Looking at an old man’s face, what does one see? One might see a total absence of hope. I do, when I look at this man. I think I can see the entire Palestinian frustration – over Israel’s perpetual abuse of this man’s dignity – lurking in every crease of his skin.
Yesterday Barack Obama vented his opinion in the press about the hopes he has for an independent Palestine. Obama sees a future where the Israeli – Palestinian conflict is resolved and where two independent states exist next to each other: Israel and Palestina.
By saying this, Obama shows himself to be a brave man, because all his predecessors in the white house, who ever put any effort into this hopelessly lost cause, have ended up without even the slightest sustained result. Momentarily, the middle-east is no closer to a substantial peace than it was 30 years ago.*
What does the old man above hide in his distant gaze? He must have seen many years of toe-curling injustice, done to him, his family and his people, for the many years the Israeli have been occupying his land. This man looks as if he doesn’t expect to see a better life in the proximity of his Israeli suppressors. And I think he is right.
To my opinion, an independent Palestina will never come, because Israel will never cooperate with its formation. It does not even matter how instrumental such an independent Palestina is for Israel’s own safety. Cooperating would cost too much. It would require Israel to take a more active role in the removal of Jewish settlements from stolen land; in practice, to use violence against their own people. And anyone who thinks that this is a probable option, is naive to say the least.
The Israeli policy of stealing land from its neighbours will continue far into the future. The reason is simple: the Israeli-Jews think that they are better than – and superior to – the Palestinian-Muslim. It even says so in their scriptures. If there is one thing that sticks out like a sore, throbbing red thumb, than it is the special place the Jews think they have in this world…. they are, according to themselves, The Chosen People.** Apart from the obvious – and in history abundantly recorded – problems one can expect to result from such an Übermensch-attitude, one of them seems rather obvious: “Who is going to tell the Jews, or better said, Israel, to lay off and leave the Palestinians alone? Certainly not an inferior Christian president.
The conflict over land and resources (… like water…) will continue to exist for as long as three rabidly adversarial religions in the middle east area will have a foothold there. Seen in that light, it gets even sadder: there was a god, as the story goes, who was hanging out in the deserts of Palestina many years ago. He spawned three religions: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. All three are as intolerant, evil and violent as their god is. So how can anyone expect the people who are adhering to these faiths, to live together in peace?
I don’t. I am quite certain that the middle-east will remain as volatile and as dangerous as it became the moment the Jews started stealing land from the Palestinians. The conflicts are over resources as well as religion. With this deadly cocktail, there is no hope for these people.
*) What must be said though, is that Obama sticks his nose into this precarious middle-east thing in the first phases of his presidency. His predecessors only did this at the end of their service-periods, when a screw-up could not contaminate the rest of the presidential term any more. And this in a time where crisis is stacked upon crisis: financial, middle-eastern, Korean, Iranian and Guantanamon; the list is no child’s-play. I must admit, Obama’s shoes are certainly NOT the ones I’d want to find myself in.
**) Many problems would be solved if the Jews admitted to the fact that they are normal, straight off the shelve, out of the box people, just like everyone else.
