I get confused easily. I know I do. But some situations are just designed to confuse me more than others. And any situation which involves two suprisingly similar peoples striving head to head for mutual destruction is guarenteed to confuse me most of all.
Make no mistake - the Palestinian/Isreally conflict is nothing to do with Jews and Arabs, though many would love you to believe so. It is about land grabbing colonialism where one side wants what the other side has, for the moment.
In this sort of situation, rediculous action appears to require over zealous reaction. We steal your soldier - you bomb the hell out of us. You shoot our leader, we blow up your busses. And the spectators of the world, the countires and organisations and charities just stand on the sidelines shouting foul.
Is there a solution here? Of course there is! Stop fighting, go home, feed your families, do business with each other. The Israelies and the Arabs are some of the oldest and most successful traders in the world. Maybe even the most devious, from time to time. They should be making fortunes from each other and anyone that passes by. That is what they do - that is what they have ever done. Unfortunately, they also seem to take pleasure in killing each other. It is not logical. The history behind it leaps from one momentous piece of bad logic to another. It is 3000 plus years of stumbling round idealism, slavery and biggotry. And yet, you only have to look at them to be able to say, "You are brothers really, aren't you?"
And maybe that is the problem - for no war is as bitter as the one that is between brothers!
Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor...
