Bibi might want to consider a joint defense alliance with Sunni Arab states who also have military reasons to be displeased with Iran and it's proxies. It's hard to see any other solution for peace in the Middle East other than the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Bibi might want to consider a joint defense alliance with Sunni Arab states who also have military reasons to be displeased with Iran and it's proxies. It's hard to see any other solution for peace in the Middle East other than the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
That's always a perilous arrangement, particularly with authoritarian states. We made a similar play with the Taliban against the USSR during the '80's as I recall. If I were in Israel's shoes, I wouldn't trust the Saudis.
It's also worth noting that Iran has its own friends, not just in the region but internationally as well. The Syrian gov, Russia, Yemeni Houthis, LH just to name a few.
Because getting the Saudis involved risks making a smaller conflict into a larger one. It's the same reason we didn't ask Israel to be a part of the "coalition of the willing" that went into Iraq. Some "friends/allies" become more problematic than helpful on a case by case basis when it comes to stuff like this. You think Iran is going to sit back and watch Saudi Arabia get involved and do nothing about that?
OK, but is Saudi Arabia the only other Islamic (Sunni or Shia) that would be willing to join a peace-keeping force/rebuilding effort in Gaza? Notice I said "peace process," not "war effort." And, yes, I understand the concerns about starting a larger conflict, but under the right diplomatic circumstances (with UN participation?), Iran would be kept involved as well.
We have to keep options open and not be restricted by what has always been the case. Sure, we did not want Israel involved in any of our own mistaken war moves in the region.
I'm talking about a peace process, not belligerence.
Peace-keeping = occupation in the middle east. That means the region's largest Sunni power player occupying a zone where the Shia hold influence via proxies (Iran funding Hamas). That would be Iran's arch-nemesis militarily encroaching on its turf in the eyes of Tehran. Iran would also oppose that kind of precedent more generally of Saudi Arabia becoming a regional peace-keeping force. What would stop the Saudis from threatening Iran's Shia-dominant proxy governments in Syria or Iraq via "peace-keeping" for example? Iran doesn't want that Pandora's Box opening up and would fight it tooth and nail--including local Gazan insurgencies against a Saudi peacekeeper force.
The US was functionally a peace-keeping and nation-building force in the wake of Saddam's removal in Iraq and look how that went. Civil War, power vacuums, competing interests, an insurgency against the peacekeeping force *and* the new government. See what I mean? That kind of thing doesn't go cleanly out there. The same would happen with the Saudis acting in Gaza the same way the coalition acted in Iraq.
I respect your knowledge, experience and expertise in Middle East Affairs, Travis, and understand the complexity of a "pan-Arab" involvement and the likelihood of the results you describe.
You know first-hand what has happened when assurances of "peacekeeping" all too quickly turned into combat from those in opposition to any peacekeeping efforts.
My point is that we need to find a way to bring all parties to the table exactly so we can avoid the horror that ensued after our invasion into Iraq.
I'm not suggesting this approach could ever be completed without a realignment of Iranian interests in the region (and most of the Iranian surrogates' interests). We need the efforts of multiple powers from the region and beyond it, and as you suggested in an earlier post, the efforts are hampered all the more because of the devastation that Russia is creating in Ukraine.
But diplomatic efforts cannot stop merely because of the failures of the past. We need to keep trying, to make whatever connections are possible among all sides in the conflict.
Negotiations are at a standstill now and look what is happening. All sides are increasingly committed to a spiraling escalation of aggression.
"My point is that we need to find a way to bring all parties to the table exactly so we can avoid the horror that ensued after our invasion into Iraq."
Regional players like the Qataris and the UAE are already filling this role of diplomatic moderators with mixed success at best. This kind of thing is currently ongoing. It hasn't stopped.
The thing is, Palestinians as a collective peoples are entirely preoccupied with the wholesale destruction of Israeli Jews as a cultural/political goal, and there ain't no way of getting around that when it comes to finding a peaceful pathway forward. Even if the Palestinians got all of the 1967 lines back they would still want the wholesale destruction and/or removal of every single Jew from the Jordanian river to the Mediterranean Sea and there ain't a damned thing that the Qataris, Saudis, or the UAE can do to change their minds about that one. There is no peace until that changes, and the Saudis aren't going to get that done either just like the UAE and Qataris haven't been able to. "The people are the problem" here when it comes to the mindset and goals of Palestinians versus what peace would dictate be required.
Bill Maher said it best: "The Palestinians want to destroy all of Israel, but can't. Israel could kill every Palestinian, but won't." That's where things stand, and there will be many many more Palestinian kids dying as a result of the stance and actions that their parents take for the foreseeable future. It's going to be just another thing we're going to have to get used to living with like school shootings and climate change. There isn't likely to be any change in that dynamic in our lifetimes and we need to move from the "something needs to be done" mindset into the "things aren't ever going to change there" mindset. We're throwing up our hands for nothing at this point because there's not a whole lot we can actually *do* about this. Only the Palestinians can change the future for their children, and that starts with ending their desire for every Israeli Jew to be removed or killed.
I know, I know, I know, .... but the Gulf states are not serious players in this. They are as decadent and narcissistic as Americans have become. Look at the tourist ads for Dubai and you'll see where their interests lie. It's not in helping the Palestinians. But they do have an interest in helping Israel if their help would provide more transactional gains for their sheikdoms.
Can we find any links to unite (now a meaningless word) any of the parties locked in this path towards mutual destruction? Your answer is clear, and I thank you for it, even if I'm still holding out for a future (way beyond my demise) without these conflicts.
Otherwise, we (meaning all humankind) will kill one another one way or another, directly or indirectly, actively or passively.
Perhaps the "good night" is coming no matter how much we "rage, rage against the dying of the light."
The narcissism in the West of thinking that they/we can somehow make Palestinians no longer violently anti-Semitic is another kind of narcissism. That's the kind of narcissism we suffer from. Thinking we're so special that we can make other groups of peoples with decades of blood feuds somehow think differently using our logic, values, and principles. Some problems literally just have to bleed themselves out on a long enough timeline until one side decides they've had enough. That's how I see this conflict ending, and it's not likely to get to that point within my lifetime, but it won't stop generations of western narcissists into thinking they know enough to overcome that sort of thing with western values and logic. You can't reason people out of a thing they didn't reason themselves into. Only time combined with sustained loss can cripple culturally emotional motivations, and it usually takes a good while of both.
I see American narcissism much more broadly and deeply than you describe here, but I agree that our hubris regarding involvement in foreign affairs has been part of it.
Bibi might want to consider a joint defense alliance with Sunni Arab states who also have military reasons to be displeased with Iran and it's proxies. It's hard to see any other solution for peace in the Middle East other than the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
That's always a perilous arrangement, particularly with authoritarian states. We made a similar play with the Taliban against the USSR during the '80's as I recall. If I were in Israel's shoes, I wouldn't trust the Saudis.
It's also worth noting that Iran has its own friends, not just in the region but internationally as well. The Syrian gov, Russia, Yemeni Houthis, LH just to name a few.
Exactly. Why haven't we heard more about the Arab states that were supposed to be included in a peace process between Hamas and Israel?
Because getting the Saudis involved risks making a smaller conflict into a larger one. It's the same reason we didn't ask Israel to be a part of the "coalition of the willing" that went into Iraq. Some "friends/allies" become more problematic than helpful on a case by case basis when it comes to stuff like this. You think Iran is going to sit back and watch Saudi Arabia get involved and do nothing about that?
OK, but is Saudi Arabia the only other Islamic (Sunni or Shia) that would be willing to join a peace-keeping force/rebuilding effort in Gaza? Notice I said "peace process," not "war effort." And, yes, I understand the concerns about starting a larger conflict, but under the right diplomatic circumstances (with UN participation?), Iran would be kept involved as well.
We have to keep options open and not be restricted by what has always been the case. Sure, we did not want Israel involved in any of our own mistaken war moves in the region.
I'm talking about a peace process, not belligerence.
Peace-keeping = occupation in the middle east. That means the region's largest Sunni power player occupying a zone where the Shia hold influence via proxies (Iran funding Hamas). That would be Iran's arch-nemesis militarily encroaching on its turf in the eyes of Tehran. Iran would also oppose that kind of precedent more generally of Saudi Arabia becoming a regional peace-keeping force. What would stop the Saudis from threatening Iran's Shia-dominant proxy governments in Syria or Iraq via "peace-keeping" for example? Iran doesn't want that Pandora's Box opening up and would fight it tooth and nail--including local Gazan insurgencies against a Saudi peacekeeper force.
The US was functionally a peace-keeping and nation-building force in the wake of Saddam's removal in Iraq and look how that went. Civil War, power vacuums, competing interests, an insurgency against the peacekeeping force *and* the new government. See what I mean? That kind of thing doesn't go cleanly out there. The same would happen with the Saudis acting in Gaza the same way the coalition acted in Iraq.
I respect your knowledge, experience and expertise in Middle East Affairs, Travis, and understand the complexity of a "pan-Arab" involvement and the likelihood of the results you describe.
You know first-hand what has happened when assurances of "peacekeeping" all too quickly turned into combat from those in opposition to any peacekeeping efforts.
My point is that we need to find a way to bring all parties to the table exactly so we can avoid the horror that ensued after our invasion into Iraq.
I'm not suggesting this approach could ever be completed without a realignment of Iranian interests in the region (and most of the Iranian surrogates' interests). We need the efforts of multiple powers from the region and beyond it, and as you suggested in an earlier post, the efforts are hampered all the more because of the devastation that Russia is creating in Ukraine.
But diplomatic efforts cannot stop merely because of the failures of the past. We need to keep trying, to make whatever connections are possible among all sides in the conflict.
Negotiations are at a standstill now and look what is happening. All sides are increasingly committed to a spiraling escalation of aggression.
"My point is that we need to find a way to bring all parties to the table exactly so we can avoid the horror that ensued after our invasion into Iraq."
Regional players like the Qataris and the UAE are already filling this role of diplomatic moderators with mixed success at best. This kind of thing is currently ongoing. It hasn't stopped.
The thing is, Palestinians as a collective peoples are entirely preoccupied with the wholesale destruction of Israeli Jews as a cultural/political goal, and there ain't no way of getting around that when it comes to finding a peaceful pathway forward. Even if the Palestinians got all of the 1967 lines back they would still want the wholesale destruction and/or removal of every single Jew from the Jordanian river to the Mediterranean Sea and there ain't a damned thing that the Qataris, Saudis, or the UAE can do to change their minds about that one. There is no peace until that changes, and the Saudis aren't going to get that done either just like the UAE and Qataris haven't been able to. "The people are the problem" here when it comes to the mindset and goals of Palestinians versus what peace would dictate be required.
Bill Maher said it best: "The Palestinians want to destroy all of Israel, but can't. Israel could kill every Palestinian, but won't." That's where things stand, and there will be many many more Palestinian kids dying as a result of the stance and actions that their parents take for the foreseeable future. It's going to be just another thing we're going to have to get used to living with like school shootings and climate change. There isn't likely to be any change in that dynamic in our lifetimes and we need to move from the "something needs to be done" mindset into the "things aren't ever going to change there" mindset. We're throwing up our hands for nothing at this point because there's not a whole lot we can actually *do* about this. Only the Palestinians can change the future for their children, and that starts with ending their desire for every Israeli Jew to be removed or killed.
I know, I know, I know, .... but the Gulf states are not serious players in this. They are as decadent and narcissistic as Americans have become. Look at the tourist ads for Dubai and you'll see where their interests lie. It's not in helping the Palestinians. But they do have an interest in helping Israel if their help would provide more transactional gains for their sheikdoms.
Can we find any links to unite (now a meaningless word) any of the parties locked in this path towards mutual destruction? Your answer is clear, and I thank you for it, even if I'm still holding out for a future (way beyond my demise) without these conflicts.
Otherwise, we (meaning all humankind) will kill one another one way or another, directly or indirectly, actively or passively.
Perhaps the "good night" is coming no matter how much we "rage, rage against the dying of the light."
The narcissism in the West of thinking that they/we can somehow make Palestinians no longer violently anti-Semitic is another kind of narcissism. That's the kind of narcissism we suffer from. Thinking we're so special that we can make other groups of peoples with decades of blood feuds somehow think differently using our logic, values, and principles. Some problems literally just have to bleed themselves out on a long enough timeline until one side decides they've had enough. That's how I see this conflict ending, and it's not likely to get to that point within my lifetime, but it won't stop generations of western narcissists into thinking they know enough to overcome that sort of thing with western values and logic. You can't reason people out of a thing they didn't reason themselves into. Only time combined with sustained loss can cripple culturally emotional motivations, and it usually takes a good while of both.
I see American narcissism much more broadly and deeply than you describe here, but I agree that our hubris regarding involvement in foreign affairs has been part of it.