In West Asia, it’s my country right or left

New Delhi: I am by no means an expert on Israel and Palestine. In fact, much of what I know has been acquired in the last two weeks. It’s the sort of knowledge sufficient to ask questions but not really to answer them. Yet it’s left me with one impression of which I’m increasingly convinced. This is what I want to share with you this morning.

Both Israel and Palestine wear the halo of victimhood. Rather proudly, it often seems. They’re equally self-righteous in their conviction that their perception of history is the right one. That’s also true of how they view the present. They believe the ‘other’ has done them grievous wrong. What they cannot accept is that they are equally guilty of similar treatment of their foe.

They do not, or will not, accept that what has been done to them is very similar to what they have done to their adversary. That ‘equality’ is what they vehemently reject.

This is why, with very few exceptions – actually, you can probably count them on the fingers of one hand – interviews become horribly one-sided. No matter how you frame the question, a Palestinian guest will only see the virtue and veracity of his own position whilst excoriating that of Israel. Precisely the opposite is true when you interview an Israeli. In each and every respect.

After ten interviews in fourteen days on this crisis, I sense the two communities may live on the same land – no doubt, quarrelling and fighting with each other – but they also live in different worlds. Consequently, their Weltanschauung is rigidly shaped by the different truths they accept from their different history but also from the one they share. It’s then reinforced by contradictory versions of the present. Even when the facts are the same, the interpretations are starkly different.

The sad truth is that their friends and allies have fallen victim to the same compartmentalization. Whilst the west accepts, without demur, the Israeli viewpoint of the past and the present, the arab and muslim countries of the middle east share the Palestinian perception of both. Consequently, who you support determines not just what you think but also how you respond to what is happening. Thus, the Israeli tail wags the western dog whilst that of Palestine provokes the middle eastern canine to bark and growl.

Perhaps this is why the Palestine-Israel dispute is the most intractable one of all that we today confront. It’s not just that the two adversaries are unwilling to compromise, even when they have attempted to their hard core has reversed that hesitant initial intention. What’s, perhaps, worse is their friends and allies are unlikely, even unwilling, to encourage them. Neither Washington and London nor the arab street are likely to push for a true compromise. For a cessation of hostility and a short-lived but ill-designed arrangement, yes. But for something more long-lasting, that depends on a genuine move away from their hard-baked original positions, no, almost definitely not.

This is why the last two weeks of interviews have been revealing but deeply disillusioning. Actually, depressing. In fact, the indelible impression they have left behind has created a sense of despair. The Israel-Palestine quagmire seems impossible to clear up and resolve. I fear it will just go on and on and on. Tomorrow may be another day for the rest of the world but for Israel and Palestine it doesn’t promise change.

And, so, think of the situation we face. Just as the horrendous Hamas attack has shattered Israel’s self-confidence, whilst firing up its determination to fight back, similarly obliterating Hamas – if that were possible – will only leave behind a searing grievance and pulsating hurt that will inevitably lay the foundations for a worse problem in the future. What does this suggest? The saddest most lamentable conclusion is that the ground is being laid for another tragic chapter in this unending story. It seems the future will always take us back to the past.

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