A glimmer of hope in the Middle East

Israeli settlers blocking the soldiers from serving
eviction notices. This is history in the making folks. Today is one of those days when my MSN homepage comes up and I realize I’m looking history right in the face. Perhaps I need to pay closer attention to the news, but it seems that Israel’s large-scale pullout from the Gaza Strip came with little fanfare but could truly be the beginning of a sea-change in international politics and the potential diminishing of terrorist activity around the globe.

Israel and the West Bank are the basis of most of the tension in the Middle East. While message after message coming to the U.S. from Al Qaeda reference their distaste with our “imperialistic” activities, the argument always seems to come down to the fact that we are supporting Israel, who in 1967 took the West Bank in a quick, yet bloody war. This left the entire Palestinian population without a nation to call home, giving rise to organizations of Arab decent who were acting out in order to secure a place to call their own once again.

This is the same reason that Iraq is such a hotbed of terrorist activity. It has always been home to those without a nation and the only reason there was any modicum of order in the past was because Saddam Hussein was keeping them all so repressed that they could not act out. Now that the United States is involved and trying to give people freedom and democracy, they are once again at liberty to fight and try to claim Iraq as their own. It’s a land of unwanted people who are forced from the neighboring countries of Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. I imagine that any of us would be very upset if we were forced to live Nomadic lives because Canada or Mexico invaded the U.S. and sent us from our homes. Not that that would happen. We love Canada and Mexico.

Every time we hear a message from the major terrorist groups, they always refer to the Zionists, and that always includes us. There is no reason why we should not support Israel and I am in complete agreement with our allegiance. What irritated me for so long was that neither Israel nor the Palestinians could ever sit down and agree on a solution. As a result, Israel held on to its “holy land” and the citizens could never ride public transit for fear of being blown up.

The whole argument of the “holy land” is one we could discuss for days, but for the most part it has the same effect of reverting to the Bible and the infallible word of God in any debate. Once you get to that point, you cannot continue the discussion because you are dealing with an argument that cannot be proven false, not because it’s airtight, but because there is no physical proof to debunk a mythical stance that anyone is prepared to rest on. Whether this area is actually the holy land or not can be debated, as there are no maps - only words that have been translated over and over. There are some remaining buildings, but every religion that lays claim to them came from the same roots and branched off in the ensuing centuries. We don’t live in the times we did when everything in the Bible supposedly happened word for word and because of the changing political climate of the world, concessions have to be made. Israel wasn’t even occupied by those who claimed it as their holy lands until Britain released the territory from their empire for the Jewish people after World War II so that another homeless people could have a place to live.

But after decades of fighting and terrorist attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has finally stepped up to the plate and taken on the tremendous political risk of vacating the West Bank. I am incredibly proud of him since now we can see the beginnings of work for peace. Of course his own people will be very upset, and already widespread protests and mob activity have put his career, and even his life, at risk. But you cannot please all the people all the time, and if things continue along these lines, then time will remember the peace we were afforded by this brave move and will wash over the pain inflicted by evacuating the Jewish settlers.

We’re all stuck here on this planet folks. Until we can colonize Mars, we have to live with each other. Just like a college dorm mate who draws a line down the center of the room, we have to work with each other and share the same pieces of dry land that we have been afforded. It’s not worth killing innocent people, and it’s not worth watching innocent people die. The holy lands and all religions are based on happenings from centuries ago, but we are living in the now and people cannot continue to die in the name of things that happened so long ago that we can’t even verify their accuracy. Let’s all hope and pray that the process that is now beginning in Israel can continue to a more peaceful future.