The news media are devoting virtually all of their bandwidth to the savage Hamas-Israeli sh*t storm in Gaza and especially on the status of the Israeli hostages. After some digging, it is possible to learn that many Islamic militia groups in the region have been attempting to strike at Israel from far outside of the Israeli border. This is being coordinated by Iran.

Iran Update, November 26, 2023 | Institute for the Study of War (understandingwar.org)

The thing that I’m learning is that the historical facts aren’t so hard to understand, it’s just a large hairball of intertwined details. The emotional depths, however, are deep and abiding. It long ago morphed into a battle between certain Islamic fundamentalists and the “invaders”. The momentum to begin the State of Israel began well before 1948. The formation and settlement of Israel, Zionism, was a planned movement to first colonize the area of present-day Israel and gradually push out the residing Palestinian Arabs. There are early references to the settlement of European Jews of the First Aliyah between 1881 and 1903 to Ottoman Syria. These people were traditional Jews not necessarily interested in Zionism. It’s important to note that Zionism and Judaism are not equivalent.

According to Wikipedia, the Zionist movement is thought to have originated with Theodor Hertzl in 1897. Even before, there were Jewish villages established in Palestine, ibid. He was an Austro-Hungarian journalist and Jew who promoted immigration to Palestine for the purpose of establishing a homeland. The link gives some good background.

The formal establishment of the Israeli state from the Israeli side is well documented and is left for the reader to access. Palestinians refer to this as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

It seems well documented that the establishment of the state of Israel was a systematic movement to form a Jewish homeland- Zionism. This process inevitably involved the forced displacement of Palestinian Arabs from what was greater Palestine and into smaller reservations for the displaced- Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank is being slowly but vigorously absorbed by Israeli settlers.

It will be impossible for the Palestinians to just roll over and forgive and forget. Much has to heal. Gaza has been called an apartheid concentration camp to contain and control the Palestinians and I cannot see why this is an exaggeration. The brutal Israeli reprisal on Hamas and civilian Gazans after the October 7th attack by Hamas will extend the conflict. This is driven by the Netanyahu political movement.

How can I, an American with no interest in any of the Abrahamic religions possibly know about this? Hey man, I’m tryin’. Obviously this thing has to settle down and casualties on both sides stop, just nobody knows how to make it happen. The incessant and violent meddling by Iran is inflammatory and has to be suppressed. Their interest is in sowing chaos is unrelenting and dangerous.

The state of Israel will not shut down for any reason and leave the Levant. They are there for good. To Islamic extremists, this means that all they can do is kill all of the Israelis and share the misery. It’s like two guys standing in gasoline and each threatening to light a match. This will take some realpolitik over decades on both sides to solve. Pure ideology will lead nowhere.

Unwavering American government allegiance to the state of Israel, in public at least, and the influence of AIPAC must be pushed aside to provide effective, balanced and trusted leadership in the region. Many US states have already passed laws banning the criticism of Israel or its businesses. This type of statutory tribalism is not helpful and must stop. Reflexive opposition to the Palestinians leads only to the next 100 year’s war.

Biased US leadership in the Middle East only fuels continuous conflict and strengthens the proxy war of Iran against the US. Our steadfast bias should be for a negotiated peace. There is substantial support for Israel by American Evangelical Protestant Christian nationalists whose religious beliefs require strong support for the state of Israel. It is a part of their Calvinistic dominionism theology and the return of the Messiah. This is the third leg of a serious religious conflict. Israelis understand this interference by the pesky Christian chicken coop across the Atlantic, but they need the eggs.