceasefire because Israel had wide open roads to Cairo and Damascus.   Curiously enough, Israelis view the Yom Kippur War as a great defeat while the Egyptians regularly celebrate the anniversary of the great victory.  In the first and second Lebanese wars (the former officially known as Peace in the Galilee Campaign), the Palestinians and Hezbollah were forced to retreat, to the sea in the former case, granted while causing quite a few casualties for the Israelis.   Again, the sides seem to view the matter inversely, with the Israelis very uncomfortable with the memory of the conflict and the former two groups proud of their resistance. 

The latest of chapter of  this Go reversal game is the most recent tit-for-tat exchange in Gaza, otherwise known as the Pillar of Cloud operation, which ended some two weeks ago.  The Palestinians objectively were extremely unsuccessful in their goal of killing civilians while the Israeli air force destroyed most of their planned targets with minimum collateral damage, as civilian casualties are euphemistically called.  Predictably, Israelis are uneasy with the result while the Palestinians are celebrating their phantom victory, i.e. the vague promise to talk about opening borders.

Clausewitz wrote that war is another means of diplomacy.  I suppose that the claimed victories and defeats are actual if you taken into account the political goals of the parties.  Still, as Orwell suggested, the complete misuse of words eventually strips them of all of their meaning, especially in the Middle East.