Another Ceasefire
The fifth of this latest series of ceasefires, no less. Serious, this time, since blockades are lifted, barricades dismantled and abductees exchanged. Gunmen have come down from their aeries on rooftops. Anxious Egyptian mediators are encouraged by this apparent heeding of their calls to reason. Hamas and Fatah, at least for the moment, are no longer killing one another's armed factions. They are conjoined as a political entity, but snarlingly, and intermittently. Their militias are given to deadly sniping at intermittent intervals in reflection of their political heads.
This is the culture, the history, the lifestyle of the Palestinians. That indomitable people whom their geographic Arab counterparts could never quite govern. That indomitable people which has always agitated for their total autonomy, suffering under one hostile occupation after another; previously by other Arab countries designing to integrate that territory into their own. And latterly by Israel, seeking to protect itself and its citizens from the territorial hatred of the Middle East as expressed and encouraged by the larger population. The Palestinian 'resistance', encouraged and funded by its neighbours is a difficult juggernaut to dismantle.
In their diaspora they are viewed by their neighbouring Arab countries as a malaise, an irritating presence, an imminent conflagration, to be used and abused. Originally encouraged to represent an ongoing guerrilla threat to the State of Israel, rather than accept the UN-sponsored partition of that relatively insignificant land mass for the entirety. Which had been denied them by their helpful neighbours before 1948, they became a festering failure and a significant hazard in their physical presence to others: Jordan which waged a war against their restively pathetic presence in camps inside its borders; Lebanon which marginalized and detested them in their squalid helplessness.
Time expunges nothing; certainly not the lividly living angst of determined revenge which grows and feeds upon itself to the extent that human rationality completely evaporates in the headier fumes of deadly hatred. But then, hatred and the triumph of delivering warm lives into the arms of the Angel of Death has long been a signature of the Middle East in their cult of tribal antagonisms, revenge and hate. While, at long last, it would appear that most of the Arab counties of the region are resigned to the presence of Israel in their midst, it is difficult to undo that which has been long encouraged, defended and demanded; its extermination.
Fatah and Hamas as deadly opponents while construing their mission as the ultimate defence of the geography from the imperialist invader, and the defense of the Palestinian population, indulging in an orgy of murdering one another. Hamas perhaps more cunning, attempting to deflect Fatah's attention from its intent to expunge Hamas and reminding Fatah that they are both neglecting their sworn duty to destroy Israel. Hamas launching taunts against Israel's vulnerable population to entice Israel to engage, hoping for a similar outcome to last summer's Hezbollah taunts.
And here is Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit calling on Israel "not to attack the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: because that 'creates tensions between the Palestinians and speeds the resumption of clashes". Oh. Israel defending its people from Qassam rockets isn't helpful to the resumption of brotherly engagement between Hamas and Fatah. The end result being that they then instill terror in their own people, not Israel's. Alternately, he called upon Palestinian militants to halt rocket fire against the Jewish state, reminding them of "Israel's military supremacy".
Oh. Not reminding them that their higher purpose is in reaching an accord for peace, to achieve the potential and final reality of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel. On the other hand, perhaps he well knew of what he spoke; to fashion his argument in those terms would certainly prove to be unproductive.
This is the culture, the history, the lifestyle of the Palestinians. That indomitable people whom their geographic Arab counterparts could never quite govern. That indomitable people which has always agitated for their total autonomy, suffering under one hostile occupation after another; previously by other Arab countries designing to integrate that territory into their own. And latterly by Israel, seeking to protect itself and its citizens from the territorial hatred of the Middle East as expressed and encouraged by the larger population. The Palestinian 'resistance', encouraged and funded by its neighbours is a difficult juggernaut to dismantle.
In their diaspora they are viewed by their neighbouring Arab countries as a malaise, an irritating presence, an imminent conflagration, to be used and abused. Originally encouraged to represent an ongoing guerrilla threat to the State of Israel, rather than accept the UN-sponsored partition of that relatively insignificant land mass for the entirety. Which had been denied them by their helpful neighbours before 1948, they became a festering failure and a significant hazard in their physical presence to others: Jordan which waged a war against their restively pathetic presence in camps inside its borders; Lebanon which marginalized and detested them in their squalid helplessness.
Time expunges nothing; certainly not the lividly living angst of determined revenge which grows and feeds upon itself to the extent that human rationality completely evaporates in the headier fumes of deadly hatred. But then, hatred and the triumph of delivering warm lives into the arms of the Angel of Death has long been a signature of the Middle East in their cult of tribal antagonisms, revenge and hate. While, at long last, it would appear that most of the Arab counties of the region are resigned to the presence of Israel in their midst, it is difficult to undo that which has been long encouraged, defended and demanded; its extermination.
Fatah and Hamas as deadly opponents while construing their mission as the ultimate defence of the geography from the imperialist invader, and the defense of the Palestinian population, indulging in an orgy of murdering one another. Hamas perhaps more cunning, attempting to deflect Fatah's attention from its intent to expunge Hamas and reminding Fatah that they are both neglecting their sworn duty to destroy Israel. Hamas launching taunts against Israel's vulnerable population to entice Israel to engage, hoping for a similar outcome to last summer's Hezbollah taunts.
And here is Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit calling on Israel "not to attack the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: because that 'creates tensions between the Palestinians and speeds the resumption of clashes". Oh. Israel defending its people from Qassam rockets isn't helpful to the resumption of brotherly engagement between Hamas and Fatah. The end result being that they then instill terror in their own people, not Israel's. Alternately, he called upon Palestinian militants to halt rocket fire against the Jewish state, reminding them of "Israel's military supremacy".
Oh. Not reminding them that their higher purpose is in reaching an accord for peace, to achieve the potential and final reality of a separate Palestinian state alongside Israel. On the other hand, perhaps he well knew of what he spoke; to fashion his argument in those terms would certainly prove to be unproductive.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Middle East, Realities
posted by Pieface | 6:17 PM
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