"Never Mistake Motion for Action"

Well, they're doing it again. Another meeting of Middle East leaders in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt has been announced.

I’m really tired of seeing these Sharm el-Sheikh summits being held, where Israeli and Arab leaders meet, make a lot of nice and hopeful statements, and then go back home and act as if nothing really significant happened. How can that be? Because Sharm el-Sheikh summits happen about as frequently as I eat pizza, thus negating any significance such events have, being merely the same shit on a different day (at least I vary my pizzerias). Why don’t they ever meet in Cairo, instead of Sharm? Why not in Amman, instead of Aqaba? Come to think of it, why not at Eilat or Jerusalem?

Of course, there are good answers for that last one (then again, Anwar Sadat spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem, and Abbas has been to the PM’s residence there, so such meetings on Israeli soil happen). Even so, whatever excuses you come up with, you know it’s really because they’re scared that if they don’t meet somewhere they’ll be seen as doing nothing. And right now, as always really, no one wants to be seen as doing nothing. Screw lives – there’s money at stake…U.S., European, etc. Hamas has Gaza, Iran is...Iran. Gotta show momentum.

These “leaders” (an Egyptian autocrat, a Hashemite king, a disappointing Israeli PM, and an even more disappointing PA president) don’t trust each other, they don’t like each other, they’d rather not meet, but if they have to do so for the sake of appearances...let it be at Sharm el-Sheikh instead of a national capital. That's the reasoning. They can say to their citizenry, the Arab “street” and world leaders “Look, we met, alright?” while those paying closer attention can see that having a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh instead of a seat of government is like choosing to have a business conference in a small motel room rather than a hotel’s grand ballroom. It's like choosing New Jersey over New York.

Look at the location, and you can see how much weight they put on the meeting, and what they expect to result from it – it won’t likely be much different from other summits held there before. Sharm el-Sheikh is no Dayton, Ohio. Sharm el-Sheikh is no Camp David. Summits of leaders held at both locations resulted in accords or peace treaties which have, whatever their faults or weaknesses, lasted. Sharm el-Sheikh isn’t Versailles. It’s not Nice. It’s not Rome. It’s not a place of significant significance, other than that it represents previous failures.

Unless you’re an Israeli war veteran, or an Israeli tourist going to Sinai, or a rich sheikh, or an Arab hotel worker, Sharm el-Sheikh probably resonates very little with you. Sure, the Egyptians get the “prestige” of holding a meeting of regional leaders once again on their soil. But when all that results from such meetings is empty promises and tried-and-failed rhetoric about hopes for a resolution, one would think that if the players were truly serious about moving forward…they’d hold such “important” meetings somewhere else. Like Alexandria, Egypt. That's a neat place...with a lot of history. That could be symbolic.

Referring to this latest planned meeting, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has said "Time is of the essence". He's absolutely right, in a way. The amount of time the Palestinians have spent teaching their children hate about Jews and Israel, the amount of time the Arab League has been enforcing its boycott of Israel and fanning the flames of war, the amount of time Mr. "Time is of the Essence" himself, Mr. Erekat, has spent spreading deceitful propaganda, and the amount of time it takes for a Hamas terrorist to press a button and blow himself up...such times are the essence of why, in 2007, we're still talking about a peace process instead of actually seeing one.

Soon, President Mubarak, Prime Minister Olmert, King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas will likely be on their way to Sharm el-Sheikh. Again. At least they're moving around, instead of standing still.

Who was it that said "Never mistake motion for action"? I forget.

Oh yeah - Hemingway.

All Will Come Right

"All will come right." - Winston Churchill

The United States of America have never before in their history lost a war where their survival was at stake - or where their survival as a united nation very well might have been at stake. We've overcome literal British invasions, preserved the Union in a great Civil War, trounced the Nazis with the help of our allies, and outlasted the Soviet Union. America survived the Great Depression intact, and didn't need to become a fascist dictatorship (like some countries in Europe did) in order to do so.

Yes, we've run into obstacles - in Korea, when the Chinese intervened. In Vietnam, where guerrilla warfare tactics combined with the Communist AND nationalist sentiment of the natives taxed our moral, political and military resources. Sure, the Soviets beat us into space first...but we beat them to the Moon.

In the Civil War, still the only war in American history that can claim to have taken the most American lives, the rebellious Confederate States possessed leaders who very well could have secured the secessionists independence had their cause the ability to last long enough; this, while the Union went through general after general who seemingly didn't have the right stuff. In the end, the South's loss was America's - and the former Confederate States' - gain.

After all of the struggles America has survived, the enemies we've encountered, the hardships Americans have endured - after all that, how can a bunch of Muslim marauders pose any existential threat to our Republic's existence? In the days of Thomas Jefferson, we took on the Barbary Pirates, North African raiders espousing Islam and jihad as their inspiration. To the shores of Tripoli went our Marines, and today the Navy that was borne of that conflict with Muslim pirates is the envy of the world.

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Why are we so afraid of these "punks"? Because they're on TV all the time, proclaiming their assured victory? What, you believe everything you see on TV? Osama bin Laden or Hassan Nasrallah or one of their deputies says "We're gonna win," and we're just supposed to stock up our cellars or basements and expect the worst? Since when?

Just because we can't trust our own government means we should trust stateless terrorists instead? No. Actually, I do trust those terrorists - when they say they want to kill my fellow citizens, they generally try to do so. That isn't, I must emphasize, a point in their favor. Very much the opposite. But it does mean we should take them at their word - and do our best to stop them.

Yes, we're losing brave men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan...but we're not losing battles. What's happened in the Gaza Strip, with the Islamofascists of Hamas taking over buildings and territory, isn't generally the story in Iraq. With the help of the Northern Alliance back in 2001 and 2002, the war for territory was fought and won in Afghanistan. Doesn't mean the fight is over - but that was a huge accomplishment that's lasted.

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I'm not ignoring the mistakes that we've made - there've been plenty of those. I don't think we should be defined solely by our failures, or judged using only our mistakes as a reference point. We're only human - just like our critics.

Just like our enemies.

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Sure, terrorists these days seemingly have the ability to strike anywhere in Iraq - but you know what? So do we. What about on a worldwide scale? Terrorists had to hijack planes to destroy buildings in New York - we can freely fly planes off of giant boats to destroy buildings anywhere in the world where we find that threats to our safety may be using them.

We didn't lose the war to depose Saddam Hussein - but admittedly, we're not fighting correctly the war to secure the peace in the chaos of his wake. That's not the fault of the soldiers in Baghdad - it's the fault of the politicians in Washington.

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Even so, we have to blame ourselves, too. How many Americans who complain about the government have ever in their life voted in any general election? Just as (or more) importantly, I wonder how many of those Americans who do vote end up later washing their hands of their choice, Pilate-style, when something goes wrong. How often do voters conveniently forget that they are the ones who give the power to those who abuse it?

Going further, I must wonder...how many adult Americans, before one or other of the Gulf Wars, could find Iraq on a map? This isn't to say that being able to do so would have prevented war. And I'm not reversing my opinion, that is, that going to war to take down Saddam was justified.

I'm merely saying, in closing, that if we've gone so far astray from that which has made us strong, great and confident enough to accomplish what we have and persevere in the face of challenges and struggles as a nation for over 230 years, it helps to remember that there's plenty of blame to go around. We should accept our share, move forward past the cynicism - and do what must be done so that, in Iraq or anywhere else, we can believe in winning once again.

If we can do that, well...as that half-American former British PM said in the quote I included at the beginning..."All will come right."

Jeremy

P.S. While I understand the motivation of world governments to resume aid to the Palestinian Authority now that Abbas has formed a government sans Hamas, I can't help but think we're rewarding the Palestinians, once again, for another opportunity they missed all on their own. What kind of message does that send?

Oh My, Gaza!

As far as H.G. Wells stories go, I liked "The War of the Worlds" a bit more than "The Time Machine" – even though "The Time Machine", which I read in an afternoon in 2004 while staying in the dorm room of a friend, was a bit more adventurous and more uplifting than "The War of the Worlds". I only mention this because the current situation in the Gaza Strip and West Bank resembles – up to a certain point, and only to that point – the division between two different species of mankind in the year 802,701 in "The Time Machine".

In "The Time Machine", a Time Traveller has discovered that by 802,701 humanity has split into two species: on one side, living aboveground, you have the peaceful, unassuming Eloi. On the other side, underground, you have the predatory Morlocks – who look at the Eloi as, basically, their slave labor and their food. The Time Traveller muses over how this situation came about. I won't spoil it for you, so unless you've seen the latest movie version that came out a number of years ago, do yourself a favor - pick up the book and then watch the 2002 movie (I've only seen a few minutes of the 60s version).

It needn’t take an overactive imagination (of the sort I am guilty of possessing at times) to see where I’m going with this: The Gaza Strip is essentially the Underworld of "The Time Machine", realm of the Morlocks (a.k.a. Hamas). The West Bank is (at least, those areas under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas) now the aboveground, the realm of the Eloi. Unlike in "The Time Machine", the "Eloi" – West Bank Arabs – are in reality hardly peaceful, subservient victims to the Hamas-led "Morlocks"…but like I said, the comparisons were valid only up to a certain point.

Since the very first years of the Arab-Israel conflict there has never, truly, been one Palestinian "people". After Israel’s War of Independence, Egypt took over the Gaza Strip – denying to grant resident Arabs there any form of surrogate citizenship. Egypt organized guerrilla (terrorist) militias for use against Israel, a course standing in stark contrast to that of Jordan, which when it illegally annexed the West Bank following that same war granted the Arabs living under its jurisdiction Jordanian citizenship and - while violating armistice agreements by preventing Jews from visiting holy sites - built hotels in east Jerusalem.

Having personally seen both the beauty of a Gazan beach and swaths of barren landscape in the West Bank, I would've at one time thought the situation would be the reverse of what it actually is:

The seaside-hugging Gaza is the more religious of the Arab-inhabited territories left over from the violent birth pangs of the Jewish State; considering the history of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt right next door, and the perpetuation of Gazan squalor by Egypt and the rest of the Arab League, this isn't surprising on a second look. But land-locked, surrounded West Bank Arabs are - more or less - a more civilized, educated bunch...thanks, in part, to the late King Hussein. Like Gazans, West Bank Palestinians don't have a "Palestine", but unlike Gazans, they do have Jordan.

Not only do many West Bank Palestinians have Jordan, but today a majority of Jordanian citizens in Jordan are of Palestinian descent - indicating that a recent suggestion by former Jordanian PM Abdel Salam Al-Majali that the Hashemite Kingdom absorb what's left of the West Bank into some sort of confederation isn't as out of this world as some might think it.

Putting aside utopian dreams of a united "State of Palestine" consisting of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it needn't be a given that any union between Palestinian Authority territories and King Abdullah's Jordan must also include Gaza...existing as it does tens of miles away, but in a completely different world. So what would happen to Gaza?

Though they may be loathe to consider it, in the wake of such a Palestinian-Jordanian confederacy's creation, Egypt could eventually reoccupy the Gaza Strip and legally incorporate it into its territory - correcting, if you ask me, a historic mistake (one made because the Arab League wished to use the "stateless" Palestinians as pawns in a never-ending war against Israel, and Egypt was only too willing to lead it). Given the problems Egypt already has with religious extremists, this is unlikely...but...hey, it could happen.

Or, Gaza could simply be left alone and become a mini-Iran, right next door to Israel. Hey, if Islamic dictatorship is what they desire for themselves and their children, and their children's children...let 'em have it. It's their choice. Then, we can choose to help them dismantle it...or dismantle such an entity for them.

Whether you compare them to "Eloi" or "Morlocks", think of them as Egyptians or Jordanians, call them Gazans or West Bankers, or simply say they're "Palestinians", since the signing of the Oslo Accords the leadership of the PLO and Palestinian Authority have not shown the world they are particularly qualified to look after their peoples' affairs. This is mostly their own fault, for continually shooting themselves in the feet, but partially ours - for giving them the guns to do that sort of thing.

Whatever solution is found for the current happy/sad situation, if we fail to acknowledge that those on one side of the Arab-Israeli conflict who've tried to be one people are and have for some time been two, all we'll be doing is setting the stage for future Palestinian Civil Wars...and God help us all if the "Morlocks" win.