When I was younger, my older brother and I used to get into fights. We'd bicker about who got to play with which toys, who could sit in the front seat on car rides and which of us was just generally better. I usually won. But that's not the point.
Every now and then, one of our fights would get out of control, my brother would get pissed that I was so clearly better, or I'd cry at a particularly poignant insult, and we'd start to hit each other. Invariably, this resulted in one or both of us being brought before my father, with the victimized quickly launching into a defense of himself and accusation of the other.
Pleas for justice and retribution often met dead ears. "I don't care what happened or who's guilty here," my father would say. "You just need to stop fighting or I'll spank both of you." My father's arm was stronger than my brother's or my own, and we generally stopped. As we grew older, the clear logic of his thinking, implying that the fighting was in and of itself worse than the original problem, was enough to prevent us from most conflicts.
It seems like no one ever told this to the soldiers dying in Israel and Palestine.
I don't know a lot about international politics nor about regional religious tensions. I know next to nothing about Jewish and Palestinian history. But I do know this: the problems in the Middle East are not simple. It is not clear who is right and who is wrong. The history of the problem is black with bitter blood and hot anger. And people are still dying.
Right now, I just don't care who is right and who is wrong. They just need to stop fighting. Neither side is combating a sadistic regime. I don't believe anyone is truly on the defensive against a massive genocidal force bent on eradication. In short, this conflict is fundamentally different from the situations leading up to those major wars in recent history in which it is generally agreed we should have been involved. These days it's a war, as best I can tell, based on revenge.
The world's never going to agree on who killed whom first, and the history of death and killing is so old on both sides that I doubt anyone cares much these days. The fact is that the continued pattern of murder and revenge that so typifies the current conflict is as childish and primitive as it is brutal and futile. In the long run, there are really only two solutions -- peaceful discussion and decision or all-out war and annihilation. That's it; that's where this is going. The simmering pot of hate and blood will boil over when someone burns the right nerve.
Frankly, I can't believe soldiers on both sides haven't already seen how outwardly absurd this whole mess is. Though I admit freely the sensitivities of the issue and my ignorance with respect to them, I cling to my conviction that shellings and bombings are probably getting everyone nowhere and are a lot worse for both sides than the worst possible peaceful resolution. Each party seems so caught up in its side being right, its cause righteous and its motives peaceful that listening to any kind of emotional outcry from either side reminds me of a bratty child -- a bratty child who, directly or indirectly, is killing people.
So what's the deal? Why can't they see this if it's so simple, so obviously childish? Why hasn't everyone just dropped their guns and walked home in shame?
Again, I don't know, but when I was a little boy, it was awfully hard for me to admit I was wrong even when I could see it plainly. And with the fuel of this conflict burning on a wick that stretches back generations and weaves through nations, understandably the momentum and myopia are harder to overcome. It's going to take a really big father with a really strong arm.
With that in mind, it's my opinion that the peace process needs to be approached by a strong coalition of nations who don't give a damn who's right. Entering negotiations with an inherent bias, tacit or otherwise, toward Israel or Palestine is going to throw a wrench in the gears. The United State's continued pledge of support to Israel, in my opinion, hurts our position as chief peacemaker. I can easily understand reluctance by either party to accept a proposition offered by a nation already leaning in one direction.
However these negotiations are approached, I feel that there needs to be a new attitude. The time for sympathy is over. The time for understanding is over. All the accusations on both sides are too valid, the problem simply too tangled for any sort of logical, fair resolution. Both sides are right; they are both guilty, and they are both dying. The attitude now needs to be a scornful and powerful: "Enough is enough. Stop fighting."