Tuesday, September 19, 2006
"Religious" conflicts in the Middle East - Part II
Here's the next installment of my rant on the Middle East
What changed after World War II?
The thing that made the region so much more volatile was the fact that on both the Israeli/Western and Arab sides of the subsequent conflict, there was a mass of dispossessed people willing and hoping to fight, funded by a few wealthy souls who are able to back continued conflict. On the Israeli side the dispossessed came in the form of wave after wave of post-Holocaust refugees, whose conquering initiatives are funded by wealthy American and "old money" Jews (and sometimes by non-Jews hungry to get a foothold on access to Arab oil fields). On the Arabs' side, oil money directly or indirectly maintained the myriad of resistance groups who had been dispossessed by the birth and aftermath of Israel.
If money isn't at fault here, what is?
What can be done?
Looking at the news, it looks very much like the mess in the Middle East is entirely intractable. Well, it is and it isn't. I think matters have now reached a stage where the "locals" probably could no longer bring about peace. This looks like one of those rare situations (the Balkans being the other example) where a solution must be imposed externally.
To that end, I suggest below a number of slightly mad solutions that will probably never happen.
First, diplomats should stop talking about a "two states solution". Instead, the Israelis and the Palestinians should be given two options: either they merge into a single state called "Israel and Palestine" with a government structure similar to post-Milosevic Bosnia or the "Stormont" solution in Northern Island, or they both lose sovereignty, with the entire area being under permanent international rule as a tribute to the spiritual and religious value of these lands.
Second, monies spent by the west on troops in the Middle East are much better spent on a new "Marshall Plan" to create jobs, build infrastructure. Only if people have real jobs does the opportunity cost of being a suicide bomber or a militant rise sufficiently significantly as to make it "unprofitable" for the disposssessed and their families.
Third, stop backing the various Arab sheikhs and let democracy truely develop in the Middle East. People have a right to choose extremists if they want. But even extremists like money. See "Marshall Plan" above to keep them happy. After all, even bin Laden was the west's friend when money flowed freely to him.
There are other similarly weird ideas but these three are so off the planet that they deserve mention more than anything else.
What changed after World War II?
The thing that made the region so much more volatile was the fact that on both the Israeli/Western and Arab sides of the subsequent conflict, there was a mass of dispossessed people willing and hoping to fight, funded by a few wealthy souls who are able to back continued conflict. On the Israeli side the dispossessed came in the form of wave after wave of post-Holocaust refugees, whose conquering initiatives are funded by wealthy American and "old money" Jews (and sometimes by non-Jews hungry to get a foothold on access to Arab oil fields). On the Arabs' side, oil money directly or indirectly maintained the myriad of resistance groups who had been dispossessed by the birth and aftermath of Israel.
If money isn't at fault here, what is?
What can be done?
Looking at the news, it looks very much like the mess in the Middle East is entirely intractable. Well, it is and it isn't. I think matters have now reached a stage where the "locals" probably could no longer bring about peace. This looks like one of those rare situations (the Balkans being the other example) where a solution must be imposed externally.
To that end, I suggest below a number of slightly mad solutions that will probably never happen.
First, diplomats should stop talking about a "two states solution". Instead, the Israelis and the Palestinians should be given two options: either they merge into a single state called "Israel and Palestine" with a government structure similar to post-Milosevic Bosnia or the "Stormont" solution in Northern Island, or they both lose sovereignty, with the entire area being under permanent international rule as a tribute to the spiritual and religious value of these lands.
Second, monies spent by the west on troops in the Middle East are much better spent on a new "Marshall Plan" to create jobs, build infrastructure. Only if people have real jobs does the opportunity cost of being a suicide bomber or a militant rise sufficiently significantly as to make it "unprofitable" for the disposssessed and their families.
Third, stop backing the various Arab sheikhs and let democracy truely develop in the Middle East. People have a right to choose extremists if they want. But even extremists like money. See "Marshall Plan" above to keep them happy. After all, even bin Laden was the west's friend when money flowed freely to him.
There are other similarly weird ideas but these three are so off the planet that they deserve mention more than anything else.
# posted by Damaskinos @ 3:57 pm 
