Middle East Gang Warfare

Once again President Obama has shown his inestimable skill as a community organizer. His detractors may have been too hasty in condemning his lack of foreign policy experience. I do not claim to know what he really thinks, but it would be understandable if he looks at the troubles in the Middle East as a gang conflict. Since he cut his political teeth on Chicago's south side, one assumes he has experience with gangs. Voila: foreign policy experience.

The President may be onto something. The parallels to gang culture are striking. The typical gang and the factious parties in the Middle East both serve as their societies' organizing forces, much as family does in other places. Both lay claim to certain territory as rightfully theirs. Both usually involve acts of violence to prove one's loyalty and commitment. Both demand ultimate allegiance. Both have aspects of positive community building alongside the dreadful violence that dominates their public face. Both are fatally intolerant of any view but their own. Many think both stem from the boredom and perceived disenfranchisement of impressionable young men.

Perhaps the President's Chicago style approach has been to let the gangs fight it out to see who is the strongest, then work with the winner to create a livable situation. A wait-and-see attitude seems to have characterized his response to Iran, Egypt, Libya and Syria. Maybe his delay was caused by the uncertainty in his "community." US voters are not uniform in what they want in the way of "organization." Then too, many US citizens question the need for any involvement in the Middle East at all.

Whatever the President is thinking, his new stance concerning the conflict with Israel and the Palestinians seems stunningly ignorant. The so-called two state solution cannot work unless one of the parties surrenders claim to the temple mount in Jerusalem. I suspect it will snow in Hades before that happens. Making Israel return to pre-1967 War boundaries as a prerequisite to negotiation asks one "gang" to abandon their corner unilaterally. Netanyahu would be run out of the country if he agreed to that. Finally, it is lunacy to imagine that Hamas will put aside their blood feud with Israel just because they are asked nicely. The President has a better chance for a hole-in-one on a par five than seeing all this come about.

For a fuller explanation of why Obama's approach is fruitless, I invite you to follow the link to my blog from last September. Briefly, one might say peace in the Middle East just isn't in the cards. The roots of the conflict run not centuries, but millennia deep. Believing history has a planned and orchestrated end helps, but it gives few clues as to how to navigate the stormy seas of our generation. One thing does seem certain: whether you believe Israel has a divinely ordained place in history or not, democratic Israel is our ally. Obama's speech this week appears to throw Israel under the bus. You don't have to be John Hagee to know that's just not right.