Middle East Peace: “Tour d’Horizon”
Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto
Published as ACPR Policy Paper No. 163, 2006
February 2006
Avant Propos
This paper attempts to provide the reader
with a number of history related pieces of information, the perception of whose
interaction is needed to create a knowledgeable grasp of the tragic, over a
century old Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine.
It is neither news, nor detailed history.
It is, rather, the information needed to form an opinion.
The paper is dedicated to the readers who
wish to come to their own conclusion, rather than to those who already have
acquired a firm, politically correct, mainstream opinion and do not want to be
confused with facts.
Although the views expressed are personal
and subjective, I attempted to present them as logically and truthfully as
possible. I would appreciate reading my opponents’ views when presented in a
similar way. Maybe we shall be able to find a common denominator.
Stories and books on the Arab-Israeli
conflict abound. Middle East Quarterly Review, Fall 2004, introduces its
readers to 15 new books, some of high value, released during Autumn 2004.
Examining these publications, one realizes
that many are either pure academic studies of a particular event, plain current
media reporting, political defensive or offensive statements related to a
detail/issue, or reports on a particular event. Most of these writings are
valuable, well worth reading.
However, as an active participant in over
60 years of struggle for the establishment of a “Jewish National Home in
Palestine”, I believe, to paraphrase George Orwell in reverse, that “Ignorance
is By No Means Bliss”. Insufficient historical perspective, lack of
careful analysis of the intense ongoing interaction between various
regional events, especially US and Israeli policy/war aims in the ME coupled
with insufficient attention paid to global geopolitical changes over time, do
lead many erudite and diligent people to wrong conclusions. Were these
conclusions to relate to historic trivia, it would not matter. But where ME
political issues are concerned, one deals with matters of life and death of the
region and for about 60% of the world’s oil reserves. Hence this paper, whose
purpose is to cast some more light on politics and media-blurred notions,
vectors closely interacting in a complicated matrix.
YTC
For complete policy paper in PDF
format, click here