The perpetual chaos we see in the Middle East, mostly in terms of Israel vs. Palestine, has gone on for decades, and shows no signs of ending any time soon. It's almost folly to write about it, since anything you say is just going to be more meaningless drops of water thrown at the raging fire or semi-meaningless gasoline, if you are of the very pro-Israel or pro-Palestine PoV (Chomsky). I tend to be more neutral about things, and even when I'm not feeling neutral I feel that there's a need to try and remain that way, or you just exacerbate the perpetual Hatfields vs. McCoys warfare (Aronson, 2000).
It's like Northern Ireland; each side had very long lists of legitimate grievances against the other side, each side had plenty of reason to want to keep fighting and seeking revenge for past attacks (Aronson, 2000). However at some point you have to realize that you're not going to win or resolve anything going by the past. Yes, you can kill some of them to get back at them for killing some of you a month ago. But then in a month what are they going to do in return? (Morris, 1987)
People have to rise above the history of bad blood and try to go from here, looking over the horrible crimes of the past, or else there will never be an end to the killing and instability.
These days the news from the Middle East depresses me to no end. If you need to be reminded, around two weeks ago Airel Sharon, a hard-line secular member of the Israeli government, complete with a military escort, visited an Arab holy site (Morris, 1987). The message? This isn't your place -- we can go anywhere. The result has been two weeks....
