By: Hank Hardy
Disclosure: I used to be a big supporter of Israel and their cause. After all, the church pastor, the President and the whole congress tell us to support Israel. I was blind to the truth until I decided to read Jimmy Carter’s bestselling book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”, which was an eye opener. In his book, Mr. Carter advises everyone to visit Palestine and Israel in search for the truth, so I did. My whole perspective on the Middle East situation has turned upside down.
As we mentioned in one of our pages, we don’t shy away from a subject just because it’s controversial, in fact we welcome such subjects; the more controversial the better. Here’s one of the most talked about subjects which occupies a good part of any political debate for a high office such as the President or Vice President of the United States. It’s “Peace In The Middle East”.
Many a time, when people talk about peace in the middle east, you’ll hear such comments as:
- It’s impossible, those people have been fighting for a thousand years and they will continue to fight for another thousand years— yeah, but why?
- If those Palestinians would leave the Israelis alone, they would live in peace— how stupid and ignorant to say that.
- I don’t see how, those people enjoy killing each other— no they don’t.
And many similar comments that don’t make sense. Once, while driving, I decided to change the radio station, the dial landed on a station airing Howard Stern show. It was one of those Palestinian bashing shows. One of the callers said; those Palestinians have got to go. I wanted to reach into the radio and grab this miserable sole by the neck and shake him as hard as I could until his neck snaps. I wanted to tell him, it’s their land you f%$#* idiot, where do you want them to go.
While in college, I had an interesting conversation with a student I met in the cafeteria, his name is Jim. We talked about the Middle East and the fighting there. The conversation went as follows:
Jim: I don’t feel sorry for those Palestinians, we did to the Native Indians what the Israelis are doing to them. We fought them and killed them and took their land. So let the Palestinians deal with it like the Indians did.
Me: Do you think what we did to the Native Indians was right?
Jim: No, but we did it.
Me: And just because we did it, you justify our action as acceptable?
Jim: Well, yeah.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Jim’s around, who do not know and don’t care to know about what happens in other parts of the world. I once asked my coworker if he would like to read the newspaper after I am done with it, he said: naah, I have enough problems to worry about. Needles to say, ignorance is wide spread in this country; and contrary to the famous saying, ignorance is not a bliss.
To answer the question which is the title of this article “Peace in The Middle East… Is It Possible?”; You’ll be surprised to know that the answer is simpler than you think, and it’s YES, peace is possible in the Middle East except for one thing; Israel does not want peace!!
Before you act surprised and dumbfounded to this bold statement, just think about it, and ask yourself this simple question.Who has more to lose? And who has more to gain from this proverbial peace? Let’s see!!
The Palestinians lost their land, their resources, many of their men, women and children, so with peace, at least they will not lose anymore. On the other hand, the Israelis want to keep getting and sometimes demanding all sorts of aids from the United States, using the threat of the Palestinians as an excuse for the need of financial and military assistance. If there’s peace and stability in the Middle East, there will be no reason for America to give Israel millions or rather billions of military of financial aid every year. Our government might still want to give Israel whatever they want because of the Israeli pressure on our President and congress, however, this might trigger an outrage by the American people, and some of them might even wake up and question the actions of our government and demand answers, and that’s what neither the Israeli nor the American governments want to happen.