There's the question how long can the situation in the Middle East fester before something truly horrible happens that there will be no way to turn back from? This implies another question: Is there another way? Is a realistic peace based on negotiated mutual respect and tolerance even possible any more? Is war inevitable?
The decision of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to attend the Nonaligned Movement meeting in Teheran is a good sign in this respect. The United States and Israel, of course, discouraged both men from going to Iran, charging the Iranians with making propaganda. (Of course, we all know US and Israel leaders deal only in truth and don't traffic in propaganda.)
What seemed to be going on was a fear the meeting might lend some credence to Iran's situation in this mess, and that that would mean a loss for the US and Israel. Maybe that's true, and maybe that's not a bad thing.
The Non-Aligned Movement is a throwback to the Cold War days when Third World, developing nations sought to define themselves beyond the rigid and powerful Cold War Soviet Union/US dichotomy. Fate put the 2012 meeting in Teheran, and the Iranians pumped the movement back up to make a case for itself and others beyond the US/Israeli axis of Iranian demonization.
Anything that is able to ratchet down the build-up to war between Israel and Iran has to be a good thing. And more Americans should understand that the US is not helping in this matter. Last night, for example, I listened to former Presidential candidate John McCain at the Tampa GOP convention call for sustained military actions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, US military action in both Libya and Syria, and even US military intervention in Iran. It was the epitome of belligerence.
"It was a real bell-ringer for war. Very dangerous talk," according to MSNBC's Chris Matthews
I'm certainly not defending Iran and the idea of their obtaining a nuclear weapon. I join others like a former intelligence chief in Israel in believing the Iranians are not madmen who would lob a nuke into Israel first chance they got. Like in our Cold War, Iranian leaders know Israel and the US have hundreds of nukes that they would use to flatten Iran.
Maybe the most practical incentive for Iran to stop its alleged nuclear bomb program would be for the US and Israel to put their own nuclear weapons on the table and sit down to talk honestly with the Iranians. All the mutual demonizations would have to be stopped so the other guy could be seen as human. This seems to be the greatest hurdle in the whole mess.
The recent story out of Jerusalem of Israeli kids brutalizing Palestinian kids (described in the New York Times as an "attempted lynching") shows that Israel seems to have painted itself into a corner in this area.
How does a people turn back a racially-oriented demonization program with roots that extend back many decades? How do you ratchet down a nation's narcissism so people are able to simply see the other as a human being? How do you do this when the other outnumbers you and surrounds you?
More to the point, how does a nation like Israel (allegedly a democracy) begin to dismantle its right-wing, Likud iron wall of madness piece-by-piece without endangering its people and opening itself up to real disaster?
The answer is clearly for Israelis to find a variety of courage we have not seen much of lately.
On our part, Americans and the United States need to stop being a permissive yes-man and begin to show Israel some tough love. We need more US criticism of Israel. No doubt this approach will be received with gales of cynical laughter from hardliners ... but so what?
In my mind, the Israeli narcissistic and arrogant mindset would benefit from a little Buddhist detachment, more of the posture that sees the world not of separate individual selves and egos but of human beings as part of a larger flow of life. The Buddhists call the self-obsessed, separatist state-of-mind that Israel thrives on and defends with weapons as "the illusory self."
"Once one identifies with a permanent self-concept, the pride and craving adhering to this become the pivot from which an egocentric world arises," writes Gay Watson, a psychotherapist attuned to Buddhism.
David Loy puts it this way: "To become completely groundless is also to become completely grounded, not in some particular, but in the whole network of interdependent relations that constitute the world."
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