The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My...?
August 4th 2008 23:20
Maybe all the Israeli need is for the Palestinians to be the lesser of two evils.
Ok, maybe not true. But maybe what the Israeli’s needed was for one group of Palestinians to be less threatening than another and for that group to be just as scared of the radicals as the Israeli people are. For the uninitiated the Palestinian can be organised into roughly two political groups: the radicalised Hamas rules the Gaza Strip and the more moderate Fatah are nominally in control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. And sandwiched in between? Israel. At least since Israel was created in the late 1940’s.
There has always been a little tension between the two racial groups. Well, to be fair, the Palestinians had their land taken away to give the Jewish people somewhere to live. But, on the other hand, the Jewish people get their property rights from... well, the Bible. I’m not sure which trumps which on this occasion. But the point is that for around 60 years the two groups have been in a struggle that has not just been between them, but has involved most of the other playmaker countries in the world at one point or another. People have tried to fix it. Some have almost succeeded. But inevitably they have failed.
The last few months, however, have seen a bit of a shift in the status quo of the conflict. Sure, the Israeli’s still occupy a whole lot of Palestinian land (or Palestinians occupy Israeli land, as I said, the property rights aren’t exactly clear). But a strange thing has happened: the Israeli’s are actually HELPING Palestinians stay safe from their own people. Palestinians aligned with Fatah who were living on the Gaza Strip had fled persecution at the hands of Hamas militants into Israel, preferring to take their chances with their historical enemies than with their own radicalised ethnic brood. The first instinct of the Israeli’s? Well, put them back in Gaza of course! What do you expect? Sending them back where they came from is probably the most sensible thing to do when Palestinians illegally enter Israel from the Gaza Strip.
But a funny thing happened: they didn’t send them back. In a rare show of logic amidst a fight that has been going back and forth for half a century, the Israeli’s listened to the Palestinians. And they sent them to Fatah-controlled territory, dropping 87 refugees off in the West Bank town of Jericho. Another 60 refugees were sent back to Gaza when they were listed as a security risk, and so pro-Palestinian partisans aren’t likely to see this as a complete victory. After all, the Israeli’s ultimately made a choice about who would be able to live free or risk death.
But for realists, this could be considered a big win. After making up their mind to send the whole lot of them back to Gaza, the Israeli’s changed their minds and moved over half to safety on the West Bank. The Israeli army was complicit in lifting 87 Palestinian refugees to safety, showing a spirit of cooperation with the moderate Palestinians of the Fatah Party. Maybe the Israeli’s feel that they know what it’s like to be attacked by Hamas. Maybe they empathise. Either way, the Israeli’s did the right thing and in the course of doing the right thing they may have sparked a new sense of cooperation between the two groups. If Fatah and Israel can find some common ground the road to negotiations will be flung wide open. It will be to the exclusion of Hamas, but let’s be honest: a radical group that thrives on terror shouldn’t be allowed to have a substantive role in a conflict this volatile anyway.
On this Tuesday morning I say thank you to Israel for proving that there can be a sense of basic human decency in this conflict. And here is to hoping that this spirit of cooperation can be put to good use with Fatah and Israel getting together to work out how to stop Hamas. And after that, who knows? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And friends? Friends can negotiate.
Ok, maybe not true. But maybe what the Israeli’s needed was for one group of Palestinians to be less threatening than another and for that group to be just as scared of the radicals as the Israeli people are. For the uninitiated the Palestinian can be organised into roughly two political groups: the radicalised Hamas rules the Gaza Strip and the more moderate Fatah are nominally in control of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. And sandwiched in between? Israel. At least since Israel was created in the late 1940’s.
There has always been a little tension between the two racial groups. Well, to be fair, the Palestinians had their land taken away to give the Jewish people somewhere to live. But, on the other hand, the Jewish people get their property rights from... well, the Bible. I’m not sure which trumps which on this occasion. But the point is that for around 60 years the two groups have been in a struggle that has not just been between them, but has involved most of the other playmaker countries in the world at one point or another. People have tried to fix it. Some have almost succeeded. But inevitably they have failed.
The last few months, however, have seen a bit of a shift in the status quo of the conflict. Sure, the Israeli’s still occupy a whole lot of Palestinian land (or Palestinians occupy Israeli land, as I said, the property rights aren’t exactly clear). But a strange thing has happened: the Israeli’s are actually HELPING Palestinians stay safe from their own people. Palestinians aligned with Fatah who were living on the Gaza Strip had fled persecution at the hands of Hamas militants into Israel, preferring to take their chances with their historical enemies than with their own radicalised ethnic brood. The first instinct of the Israeli’s? Well, put them back in Gaza of course! What do you expect? Sending them back where they came from is probably the most sensible thing to do when Palestinians illegally enter Israel from the Gaza Strip.
But a funny thing happened: they didn’t send them back. In a rare show of logic amidst a fight that has been going back and forth for half a century, the Israeli’s listened to the Palestinians. And they sent them to Fatah-controlled territory, dropping 87 refugees off in the West Bank town of Jericho. Another 60 refugees were sent back to Gaza when they were listed as a security risk, and so pro-Palestinian partisans aren’t likely to see this as a complete victory. After all, the Israeli’s ultimately made a choice about who would be able to live free or risk death.
But for realists, this could be considered a big win. After making up their mind to send the whole lot of them back to Gaza, the Israeli’s changed their minds and moved over half to safety on the West Bank. The Israeli army was complicit in lifting 87 Palestinian refugees to safety, showing a spirit of cooperation with the moderate Palestinians of the Fatah Party. Maybe the Israeli’s feel that they know what it’s like to be attacked by Hamas. Maybe they empathise. Either way, the Israeli’s did the right thing and in the course of doing the right thing they may have sparked a new sense of cooperation between the two groups. If Fatah and Israel can find some common ground the road to negotiations will be flung wide open. It will be to the exclusion of Hamas, but let’s be honest: a radical group that thrives on terror shouldn’t be allowed to have a substantive role in a conflict this volatile anyway.
On this Tuesday morning I say thank you to Israel for proving that there can be a sense of basic human decency in this conflict. And here is to hoping that this spirit of cooperation can be put to good use with Fatah and Israel getting together to work out how to stop Hamas. And after that, who knows? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And friends? Friends can negotiate.
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Comment by TimmyH
Tech News
Can you HACK it?
Genyration
By sheer numbers, if every Jew voted for a Jewish representative and ever Arab voted for an Arab representative the Arabs in the united state would control a majority.
Then they could destroy all the settlements and make the whole country a little bit more peaceful...
Then again maybe I'm full of crap and they'd throw all the Jews into camps...Not twice in a Centruy surely!!!
Comment by Paul Bleakley
Agent Politics
Although if recent trends are anything to go by, the last time the Palestinians in the region had a vote, we got a Hamas government.
Democracy is like that. Buyer beware!
Comment by RubySoho
Music Zone
Thought Zone
Good point. So then let's continue to deprive the Palestinians of their basic human rights.
That'll teach 'em.
Comment by Paul Bleakley
Agent Politics
The last time the Palestinians had a democratic vote, Hamas came to power.
The Palestinians deserve basic human rights and full suffrage but if trends are anything to go by the Israeli's would be in for a world of trouble if a radical group like Hamas was elected to the government of all of Israel.