Using my Wondrous Grant I decided to go back to school and enrol in a short course at Sydney University on ‘Middle East Conflict’. Having studied History in London I am interested in what has gone before to influence the now, and why we behave why we do. The Middle East is a topic, I, like most skate on the surface of, knowing a little about the open wound but not much about what lies behind.
I would thoroughly recommend a short course at the University of Sydney, it was refreshing to learn in such a way again and listen, absorbing information in an academic environment on a subject matter a million miles away from the day to day. It also gave a little perspective on things. Against a backdrop of such a serious complex subject matter, were the individuals one encountered, my personal favourite in the class was a charming 86 year old woman who was working her way through the humanities short courses, proving that you never stop learning and you can learn for the good of self, not necessarily to further your CV.
Quite simply it was also nice to use a pen and not a pad, pod or power point.
Covering the past 20 centuries in 12 hours across a 6 week period isn’t going to make one worthy of solving the problem, arguably no one sadly is, however we did manage to gain significant understanding of just how complex and dangerous the situation is, involving nations inside and outside of the region, from the United States to Iran. It is, in many ways, the centre of East-West tensions and modern terrorism. Understanding the conflict required detailed knowledge of which players are involved, their histories and their ambitions in the region, which was fascinating. The course also looked at Christian groups in the Middle East, especially in Palestine and Lebanon to see how they are involved and what their stake is.
It’s impossible to summarise the conflict (it’s hard to even name it conflict/ war/issue/sore/wound) and to do so in a few paragraphs wouldn’t do it justice. The Middle East remains a strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive region. And almost impossible to talk about the subject without an opinion. Leaving any bias at the front door, I will however cite a few brief points I found interesting:
• Drawing simple lines on maps has always been problematic. In 1917 under the Balfour Declaration Palestine is declared a Jewish homeland, in conflict with the Sykes-Picot agreement 3 weeks later which agreed to recognise an Arab state. Eighty-five years later, in a 2002 interview with The New Statesman, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw observed "A lot of the problems we are having to deal with now, I have to deal with now, are a consequence of our colonial past. ...The Balfour Declaration and the contradictory assurances which were being given to Palestinians in private at the same time as they were being given to the Israelis - again, an interesting history for us but not an entirely honorable one." 1
To see the map’s progression is essential:
• Geographically I had no idea how tiny Israel is, about as big as the ACT.
• The Gaza Strip is the most densely populated area of land on the planet.
• Moving from a land war it turned arguably in the 1980s into one of religion with the rise of fundamentalism (both sides) and also Pentecostalism from US soldiers. Two protagonist sides both shouting on their mountains claiming their peak is the nearest to God. 2 However, we must note still that c.40% of Israelis are atheist or agnostic.
• DNA evidence has proven that both Arab and Jewish DNA was around ‘at the beginning’ so both have a decent claim to the land and some studies argue that as far as male lineage goes, the genetic story is very clear; Palestinians and Jews are virtually indistinguishable. 3
• As the consequences of Thatcherite economics unfold across the world in The Occupy Movement (The Occupy movement is an international protest movement which is primarily directed against economic and social inequality), Israel too has its own economic concerns as the gap between rich and poor widens and economic instability adds to the open sore. On October 15 an occupation named "Occupy Rothschild" began in Tel Aviv. Occupation was related to the 2011 Israel social justice protests which began in Rothschild on July 14.
A final note, the region is obviously always in the news, but recently the famous open mic debacle gave us a fairly amusing story, giving us the briefest of glimpses of what lies beneath the polished veneer of stock phrases and party lines. Thus we discovered a couple of weeks ago, what Nicolas Sarkozy really thought of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. At the G20 meeting in Cannes the French president was clearly unaware a nearby microphone was open when he turned to Barack Obama and said: "Netanyahu, I can't stand him. He's a liar."
The US president, according to the French translator, replied: "You're sick of him? I have to work with him every day." 4
On balance, Sarkozy's aside does more damage to Netanyahu. After all, he came to power as the most pro-Israel French president in decades and is clearly losing patience. To call someone a 'liar' is no profanity (although MPs are not permitted to apply it to each other in parliament), but is all the more cutting because of it, especially with another world leader nodding in agreement. It reinforces Netanyahu's image at home as an opportunist who is losing Israel friends abroad.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at their next encounter.
For anyone interested in the subject there are some must reads:
Ian Bickerton and M.N. Pearson
The Arab Israeli Conflict: A History
Bernad Lewis The Crisis of Islam
Jack Nelson-Pallemeyer: Is Religion Killing Us?
And a full list of upcoming courses can be found here:
Footnotes
1.New Statesmen. Jack Straw
2.Michael Pyne SU
3.http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/01/shared-genetic-heritage-of-jews-and.html
4.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/08/sarkozy-netanyahu-liar
