How To Deal With The Enemy

The East is big, really big on saving face. China takes huge umbrage at perceived slights. That's the Far East; the Middle East has the same traditions of being hugely insulted at any perceived lack of respect. It's the tribal thing, of course. And nothing is ever forgotten, simply put away in that cavernous filing system collectively shared by the population that old wrongs must eventually be righted.

Clan feuds will eventually come back to haunt those who had the upper hand when the loser feels the time is right to exact revenge. Vengeance is big in the Middle East, the legacy of a Bedouin society living in a stark desert landscape where resources were few and ferociously, vigorously fought over. War as a rite of passage. Vengeance as a tribal point of honour restored.

The tribes of the Middle East, much as those of Africa, do not forget their history. Their ancient hatreds are easily revived when the time is right. And the time is so often right. Wars and reprisals, assaults and counter-assaults. Bloodbaths. Cleansings. The earth is soaked with the blood of those unfortunate enough to be the losers.

Israel is determined not to be one of those. Imagine: a tiny nation surrounded by a sea of fanatically hostile others. Who have taken religious affront that their holy scriptures that dictate that land consecrated to Islam must never be turned over to another religion. It is why Andalusia and the cursed memory of Europe taking back what was its from the great Muslim Empire that crept into Spain, Portugal and Italy has given birth to current violent jihad.

Starting, of course, with restoring the land that Israel sits upon, to Palestinian Arabs. Once despised, the plight of the Palestinians now represents an ongoing concern for restoration by Arab and Muslim states. Which have enjoined the rest of the world - certainly Africa and South and Central America and other client countries desirous of obtaining oil, to join them in their outrage against Israel.

Egypt, for example, saw fit in a moment of clarity, as did Jordan, to sue for peace with Israel. Those treaties are now hanging in the balance, along with Turkey's, that once-secular Muslim state having transformed itself into an Islamist democracy. For the Palestinians, those days of mourning the 'nakba' ensure their great tragedy is never laid away. For Egyptians the 6th of October remains a searing memory of insult to their military might.

Not as militarily mighty as the fledgling military of a fledgling state that was forced, time and again, to defend itself against the onslaught of combined Arab armies determined to force it from the landscape. Libya's past leader, Muammar Gadhafi, is now claimed to be part Jewish, to delegitimize him. Iran's utterly despicable President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is claimed to have Jewish heritage.

And the deposed Hosni Mubarak is accused of coddling Israel with the peace treaty he accepted and honoured. Anwar Sadat is now less respectable, but the late, lamented Gamel Abdel Nasser who inspired a new post-colonial Arab nationalism has regained respect. Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is faced now with a choice; honour its peace treaty with Israel, or succumb to the blandishments of the Muslim Brotherhood.

And Turkey's Tayyip Recep Erdogan, the new Islamist hero of the day whose wildly exultant welcome by the Egyptian masses has tweaked the Muslim Brotherhood's nose in a most unwelcome manner, has had his offer of assistance summarily rejected. Despite that "He has successfully invested in the Arab and Muslim world's central case, which is the Palestinian case."

The Egyptian street is torn with admiration for Erdogan, while the Brotherhood is furious with anger that 'democracy' is being urged upon them. But some accommodation can be made, in any event: "We can learn from him how to deal with the enemy ..."