Historical conflict calls for nuanced strategy, not political rhetoric.
by Ish Theilheimer
Stephen Harper is sitting out this week’s United Nations General Assembly, though he found his way to New York to accept a “World Stateman” award delivered by Henry Kissinger. Meanwhile, the Canadian delegation to the UN is playing partisan games that aren't helpful to anyone — except maybe the Conservative Party’s efforts to win votes among evangelicals and in heavily Jewish ridings. So it's worth reviewing some of the history behind the global powder keg we call the Middle East.
I've had occassion to do so recently since coming by a copy of I Shall Not Hate, the 2010 book by Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, the "Gaza doctor" who came to world renown after three of his daughters and a niece were killed when Israeli army knowingly lobbed artillery shells at their home. The children’s deaths shocked the world, because the shelling was so deliberate and because Abuelaish was well known to the Israelis.
Despite this exceptional provocation, Abuelaish publicly refused to let the killings provoke him to hatred or revenge. In the book, he explains how he had developed his belief in conciliation. He grew up in a dirt-poor refugee in Gaza just 10 km from the prosperous farm his family had owned before Israel was established. Then the Palestinians were expelled or reduced to second-class status in their own land. Ironically, his family's farm was taken over by future Israeli Prime Minister and military commander Ariel Sharon.
Israel has real security concerns, but they are not helped by intransigence, bullying and carte-blanche approval from world leaders like Stephen Harper.
Abuelaish's book pushed me to retrace modern Middle Eastern history, as we take in the speeches and theatrics from the UN. This history begins with 19th-century colonization and the demolition of the Ottoman Empire. While the Empire had many faults, its destruction created a world of new problems. The conquering European colonizers carved up territories with an eye to economic exploitation, aided by creating maximum divisiveness between the local peoples, which often set up widespread murder of innocents.
Then the horrors of World War II shifted boundaries again across Europe and North Africa. Ultimately, the USA and USSR divided up maps across Europe and North Africa in new configurations, the United Nations passed a motion, and the State of Israel was thrust in the middle of Arab countries.
The idea of a Jewish state had been around since the last world war — well, since Exodus — and gained momentum after the Holocaust. But while the Green Line compromise ceasefire agreement that ended the 1948 war offered promise for one displaced and brutalized people, Jews, it created a whole new nation of displaced and brutalized people, Palestinians. The situation also created a list of grievances that have fueled the actions of the most radical elements on both sides of Israel's borders for six decades.
Radical actions from one side provoke radical actions on the other. Stone-throwing, missiles and other Palestinian protests have provoked Israel, supported by the wealthiest Western nations, into deliberately, punitively disproportionate responses, resulting in disasters like the slaughter of the Abulaish family.
Of course Israel has real security concerns, but they are not helped by intransigence, bullying and carte-blanche approval from world leaders like Stephen Harper on issues like Iran and Syria. A much more careful and balanced approach is needed to undo the damages and aftermath of colonialism and the complex and delicate relations between nations there.
Defusing the tension between the West and much of the Muslim world must begin with addressing the historic issues of Palestinians in a way that is fair to all the people on both sides of the divide. Israelis and Palestinians are all just people, Abuleaish tells us, and they're not personally responsible for the current mess. War cannot solve the problems. Only reconciliation can. Dealing with the real grievances of Palestinians will help dampen the global powderkeg.
US President Barack Obama appears to understand this history very well and is treading carefully, trying to make diplomacy and reconciliation work. Increasingly, he looks likely to be reelected, which will give him four years to work on unravelling the knots of bloodshed and hatred.
Even-handedness is what we need, but that is not what we're getting from Stephen Harper.
The immorality his government has shown over repatriating child solider Omar Khadr is shocking, defying the Supreme Court itself and, apparently, only taking Khadr back under US pressure.
Even-handedness is what we need, but not what we're getting from Stephen Harper.
About Ish Theilheimer
Ish Theilheimer is founder and president of Straight Goods News and has been Publisher of the leading, and oldest, independent Canadian online newsmagazine, StraightGoods.ca, since September 1999. He is also Managing Editor of PublicValues.ca. He lives wth his wife Kathy in Golden Lake, ON, in the Ottawa Valley.
eMail: ish@straightgoods.com
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US President Barack Obama appears to understand this history very well and is treading carefully, trying to make diplomacy and reconciliation work. Increasingly, he looks likely to be reelected, which will give him four years to work on unravelling the knots of bloodshed and hatred. REALLY? This paragraph shocked me!