How did this conflict get so fragmented? For starters, it\u2019s gone on way too long. The West Bank is so chopped up and divided now by roads, checkpoints and fences to separate Israel\u2019s crazy settlements from Palestinian villages that a Palestinian could fly from Jerusalem to Paris quicker than he or she could drive from Jenin, here in the northern West Bank, to Hebron in the south.<\/p>\n
Another reason is that every idea has been tried and has failed. For the Palestinians, Pan-Arabism, Communism, Islamism have all come and gone, with none having delivered statehood or prosperity. As a result, more and more Palestinians have fallen back on family, clan, town and tribal loyalties. In Israel, Peace Now\u2019s two-state solution was blown up with the crash of the Oslo peace accords, the rising Palestinian birthrate made any plans to annex the West Bank a mortal threat to Israel\u2019s Jewish character, and the rockets that followed Israel\u2019s withdrawals from both Lebanon and Gaza made a mockery of those who said unilateral pullouts were the solution.<\/p>\n
All of this has led to a resurgence of religiosity. According to Haaretz, the following questions were posed by a well-known rabbi in one of the pamphlets distributed by the Israeli Army\u2019s Office of Chief Rabbi before the latest Gaza fighting: \u201cIs it possible to compare today\u2019s Palestinians to the Philistines of the past? And if so, is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of Samson and David? A comparison is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and had invaded from a foreign land.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Who in the world would want to try to repair this? I\u2019d rather herd cats….<\/p>\n