As Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas meet in Washington to forge the outlines of yet another Middle East peace process, I marvel at the strength of hope within the human spirit. Even if I could forget the fact that the roots of their feud trace back to the time of Ishmael, some four thousand years ago, I can’t ignore the reality that for the last sixty years or so they have been fighting for control of a certain piece of real estate.
When the Jews were given the opportunity to settle in Palestine in 1948, they were overjoyed not because of its sandy beaches and warm Mediterranean breezes. There were no lush valleys bursting forth with generous produce to lure them. Unlike the surrounding deserts, there was no black gold bubbling just below the surface, waiting to be sold to an oil-hungry world. The one thing that drew them back like moths to a flame was a (then) modest little city on a hill called Jerusalem.
To the victors go the spoils, history teaches, so those who won the conflagration known as WWII decided among themselves to grant the Jews their fondest desire in reparation for the atrocities visited upon them by those who lost the war. The Palestinians didn’t exactly lose the war, but they were occupying territory controlled by the losers, so they lost by default, apparently. The indigenous Arab population, largely Muslim, fractionally Christian, had been minding their own business, doing whatever it is people do who live in mostly barren desert since the time of the last Crusade.
The Arabs probably would still be doing their own thing, unnoticed by the rest of the world, except that the Allied powers (the victors,) started shipping boatloads of displaced Jews to the Palestinian beaches. Those Jews had been saying for centuries at their annual Seder feast, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Suddenly, it was “next year.” So, led by men with biblical names like Sharon, Ben-Gurion and Mayer, they stormed the little city on a hill and made it their own – almost. Like their biblical predecessors in Joshua’s day, they never quite took complete control, and like that earlier time in history, the seeds were planted for ongoing conflict. The Jews long to rebuild their one and only temple on the second most sacred spot in the Islamic faith, a spot they have yet to wrest from Arab hands.
Hence the magnitude of the problem Obama faces. Since he can’t fix the economy, end the war, or convince the country that nationalized health care is a good thing, he’s decided to join the fraternity of Presidents who want Middle East peace recorded as their legacy. If he succeeds at all, the result will doubtless resemble his health care reform: forcefully imposed and generally unsatisfying. The little mountain where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac and where the Judeo-Roman conspiracy thought they solved their problem with one Jesus of Nazareth remains a focal point of historic significance. On a personal level in dusty Palestine or dirty Dearborn, Muslims and Christians can get along. But to bring these two peoples together as nations, as religions is a Gordian knot which outmatches even Barak Obama’s considerable cleverness.
When the Jews were given the opportunity to settle in Palestine in 1948, they were overjoyed not because of its sandy beaches and warm Mediterranean breezes. There were no lush valleys bursting forth with generous produce to lure them. Unlike the surrounding deserts, there was no black gold bubbling just below the surface, waiting to be sold to an oil-hungry world. The one thing that drew them back like moths to a flame was a (then) modest little city on a hill called Jerusalem.
To the victors go the spoils, history teaches, so those who won the conflagration known as WWII decided among themselves to grant the Jews their fondest desire in reparation for the atrocities visited upon them by those who lost the war. The Palestinians didn’t exactly lose the war, but they were occupying territory controlled by the losers, so they lost by default, apparently. The indigenous Arab population, largely Muslim, fractionally Christian, had been minding their own business, doing whatever it is people do who live in mostly barren desert since the time of the last Crusade.
The Arabs probably would still be doing their own thing, unnoticed by the rest of the world, except that the Allied powers (the victors,) started shipping boatloads of displaced Jews to the Palestinian beaches. Those Jews had been saying for centuries at their annual Seder feast, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Suddenly, it was “next year.” So, led by men with biblical names like Sharon, Ben-Gurion and Mayer, they stormed the little city on a hill and made it their own – almost. Like their biblical predecessors in Joshua’s day, they never quite took complete control, and like that earlier time in history, the seeds were planted for ongoing conflict. The Jews long to rebuild their one and only temple on the second most sacred spot in the Islamic faith, a spot they have yet to wrest from Arab hands.
Hence the magnitude of the problem Obama faces. Since he can’t fix the economy, end the war, or convince the country that nationalized health care is a good thing, he’s decided to join the fraternity of Presidents who want Middle East peace recorded as their legacy. If he succeeds at all, the result will doubtless resemble his health care reform: forcefully imposed and generally unsatisfying. The little mountain where Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac and where the Judeo-Roman conspiracy thought they solved their problem with one Jesus of Nazareth remains a focal point of historic significance. On a personal level in dusty Palestine or dirty Dearborn, Muslims and Christians can get along. But to bring these two peoples together as nations, as religions is a Gordian knot which outmatches even Barak Obama’s considerable cleverness.
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