By Bill Narvey

Those who say the conflict between Israel and Middle East Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims, or war as it now is, can only be solved diplomatically and not militarily, do so from their own strong, almost overwhelming aversion to war.

We are not however, anywhere close to the fulfillment of biblical prophecy when the lion will lie down with the lamb, nations will beat their swords into ploughshares, and nations will make war no more.

Western democratic nations that are founded on Judeo-Christian culture, values, morals and ethics have found that they can resolve differences amongst themselves through negotiations that adhere to reason, logic, mutual respect and sense of fairness. There is in essence a common bond amongst such democracies, that even when relationships are strained and negotiations not fair, reasonable or logical, democracies still will do all to avoid resorting to war to settle differences.

The commonality amongst the Middle East Muslim world is an Islamic culture. In spite of variations in interests between and amongst various Muslim nations and Muslim factions, Islamic culture generally is significantly different than Judeo-Christian culture and, in a number of respects, those differences are antithetical to Judeo-Christian democratic principles.

In spite of differences that are more interest- than ideologically-based within various Islamic cultures, there are things in common amongst all. Those things include a world perception, a sense of manifest destiny for the Muslim world, a sense of superiority over non-Muslims and their cultures, and a suspicion and antipathy, often expressed in terms of intolerance and hatred, especially for Jews, Christians and Westerners.

As tiny as Israel is within the Middle East, its existence and presence there is intolerable to many Muslims in the region, including the more secular Palestinians for a number of reasons that are well-known. America, being the most powerful Western nation and supporter of Israel, also for obvious reasons, is singled out most often for Muslim hatred as well.

Western culture has achieved a certain supremacy on a number of levels. The ascension of Western advances in sophistication, technology and power has also seen the commensurate decline of the Muslim world in those same areas.

The Middle Eastern Muslim culture is in certain respects honour-based. Many in the Muslim world over the centuries have reacted to this Western ascension with a sense of humiliation. This has led to a culture of victim-hood that allows Muslims to explain their own failings as being solely the fault of the West. Deep suspicions, resentments and anger building at times to outrage and hatred, have consequently built up towards the West, Israel and America in particular.

The influence of both the West and the forces of modernity however have also had a positive effect on the Middle Eastern Muslim world, including a disinclination to settle differences by too quickly resorting to war, if negotiations and dialogue can achieve their goals. That change however has not gone so far as an aversion for war to achieve goals that is nearly as strong as it is amongst Western democratic, Judeo-Christian cultures.

The West has been intoxicated with arrogance by its own success. That arrogance was apparent as far back as in November 1947, when the Western-led U.N. voted for partition of the land in the region, one part being for the creation of Israel and the remaining land being for the Arabs.

The West then sought to impose a Western thinking-based solution upon Arabs who did not think like Westerners and whose differences, the West ignored. War after war has been the result, with the West facilitating through diplomacy only interludes of calm between Israel and the Arabs and more recently Israel and the Palestinians.

The West in its arrogance, has remained willfully blind to those aspects of cultural perceptions and differences between the West, including Israel and Muslim Palestinians, whose differences, for so long as they continue to exist, will stand in the way of any long-term peace between Israel, the Palestinians and Israel’s Middle East neighbours. Forcing such diplomatic solutions is akin to the futile effort of trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.

It should be clear to America and the West that Western diplomacy does not always work when it comes to achieving a rapprochement between the West and the Muslim east.

It should also be painfully clear that while diplomacy might provide short-term solutions, it just does not work in terms of achieving any long-term solutions between Israel and the Palestinians, or for that matter, between Israel and the Palestinian and Muslim terrorist organizations that have only the destruction of Israel as their raison d’etre.

With Abbas, the PA and Fatah reaching a consensus with Hamas in the form of the Prisoner’s Declaration signed shortly before this most recent war, the pretence the West has maintained that Abbas, the PA and Fatah were the Palestinian instruments for peace with Israel vanished. With that joint declaration, Abbas, the PA and Fatah joined with Hamas in their common goals for Palestinians which meant no recognition for Israel, the right of return, and inferentially the goal of the ultimate destruction of Israel and legitimizing all efforts to achieve that goal by any means.

The Prisoner’s Declaration was as in effect a declaration of war. The act by Hamas to enter Israel to kill two soldiers and capture one and hold him for ransom and then the attack by Hezbollah were acts of war. It should not be lost sight of that the most recent Palestinian poll showed that 77% of Palestinians supported Hamas’ actions against Israel. So much for the notion of the vast majority of Palestinians are innocent.

How much longer will the West’s arrogance blind it to realities that as between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and its other Middle East enemies, Western diplomatic solutions have not worked and for so long as things remain equal, they simply cannot work?

As between America and its enemy Iran which has already drawn American blood, damaged American interests and threatens to do more, America had better much sooner than later realize that war only holds promise for America to defeat the Iranian enemy and that diplomacy will be as futile hereafter as it has in the past.

Similarly, the only solution that has any hope of resulting in a long term peace between Israel and its enemies and that includes the Palestinians, is a solution that comes from a war which ends in a decisive victory for Israel that forces the Palestinians and Israel’s terrorist enemies to abandon any hope their goals for Israel’s destruction will be achieved militarily or in any other way, and they will have no choice but to sue for terms and a peace agreement that will ensure long-term peace.

Western arrogance and willful blindness must give way to Western humility and clear-sightedness to see that as much as war is hell, war still has its rightful place.

Whether it is America dealing with its enemy Iran or in these circumstances of Israel’s longstanding and ongoing conflict with Palestinians and Hezbollah, war holds far more promise as a path to a long term peaceful solution between Israel and Palestinians and Israel’s other enemies, than does diplomacy.

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Related: Israel, Palestinians, Terrorist Groups, Philosophy / Ideology

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