Insight from Unexpected Places

Insight often comes from the most unexpected places.  An Israeli diplomat once told me that one of the greatest tests that God Gave the Jews was giving them their own state.  For centuries, after the Diaspora, when Jewish leaders and intellectuals disagreed with each other, they were scattered all over the world.

Now, when they disagreed, they were all in one small strip of land along the Mediterranean.  If there were two Jews in the room, there were at least three opinions for every issue.  I replied that they were no different from the Muslims.

When the people are so disunited, when they have to contend with corruption in the political and religious leadership, there is always a need for an external enemy to demonise.  In that sense, there are people in power who need the Jews and Arabs to hate each other, and they are often not the ones who stay in the geographic neighbourhood, so they never experience the consequences of oppression.

The Arab-Israeli issue is not a Jewish-Muslim issue.  There are many voices, many positions in the mix that are never heard, even from people who shape policy in the region simply because those ideas are inconvenient to the prevailing narrative we are all fed.