Riots have driven the dictators of Tunisia from power. Unemployed young men took to the streets to get rid of the elite, monied rulers. Anarchy and chaos threaten the country. Moreover, all this may be a harbinger of things to come in many other Arab countries, none of which is a democracy, all of which are dictatorships.
If we were to believe the obsessively Palestiniocentric narrative of American and European heads of state and diplomats since 1967, all of the current problems in Tunisia would not exist if there had been an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
It is hard to overestimate the relentlessness by which these American and European presidents, prime ministers, secretaries of state and foreign ministers pursued this agenda. The Palestiniocentric perspective has been foisted on Israel, on the Palestinians and on their supporters and critics of all stripes.
Absurd, isnt it, in light of the recent Tunisian riots?
Unemployment in Tunisia, amputation as punishment in Saudi Arabia, nuclear ambition in Libya, squalor in Egypt, genocide in Sudan, wealth in the United Arab Emirates, AIDS in Jordan, Hama rules in Syria (the leaderships massacre of 20,000 of Syrias own citizens) all this has precisely nothing to do with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
If the Israel-Palestinian conflict had been resolved long ago, does any serious diplomat believe that there would be no riots in Tunisia today? That Saudi Arabia would have renounced its radical form of Islam? That Libyas daffy ruler would have been less daffy? That Egyptian squalor would have been ameliorated? That genocide in Sudan would never have happened? That the UAE would not have become wealthy? That Jordan would be a picture of health? That Syria would be a picture of civility? That the problems endemic to the Arab world would have vanished?
The Arab world is beset with its own problems and, in a few cases, buoyed by its own successes. These and the Israel-Palestinian conflict are apples and oranges.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
