Almost all of those with an overtly ideological take on the conflict in Israel/Palestine come across as slightly deranged. The justification offered by supporters of each side is that it is their faction that is in the right, their faction that is acting in self-defence, and that it is the other side which is motivated by little more than cynicism, bigotry and malevolence.
Behind each side’s unwillingness to understand the other side is an element of truth of course; but covering this is plastered layer upon layer of dishonest rationalisation – rationalisation which is in many instances deployed to justify the murder of wholly innocent civilians. Continue reading
Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria, rumblings in Morocco and Algeria (and eventually Saudi?) even spreading south into sub-Saharan Africa such as Uganda, but the centre of this upturning of the old despotic order is Palestine. The tectonic shift in the latter has been little noticed, but is more momentous than any of the others. Palestine for half a century has been in thrall to US-Israeli domination, but without riots in the streets or even a new intafada that is now changing dramatically. Even hardened cynics were shocked at how far the Palestinian negotiators accommodated the ever-increasing and ever more humiuliating Israeli demands. But a new page is now opening, the most hopeful for decades.