Yus,
This is Friedman at his best: lucid and cutting through the crap with
candour and humour.
Friedman is right to point out that as it stands, both sides are at fault
and deserve our unreserved condemnation for both the incursions and the
suicide bombings. More importantly, Friedman is right to say that the
current crisis has reached a point where an outside imperium, especially a
US one, is the only conceivable way to cool tempers and isolate the
radicals, maniacs and terrorists on both sides; and help political
moderation take it's course, whereby a somewhat 'just' settlement can be
reached by both sides. I doubt, however, if anything remotely resembling a
'just' settlement can be reached which would leave both sides happy with
their eventual lot. Where emotions are embedded in a dispute, and where the
'you are wrong and i'm right' mindset dominates the discourse of such
disputes, a brutal tradeoff - as the Israeli/Palestine issue would
invariably need to see off a kind of 'just' settlement - will always leave
residues of emotions of betrayal, disillusionment and disenchantment with
whatever 'just' settlement that political moderation ends up being bringing
forth. This, however, shouldn't negate attempts by moderate voices to get
both sides to start talking to each other - in the name of ending the
current vicious cycle of violence, and seek political solutions to their
differences.
Let's face it: Israel is a fait accompli; it is not going anywhere away from
the Middle East - unless, of course, you nuke the Jews out of existence.
Arab leaderships should courageously step forward - as the Saudis did most
recently - and prepare Arab public opinion for a Jewish state amongst them
in their sub-region. Arab public opinion must now mature to accept a Jewish
state in their midst - the 1960s Arab mindset of obliterating Jews out of
existence in the sub-region as a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict is a no-brainer and can only lengthen the current political
stalemate and vicious cycle of violence. Most importantly, ALL Arabs must
unequivocally renounce violence, especially barbaric and uncivilised ones
like suicide bombers, as a means to achieving political ends in Palestine.
Likewise, Jews should stop ALL illegal settlements currently going on and
those Palestinian areas already illegally settled on by Jews. The
terroristic attacks by the IDF on innocent Palestinians and the everyday
harrassments at checkpoints of Arabs should stop forthwith. Jews should
prepare themselves for and accept an inevitable independent and sovereign
Palestine, where Palestinians go about their daily routines without the
everyday humiliations they are subjected to everyday by an illegally
occupying IDF. Anything short of these basics would reduce peace to a mere
chimera. Attitudes and mindsets simply have to change on both sides - peace
won't come through cutting corners by using violence to terrorise,
intimidate and humiliate in order to set your terms of peaceful
co-existence.
Let me take this opportune moment as a Muslim and say what virtually every
Muslim pundit that graces the debates on the current Israeli/Palestinian
crisis on 24 hour newswires is loath to say. I categorically condemn the
barbaric and ghastly suicide bombings that Arab terrorists engage in against
innocent Isrealis. Not only are these suicide bombings against every letter
and spirit of the Islamic faith, it morally undermines the legitimate cause
of Palestinians in their quest for decency and justice. More to the point:
as Friedman observed, regardless of the rationale or how you wish to slice
the motivations of those behind these suicide bombings, it doesn't negate
the simple fact that these people are engaging in barbaric and ghastly
terrorist acts, which, most of the time, are against the young, aged and the
vulnerable amongst the Israeli populace. Where it is more worrying,
horrifying and even ghastly is when young teenage girls are exhorted on the
grounds of "matyrdom" to "sacrifice" themselves for the cause. Where did the
spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Yasin, read that from? Presumably not from
the Qur'an. These exhortations of Arab leaderships to teenage girls to
engage in suicide bombings are just akin to the pre- Islamic Arabian
cowardly acts like men burying their baby daughters on socio-economic
grounds. It ought to be categorically condemned by any Muslim worth his
salt, especially those who know the true teachings of our Holy Prophet,
Muhammad (PBUH).
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