UI – Part 513 – Another Way to Look at the Israel-Palestine Conflict

Not Israel-Palestine, but Judaism-Islam

US Presidents

How many President’s have worked hard to create peace between Palestine and Israel?

Truman was President in 1948 when the UK declared a new homeland for the Jews.  Israel was born out of the TransJordan area. Soon after (within days) there was the Arab-Israeli War. 

During Johnson’s term in office the  6 day war broke any semblance of peace in the region.  That was 1967.  The PLO, based in Jordan, enabled the rise of Yasser Arafat.

In 1971, Nixon was in office, the PLO moved its base from Jordan to Lebanon.  Israel remained their target. Then there was the Yom Kippur War – Arab-Israel War – 1973 (Syria and Egypt) – October War. 

Under Jimmy Carter there was the Iranian Revolution in 1979.  Israel was not involved, but certainly a focus of the hatred of the Ayatollah (Khomeini) now in charge of Iran. 

In 1982, Reagan was President, Israel invaded Lebanon.  The PLO was active there and America engaged Marines in a peacekeeping mission.  However their barracks were bombed by the Arafat led PLO. The PLO then moved from Lebanon to Tunisia. Soon after inaugurated Egypt’s President, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated (1981).  And in 1983 the newly elected President of Lebanon, Gemayal, was assassinated.  

1n 1995 when Bill Clinton was President, Rabin of Israel was assassinated. 

Obama, his term 2009 to 2016, was never a friend of Israel. He sought for a law that would not recognize an American child born in Israel as an Israeli.  From his decisions and attitude Obama appeared to favor Iran, the Shiites, who frequently expressed hatred and death towards Israel. Relations with Netanyahu under Obama are best described as strained, awkward and poor; more from a dislike by Obama. As an appeaser he was willing to put his head in the mouth of a tiger, never expecting to be eaten. 

Trump, the current President, is more supportive and favorable towards Israel.  His relationship with Netanyahu is very good.  He made the decision, which previous Presidents only addressed and promised in their campaigns, to move the U. S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

The Conflict

However, Israel’s condition, concern, problem, whatever the conflict envisioned, is not with Palestine alone, it is with the Arab world.  In Gaza Iran’s hand is obvious as many attempts to cross the barrier, under and over, into Israel to kill Israeli’s have occurred. Iran supports Hamas financially and militarily, just as Iran supports similarly Hezbollah in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia appears to have softened its opposition towards Israel, but it is not clear whether this is a tactic  of resistance towards the shiite Ayatollah’s striving for hegemony in the Middle East; a shia versus sunni conflict. 

Note:  Saudi Arabia recently noted, its new monarch, Mohammad bin Salman, that Israel should exist, but also Palestine. Iran is not in accord with Saudi Arabia.  Yet Israel still does not appear on maps on Saudi airlines, nor Turkish airlines for that matter. 

The opposition and enmity towards Israel by the Muslim world, the Islamists, has clearly been an Islamic one since Muhammad and the troubles he had with the Banu Qurayza tribe in Yatrib (Medina today) that resulted in lining up the Jews along a trench and beheading them one by one.  He felt they dishonored him, betrayed him, went back on an agreement, allowing his self-righteous nature to take hold and kill any dissenter, and as for the Jews, then the entire religion, or anyone following Judaic tenets.  The Jews felt they knew the Prophets, the biblical Prophets, and did not regard Muhammad as a Prophet, as he did and as he insisted his followers do so also. The Jewish tribesmen objected to Muhammad’s demonic methods in growing a following, an army, to serve his purposes and support an ideology as he proposed and modified regularly. Raiding caravans, taking captives, to include children and women, and acting as if god (Allah) was in agreement with Muhammad’s practices was wrong. 

The goal must be to achieve peace between Israel and the Arab, or better still Israel and the Muslim, world.  American Presidents failed to think big, broadly, or had other priorities or just did not take the time to understand Islam.  Now we must.  After WWII in fact American Presidents were overly concerned about communism, its potential spread, that factors in the Middle East and southwest Asia involving Islam, trying to understand Islam, the mind of the Muslim fundamentalist, the growing militancy of terrorist groups acting under the banner of Allah and the tenets of Islam (Quran, Hadiths, the example of Muhammad), became tertiary.  Secondary was oil, access to it and availability, without regard for the mindset of the leaders of the countries under which the plentiful reserves existed, to include Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.  Ignoring the realities of the region enabled the growth of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the take over of Iran by the Ayatollah and the formation of a theocracy, and errors in judgment that have impacted the security of Europe and America. 

Is World Peace Possible with Islam?

What are we to do today or into the future in the Middle and the Muslim world to insure greater world peace?  Is it too late?  Time, and patience, is needed to allow for change.  It takes decades as a presence by a stable force, maintaining quiet and order, must remain and enable education systems to indoctrinate the youth through adulthood and onto their offspring to loving freedom and peace.  With infrastructure working and providing for the needs of the people a sense of comfort and security can evolve that accepts a revision to the cultural standards that once existed that were oppressive, limiting, restrictive, favorable to only one ideology, demanding and controlling. The outcome must focus on the common good that  treats equally all persons, and makes life more tolerant and understanding. As noted, that takes time and patience, as well as a leadership oriented, equipped, ready, willing and able to apply democratic principles and values to what is now a cesspool of hatred, militancy, machismo, and selfish autocracies.  In these areas progress will be noted when tourists return, churches exist along side synagogues and mosques, joy and hope can be seen in the eyes of the citizens, and smiles and laugh lines appear on the faces of the residents.   

To effect such change will be costly.  It will require all free nations to join hands to establish footholds in backward and ideologically bound countries, which contain the harbingers of hatred, the secret police protecting the theocrats and totalitarians, the punishers of innocent persons who desire freedom or think differently than the autocrats, and thus are considered dissidents that if captured are fodder for the chopping blocks in the gulags of most fundamentalist of heads of state and their ulema.  Is this a role for the United Nations, maybe not the current UN?  But a unity of dedicated, devoted, determined, democratic thinking  people must take charge and enable the transition.

God created this world to serve his purpose and then man disobeyed God and bad things happened.  Sinful hearts prevailed. Those who recognize the stain can, as Christ has enabled, be made right anew with God.  A battle rages daily between the sinner and saved.  The saved maintain the scar of their sin, and resist temptations all the time, ebbing and flowing as they emerge into the arms of the heavenly host.  An awakening is to take place and when it happens, as the dawn of a new day, as a lamp turned on in a dark room, and as clarity overtakes the mind, a fresh aroma as a gardenia will fill the nostrils replacing the stench of burned detritus.  All will be better for all.  May the world find God’s blessing as a shower after a hard days toil.

Grace and Peace