You old timers remember Yasser Arafat, that short, ugly, obnoxious rodent who was the head of the Palestinians for so long. He was a pain in the world’s gluteus maximus, and he had a following in the Middle East, but not so much anywhere else. There certainly was, and again, especially in the Middle East, opposition to Israel, but for the most part, the “Palestinian movement” didn’t get too far among the remainder of humanity. We NEVER saw the mass demonstrations, etc. that we see today in America, and around the globe, in behalf of the Palestinian cause. Israel, rightly, was wary, but generally secure. The American government was totally united behind Israel, and anti-Semitism was a death knell for any politician. One never heard a voice in opposition.
Given that earlier weakness in the Palestinian movement, it is a little shocking to some of us to see the incredible uprisings in behalf of the Palestinians that are now so common nearly everywhere. In one sense, it is not surprising. It is estimated that there are 1.9 to 2 billion Muslims in the world today, and not all Arabs are Muslim. That is a huge number of people, and most of them are upset at what Israel did to the Palestinians. That isn’t terribly astounding, frankly, it’s pretty understandable.
Now, I don’t believe that most Muslims or Arabs are terrorists. I simply do not and never will believe that. I’ve met many Muslims, and they are basically good people. None of them have ever tried to kill me. I’ve even met some Iranians, and I distinctly remember them; they were some of the nicest people I’ve ever known. But...there is strength in numbers. Consider many young Americans (college students) who are surrounded today by Leftist ideology. And, because that is basically all they hear, because that is the entire environment that engulfs them, and because their friends are all Leftists, that’s what they become, too. We must educate them out of that, but I fear, for too many, it is way too late.
The “common” Muslim/Arab is no different. I believe that, just like you and me, most of them simply want to live a peaceful life, have a good job and family, some entertainment and enjoyment in life, and generally be left alone. But when the movement swells, when the wave gets bigger and bigger, when the more fervent and radical among them (and us) start preaching their hate and destruction, and begin sounding reasonable about it (to certain ears), then that radical number grows. And now, we have woken up and discovered that number is huge, and seemingly totally out of control. This isn’t the day of the funny-looking little weirdo (Arafat) who looked like he never shaved and who most of us never took very seriously. There were radicals then, of course, but they weren’t influential anywhere but in certain pockets of the Middle East. Now those radicals are in the Congress of the United States, and we have a weakling in the White House who is afraid of them. He might even agree with them.
Honestly, I’ve never been terribly supportive of what Israel did in 1948—taking over land that the Palestinian Arabs had lived on for almost 2,000 years. I’m not especially proud of the fact that America took land that belonged to the Indians. It’s not exactly one of the brightest points of our history. We do have a better country now, I believe; not even hypocrites Ben and Jerry—or any liberals—are going to give their land back to the Indians, and not many of us want to sleep in a teepee in North Dakota in the middle of winter and hunt buffalo (the hunting with an AR-15 sounds ok, but not in winter). No, it’s not the best moment in American history—or 1948 in Israel’s. But it is the way of the world. I don’t know if you can find any country on earth today that doesn’t exist on geography that previously belonged to somebody else. It may not be a nice thing to do, to “steal” other people’s land, but it happens. It happens everywhere, it has happened all through history, and it is going to continue to happen as long as there are wicked, greedy, hungry human beings on this planet. We may not like it, but we can’t change it. And neither America nor Israel is going to (willingly) give its land back to its previous owners. Again, as I recently noted, the philosophy, the ideal, meets historical reality. History always wins, even though the philosophy sometimes may even be right.
Butchering somebody else’s baby—especially if that person had nothing to do with what his ancestors did—is not the answer, and the Palestinians need to learn that. I never enslaved anybody, and I don’t want to pay my money for something previous generations did. That isn’t right, either. I don’t know the solution to the problems in the Middle East, and apparently nobody else does, either, because that place is a dynamite keg that nobody has been able to do anything about. Rodney King’s “can’t we all just get along?” is nice—philosophy—but, yeah, there is this thing called historical reality. And it’s the reality we must deal with, not the philosophy. Nobody has successfully or conclusively solved the turmoil in the Middle East and probably never will. Not as long as there are wicked, greedy, hungry human beings on this planet.
I don’t have the answer to the Middle East—not one that everyone will accept—and I don’t pretend to. I just know that, like most things, matters seem to be much worse now than they were 50 years ago when I was a young, innocent, naïve twerp. That is certainly true in America, thanks to liberals and the Democratic Party, and it is apparently true in the Middle East as well.
Check out my substack, mklewis929.substack.com, and listen to my “Wisdom from Our Founders” series, especially my current podcasts on the Declaration of Independence. Many other articles/podcasts as well. Sign up for free. Read my western novels, Whitewater , River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma all available on Amazon. Follow me on Twitter: @thailandmkl.