One Arab World

We -- you, me, and the rest of the world -- have been voyeurs to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for a long time.

We have the privilege (most of us, at least) of watching it from afar, wistfully and (sometimes naively) wondering why it can't simply be resolved.

It can't be resolved so simply because it combines the complex factors of competing histories, blood, religion, and above all, land.

But what has made this conflict so different in the past year is that, by and large, both sides want it ended.

And, broadly speaking again, both sides have strikingly similar ideas of how to end it.

In simple terms, again, Israelis and Palestinians -- for different reasons -- have reached a level of political maturity almost unprecedented in the world of international conflict.

Israelis look set to elect a broadly centrist political movement to lead the country when they go to the polls in late March.

Palestinians went to the polls demanding their next government serve them better.

How the next Palestinian Cabinet will look is still unclear. We do not know if the mainstream Fatah movement will be forced to form a governing coalition with the more radical (and often rejectionist) Hamas movement. What we do know is that Israel, an otherwise familiar player in Palestinian political rhetoric, was largely a bit-part player in these elections.

Palestinians are growing weary of blaming all their ails on Israel.

They are politically savvy enough to know that for 10 years, their government didn't serve them as best it could.

Even under occupation, there are many things a government can do. It can improve education, raise living standards, strengthen internal security, operate in a transparent manner, and, above all, not steal from the public coffers.

On all these accounts, the Palestinian government under Fatah hasn't lived up to its potential.

And that's what would likely push Palestinian voters to punish the movement founded by the late Yasser Arafat.

At the same time, some Palestinians likely won't vote for Hamas because of the group's decade-long campaign of suicide bombs.

In fact, a recent poll taken by esteemed Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki concludes that, for the first time, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians oppose violent attacks against Israelis.

Thus, if Palestinians vote for Hamas in large numbers, it would signal desire for a change -- to see whether the Islamist movement can hold the dominant Fatah movement accountable for its actions.

Israel, of course, is worried about this. Hamas, at least officially, is committed to Israel's destruction. The group doesn't recognize Israel, and most of its top leaders have suggested they're not interested in negotiating peace with Israel.

But consider this: When Israelis voted for Ariel Sharon to lead their government in 2000, most of the Arab world was appalled.

They remembered Sharon as the general who led Israel's bloody and disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and the man who was a determined opponent of Palestinian self-determination.

But it wasn't an Israeli "peacenik" like Shimon Peres who withdrew Jewish settlers from occupied land.

It was Sharon who did it. And it was Sharon, more than any current Israeli politician, who brought the two parties closer to a two-state solution.

The question now, of course, is whether Israel's fears of a Hamas-heavy government will prove founded, or whether the group will provide a surprise of its own, and head to the negotiating table.

- Guy Raz for CNN

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I came away with something very interesting. In relation to my position of “sides” concerning the Palestinian Israeli issue I always thought of people that ask “What the hell are these people (both sides) fighting for?” as people that just don’t get it.

I mean people on my side are fighting for what they lost. Fighting for a home, a land, and self determination. Tangible soil, the (granted often hypothetical) groves of their fathers, and a truly irreplaceable haven stemmed from an historic lineage. Something you just can’t explain to someone that has it. How do you explain inherited concrete homes signed and allocated upon marriage to someone that can get up and move three or four times in a lifetime; you can’t.

The same goes for the Israelis. If I were a Jew I probably would have been just as adamant about Israel. A chance to live under their own rule after millennia of Diaspora and persecution? Of course I understand that inherent need; again the need for self determination. Simply taking it under the clause of a divine oration is wrong but that wouldn’t have mattered. History is written by the victors and in a few generations the way it was attained would be viewed with the same superficial remorse most Americans view the natives they dispersed.

Still I understand the position. I am also confident that there are many non extreme Israelis that genuinely understand the Arab position and visa versa. Everyone else just doesn’t get it.

So I thought.

After watching that movie (It might not have even been because of the actual movie, perhaps the setting that set the train of thought. Amazing what you pick up from Hollywood. This post is another good related example) I had this daunting Neo-figuring-out-the-Matrix feeling I couldn’t shake. What if we (the Arabs and the Jews) were the ones that didn’t get it? Securely wrapped in the confidence of our own self virtue what if we are the ignorant. What if there really is nothing worth fighting for.

People desire desire itself. Philosophy 101. What if we have succumbed to the actual desire of what it is we both cherish so dearly. What if there is a way to life, happy and fulfilled, detached from these desires. And if there is would we allow each other the perception of defeat in pursuit of such lives?

Round one has been over for decades. Israel isn’t going anywhere as reflected by every Arab faction that isn’t in denial. The Palestinians aren’t going anywhere either. I have argued before that there are only two ways this will end by the end of this round two. Round two dictates that neither side can let up. The moment one does it will be swept under. The alternative is a gradual psychological disarmament and coexistence.

I am now left with need to study the viability of this new alternative. Or maybe it’s nothing.

-Karim Elsahy

I rarely link to other people’s posts without context but this one by Dan Varisco, I feel, stands alone. It is sufficient to look at his blog title to gauge his understanding. It is easily the most simple and eloquently correct criticism and description of today’s Islam and Middle East I have ever heard. "Tabsir: Insight on Islam and the Middle East"

Tabsir is an Arabic word that means “waste in excess” usually used to describe excessive monetary waste by the ultra rich.

I never thought I would pray for Ariel Sharon but I do now. Not now. Not yet.

The edited and published version of the Chomsky interview can be found here. I have issues with the editorial process at Egypt Today; so much so that I almost quit after a mishap over last months column. I am also not the one that adds those little captions either.

“The man who’s a Zionist but stands up against Israeli policy in a no-holds-barred interview about democracy in the Middle East and the West’s role here” for example.