Middle East -- An Opinion

Take a look at a map of the Middle East. You will notice that Israel sits squarely in the middle of a Muslim world. Yet, sorting through the news from network television, the major print media outlets, and popular magazines you might conclude that Israel is the Goliath and her neighbors are the little David characters in this contemporary drama. My stepson has a sober way of bringing clarity to issues at times . . . he says, “. . . do the math.” So, let’s do some figuring. The number of Jews in the world comes to about 14 million, with 5.5 million residing in Israel. The world Muslim population is approximately 1.7 billion, nearly 475 million living in Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Jordon, Saudi Arabia, Syria Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon alone. Thus, the ratio of Muslims to Jews in the Middle East (not counting Somalia, Yemen, Oman, Libya, etc.) is 86:1 and in the world about 120:1. Nevertheless, the world press would have us believe that this little sovereign state, roughly the size of New Jersey, is perpetually poking its finger in the eye of leviathan . . . because?

The popular propaganda is that Israel is some kind of “Johnny-come-lately” to the Middle East neighborhood, invading the Muslim homeland and confiscating what did not belong to them in 1948 with the help of Christian western civilization. Nevertheless, the history of the Middle East is traceable . . . from the Babylonians to the Persians, the Romans, the Islamic Caliphate, the Turks, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the European colonials, to the present. While it’s true that Jews left their homeland in great numbers following the Roman destruction of the Herodian temple in the 1st century AD as the center of worship shifted from the temple to Rabbinic Judaism, at no time in the past 4000 years had Jews not lived in the land except for the 400 years of captivity described in Genesis. For a long time there was no Jewish nation-state. But, neither was there a Jordon or Iraq or Saudi Arabia or a Turkey. The boundaries of the modern Middle Eastern nation-states are post Ottoman Empire divisions.

Our American diplomatic objective in the Middle East is to facilitate the addition of another Middle Eastern nation-state to be carved out of the Israeli security zone --- the West Bank. To establish a “homeland” for these Palestinians in neighboring Syria or Jordon is evidently out of the question. In fact, they were expelled from Jordon in 1970 by order of King Hussein, but there are no rockets fired into Amman today as an expression of holy hostility to that country. Still, somehow, our American diplomatic philosophy rests on the belief that if we could just birth this new nation that swears eternal enmity against the Jewish people, there could be peace in the Middle East. Let me attempt to draw an analogy. The continental United States is a resident for crocodiles and alligators with the exception of the small reserve of Rhode Island which is home to the wildebeest. But now the gators and crocs think it fair to lay claim to the Providence-Pawtucket metropolitan area as well. If you think that all the reptiles really want is just 30% of the little reserve, you’re likely to find a lot of companionship in the Flat Earth Society.