Were we the only ones who noted the delicious accuracy of a headline in this week’s Denver Post? It referenced a “Middle East crisis” without mentioning Israel or the Palestinians. The crisis was about Qatar, about how several Arab nations cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, and about President Trump’s attitude toward the crisis.
It was a crisis because it threatened the unity of the Arab coalition against ISIS, and because Qatar, allegedly soft on ISIS, hosts a huge American military base. Guest what: Nary a single, alleged Israeli crime was to be found in the story. Nor was there mention of a single Palestinian complaint. One could only conclude that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the heart of the Middle East crisis, nor is a solution to this conflict a key to peace in the Middle East.
On its face, the point is obvious. Hundreds of millions of Arabs in a score or more nations, across we don’t know how many tens of thousands of square miles, clearly encompass the primary conflicts in the Middle East. By the criteria of perception, however, everything has to do with tiny little Israel. Here, for once, was a story that told the truth. Crisis in the Middle East is primarily non-Israeli — it is terrorist, it is nationalistic, it is instability due to decreased world reliance on fossil fuels, it is Sunni-Shiite hostility, it is honor killings, it is anti-Western obsession, it is misogyny. It is not Israeli.
Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News
