A New War?

    Shots have just been fired at the Israeli embassy in Greece. Last night one of my Israeli friends noted that recently a Palestinian politician died in a protest, and one way or another we will probably pay for it in yet another war. It's as predictable as the annual Macy's white sale at this point. We have a semi-annual war.
     Sitting in Cape Town today, I'm a bit insulated from the day to day grind of the middle east. I'm able to imagine a new middle east. Like South African society, if we ever get to peace in the middle east, there is going to be a lot of truth and reconciliation that needs to go on. At the end of the day we may never even get onto the same narratives. The middle east is a patchwork of intermixed tribes and groups in conflict. Our current alliances are comical if you think about them logically. Kurds and Hezbolla. Orthodox Jews and Wahabi Muslims. Alewites and Druze. None of the alliances being built currently are stable or based on true common interests. Every human is a unique person with similarities and common interests that cut many different ways. The armed tribalism of the east is a recipe for an unsustainable mess. It seems as if there is an obvious solution: building peaceful societies based on our common human goals...but taking a bad society apart is the easy part. Breaking up things is easy. The question is how do you put them back together again.
     Everyone could agree we want peace although peace in and of itself is a pretty hollow word. Peace prevailed at times in many slave societies. Even at the most extreme level of opression and human misery peace is possible. But what kind of peace? Peace, in and of itself, is not really a worthwhile goal. Sustainable peace must be our mission. Human history shows peace will not be sustained under conditions of dramatic inequality whether it is of wealth, political rights or access to resources. I fear we may be headed to an additional war. Sadly, I don't know how we can be more at war. The US has been bombing the middle east for the last decade. The whole region simmers...and to the South  on the African continent wars in Africa produce more refugees than the entire world seems able to absorb. The world currently has 15 million refugees and about twice as many internally displaced people. For most of them the world already has come apart. The only positive I see in a coming war is that maybe the rest of us can develop a higher level of empathy.