Accidental Blogger

The last few days’ events involving senseless civilian deaths in the Mumbai train bombings, Israel’s escalating war in Lebanon in search of Hizbollah militants and the usual bad news from Iraq, have me despairing once again, about the state of the world. I feel anger, fear and hopelessness. I can point fingers at those who qualify as guilty in my mind and the various tangled "root causes" of  terrorism, aggression and religious intolerance that are involved in this horrendous mess of geopolitics. In the past few days I have written my own commentary here, exhorted other bloggers to write and commented copiously on this matter at different forums. What I was unable to do, was to put forward any cogent thought about what might lead to a solution to the problems facing the world today.

Wanting to address this issue once again, I found myself hitting a brick wall for ideas. I wanted to make a post where I offered up a solution rather than just complain. But I have no idea – only confusion and backing and forthing from one unsatisfactory conclusion to another. Then I heard world leaders, political pundits and commentators all day long and realized that they too are just as clueless as I am.

So I have decided to post a private email I had sent to my son and daughter more than three years ago, during a particularly turbulent period of terrorism and warfare. Sad to say, things are no better today. The letter to my children was written half in jest. It is sure to ruffle many feathers because I slaughter more than one sacred cow here. But honestly, those who are annoyed at my frivolity, can you please tell me what solution you might have in mind?  I invite readers to read this with an open mind. 

"As the world goes up in flames, my brain is roiling with ideas – some rational and some truly fantastic.  I thought I would put some of my "original" thinking into writing in order to get them off my chest.  But hey, as the politicos are offering nothing better than drivel, my ideas are as good as any.  If put into practice, they may actually be better.

Let me say why I am well qualified to put forward suggestions in a relatively dispassionate way for the Israeli/Palestinian conflict resolution. (The solution I have in mind will also simultaneously clear the India/Pakistan quagmire).  I am not religious and whatever tenuous religious roots I have, they are not of the "Abrahamic" variety.  I am also not a Biblical scholar which in this case is a necessary qualification.  The current problems need a person outside the "Book" (all three volumes) to be a mediator.  That is why I said the other day that in the absence of wise Martians, we need countries like China, Japan, Korea and Myanmar to be the arbiters in the mideast.  USA, Europe, the non Palestinian Muslims and non Israeli Jews should have very little say in this matter. The mediators need to be those who give no credence to the "holy" nature of the conflict and treat this purely as a real estate dispute resulting in war or peace.  But that may not work either.  I therefore have a whole new idea.

Let us examine the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the simplest Biblical terms as I understand them and you will see why it will never be solved as long as the parties look to their religious histories. Both groups feel besieged by real and perceived threats and disrespect directed towards them for centuries (Jews more than the Arabs). Both have lived in relative peace with each other at different times and have had their most humiliating experiences at the hands of Christians. Each group traces its historical root to the same patriarch but the fates of the two branches of the family are dramatically different.  Ishmail, the ancestor of the Arabs was Abraham’s first born from his concubine Hagar. According to the ancient laws of primogeniture, he should have been his father’s rightful heir.  However, when Sara, Abraham’s legal wife gave birth at an advanced age to Isaac (the forefather of the Jews), what did Abraham do?  He banished Ishmail and his mother to the desert to die.  Right there you have the first wrong against the Arabs in favor of the Jews.

The plight of the Jews on the other hand was the result of God’s wrath who exiled them (I am vague on the details) to many years of wandering, away from the homeland. Therefore, the Arabs blame a man for the unfair treatment meted out  to them and the Jews ascribe their suffering to God.  This distinction explains how the two groups came to view themselves.  The Arab culture is infused  with a sense of "shame" about what other men think of them and whether they were treated with respect or contempt. The Jewish psyche on the other hand is largely concerned with "guilt" – an examination of their  own failings and how they are perceived by God. And the Christians hated them both and proceeded to mistreat them equally.  Now these two tribes of cousins have been pitted against each other in the Biblical land because the Christian Europeans needed to ease their conscience for their inability to endure a Jewish presence in their own midst.

But it is not going to work.  Much as I support the existence and sustenance of a Jewish state, it won’t happen at the present location.  There is no denying that the creation of Israel is rooted in an unjust act (like that of the US) – that of uprooting an existing population to make room for a new one.  You can never make the usurper and the usurped live in peace and harmony and neither the Palestinian notion of "violent coexistence" nor the Israeli fantasy of a "peaceful occupation" is a viable one. And how far will Israel drive the Palestinians? Its next door neighbor will always be an Arab and one with a renewed sense of "shame" to boot. So the carnage will go on with no preponderance of guilt or virtue ascribable to either side.

It is interesting to see the reaction of the Christian west to the mideast crisis both in Europe and the USA.  Europe is perceived to be pro- Palestinian but it is not because of their love for the Arabs and nor is it due to some indelible anti-Semitism.  Israel’s actions have made the Europeans uncomfortable by reminding them of their own not so distant "glorious" colonial days.  The Americans are pro Israel for more complicated reasons.  Some see themselves as truly supporting the only democracy in the mid-east.  Some are worried that being critical of Zionism may be (as it often is) interpreted as being anti-Semitic.  Some just hate the Muslims. The most interesting are the right wing conservative Christians who at present constitute the most monolithic pro-Israeli bloc.  Privately, they cannot brook either Jews or Muslims. Yet they believe that the state of Israel must remain in its current location for the Armageddon to occur, therefore ensuring the second coming of Jesus Christ.  Do the Jewish people again want to be a pawn in the games of the Christian world?  But where should Israel go?  This time it should be by invitation and not by occupation. Here is my wishful thinking.

India should step forward and offer Kashmir to the Israelis.  This solution has many advantages, not the least of which is that it will eliminate the Biblical angle for ever and that in itself will be a major step forward.  And there are others.  I will list them numerically but not necessarily in the order of importance.

1. India and Israel are both aspiring democracies and should therefore get along for the most part.  I say "aspiring" because Israel is in reality a theocracy and India has been a functioning anarchy for a very long time.  But they both have free elections and free press.  The citizenry elects inept and/or corrupt leaders in both countries based on hope, fear and narrow allegiances and then proceeds to criticize them viciously when they fail to deliver peace (in the case of Israel) and prosperity (in the case of India).

2. Judaism and Hinduism (the religion of the majority in India) are both "original" religions of their time with no culture of proselytizing.  Since both groups hold that they thought of everything first, they share a snobbery of ancient wisdom and derision for their latter day offshoots like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. This smugness alone will make them good neighbors!

3. Israel and India are hated by the Islamic world and that makes them natural allies.  The stereotypes – both good and bad of the Jews perpetuated by the Christians (and now the Muslims) are almost identical to those of the Hindus (ask the East Africans and the Muslims in India and Pakistan).  And if Israel needs any historic connection to Kashmir, they can take one not so well known myth to heart – that the Kashmiris are the lost thirteenth tribe of Israel! (I didn’t make that up – it really is believed to be true by some).

4. By establishing Israel in Kashmir, three of the four warring factions in the world’s two hottest hot spots will be concentrated in one region.  (The Palestinians, having got back their home, will no longer be a headache for the rest of the world but will quibble only with their Arab brethren, resulting in no "new" shame since Muslims dissing other Muslims never counts towards the shame quota).  The problem of Pakistan will remain of course.  But with the Indian as well as the Israeli army at its doorstep, Pakistan’s enthusiasm for warfare will be much dampened if not totally extinguished.  Even if an occasional skirmish does occur and a UN mediation is needed, the peacekeepers from Canada and Japan or the peace observers from Burundi and the Netherlands will have to patrol a much smaller area. 

5. Israel will have to give up its beaches on the Mediterranean but will in the bargain gain some of the most spectacular Himalayan landscape and top notch ski slopes. And with no restriction on entering India, the beaches surrounding the three sides of the subcontinent will be just a short trip away.

6. And last but not least, how can Israel say no to relocating to a region where there is always a New Deli (!) close by?

All jokes aside, I really think that the above may be the right solution to the intractable Israeli/Palestinian and India/Pakistan problems.  While I was putting into words my two rupees/shekels’ worth of ideas, Sharon was promising more incursions into the West Bank and a suicide bomber blew herself up in Jerusalem.  My idea looks better by the minute.

Love,
Mum "