So now Israel has the supreme gall to shut down the operations of Al Jazeera within its borders. And Progressive World Opinion, right on cue, greets the news with all the delicately calibrated, nuanced outrage we've come to expect from this Most Enlightened Point in All of Human Time. After all, why - in the name of sanity - would any decent country dream of muzzling such a fair-minded, compassionate, and meticulously balanced lover of both Israel and the Gaza Strip as Al Jazeera? And all the more so when you consider the indisputably decent country that hosts it . . . (or decent, at any rate, compared to those genocidal Israelis?)
Shall I tell you what I think is the one most revealing, and vital, and urgent hope for the entire Middle East today? (One clue: It's not the sort of hope embraced by most Hamasified Palestinians. At least not consciously.)
One day this maddening miracle called Israel is going to discover Who it is she really depends on, for everything. But most vitally for her wisdom, and real strength, and real survival. On that day she will learn also what are the real threats to that survival, in the fullest sense of the latter word: spiritually no less than economically; culturally, and Scripturally, as well as militarily and politically; in the garden, and prosperity, as well as in the desert and adversity. And that it is the former - the garden - which requires of each of us the kind of humility that is lowliest, most trustful, most solacing and gratifying. At least if we're actually to enjoy the garden, instead of just presupposing it, and taking it for granted. And so wasting and destroying it.
One day Israel is going to discover that her worst enemies are not those who are determined to destroy her no matter what the cost, to themselves or others (as bad as they are). Neither is it those who are determined to protect and preserve her no matter what the cost, to themselves or others (as misguided as they may be). One day Israel will know - hopefully not "too late" - that her deadliest enemies, both spiritually and physically, are all those who even now are saying: "Why yes, we'll let you live, and survive, and even thrive and prosper . . . on these conditions . . ."
In short, one day Israel is going to learn that her most insidiously deadly enemies are not the Washingtons and Londons, the Tehrans and Gaza Cities or even the Moscows of the drama; but rather all those sly, subtle middlemen - Dohas and Ankaras and even Beijings (plus God knows how many colluding Western entities and interests) - whose speciality it is to play both ends against the middle: who give sanctuary to, who glorify and radicalize and martyrize the one side, even as they profess to understand and intercede for - and plead with - the other. The very ones, in fact, who have done the most to foment the climate, not just of hatred and detestation of Israel, but of the smug, successionist superiority of Islam to all things both Jewish and Western. Let no one say money doesn't talk.
On that day - just maybe, finally - the smarter Israelis (I wish I could be sure Netanyahu & Co will be numbered among them) will realize that NO implosion or collapse or breakup of Iran is going to prevent the infilling of that void by the likes of ISIS (or some yet grosser mutation). Any more than the collapse of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza prevented the rise of Hamas.
Meanwhile pray - as never before - for the peace and sanity of Kiev. And the return to sanity of Moscow (and Macron).
But above all, of course, pray for the peace and sanity of Jerusalem. And of all those who wish her well. Amen.
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