Generational Warfare
I first became aware of the Middle East tensions in 1968. I was on an Italian Line ocean liner heading to Rome to live, and the ship was packed with Americans returning to the region after their summer home leaves or whatnot. The region I refer to was entirety of the Mediterranean area and most of the Middle East and North Africa. Remember that in 1968 the U.S. burgeoning multinational corporations were heavily dominated by the oil companies that were extracting black gold throughout the Middle East and North Africa, most dominantly in Libya, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. All those American expats had to send their kids to school in either Switzerland or Rome and there were a lot of those kids on that Italian Line ship that summer and they were far more worldly (as least to the ways of the Middle East region) that I was. I had some global cred due to having lived in Latin America for six years, but I was new to Europe and especially new to the Middle East. About all I knew about the region I had learned in my 9th grade Western Civilization History course that I mentioned in my recent story about my Ancient and Medieval History textbook. That meant I knew nothing of the current lay of the land. Most of those kids knew more about the Arab world than they knew about Israel since oil was their raison d’etre. I learned that Beirut, Lebanon was a glorious city that was the jewel of the region that acted as the financial center for the growing money flows from oil. I also learned that the 1967 six-day war, while it did not really involve Lebanon, threw the balance of power in the overall region from Egypt to Jordan to Syria into a cocked hat that looked very much like a yarmulka. I can’t say that my three years in Rome focused much attention on the Israeli/Arab conflict, but I did watch the takeover of relatively nearby Libya by Muammar Gaddafi and that certainly portended the rise of the militant Arab community.
When I entered Cornell, my cohort was very focused on the conflict in Southeast Asia and less so in the Middle East. That’s when I met my best friend at the time, Paul Joseph, who was the product of a West Point graduate father who was one of the few Jewish cadets at the time (even now there are only 33 Jewish cadets out of 4,400). Paul grew up on army camps like Leavenworth, Kansas where being Jewish was like being a hen’s tooth. When I first met him, he had an Israeli flag and a picture of tanks in Sinai during the Six-Day War on his wall. For a guy who “seemed” less Jewish, culturally speaking, compared to my many other Metro NYC Jewish friends, he was all about Israeli strength in the Middle East. From that time on as my connections to the relatively small American Jewish community 7.6 million or 2.4% (1.6 million or 18% in NYC) have only grown and my awareness of the state of relations in the Middle East has been on alert.
I have traveled and done business extensively all over the Arab Middle East and in Israel alike. I have partnered with Israeli and Arab companies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. I have even worked at a high level for two years for an Israeli company in the U.S.. Kim and I have both travelled to Israel and the Arab Middle East quite a bit and seen all of Israel from the Golan Heights down to Elat on the Gulf of Aqaba, and from Haifa to Masada. We’ve even taken a bootlegged day trip into the West Bank through the burning cars and random rubble. When I was a Board Member of CARE, I got called out by an activist Palestinian group for being associated with an Israeli company that built occupied territory settlements on contract. So, while I am neither Israeli, Jewish nor affiliated any longer with Arab entities, I feel more connected to the region and its issues than many.
I have never spent much time in Ukraine, so that war is far more abstract to me than the war in Israel and Gaza that started three days ago. Kim and I were just in Egypt and Jordan earlier this year, so we were a mere 50 miles from Gaza, a distance equivalent to the distance from this hilltop to Newport Beach. The war in Israel and Gaza seems VERY real to me. And it impacts both me and my family and friends, many of them who have deep connections to Israel. We are in the news saturation stage of the conflict and there are many things about it that are both familiar and yet very different. There have been countless flare-ups between Israel and Palestine and, in fact, four prior incursions into Gaza over the past fifteen years alone. But this war, and make no mistake, it is a fully formalized and declared war, is being talked about in very different terms. We all understand the military might of Israel, but then, we also all thought we knew about the dominance of the Israeli intelligence network…until this attack by Hamas by land sea and air, has breached that image and rendered it obsolete.
The image of the Israeli military is a product of both the horrific oppression of Jews in Europe during and before WWII and steel-hardened by being forced to persist and grow in an extremely hostile environment like the Holy Lands, surrounded on all sides by sworn enemies who have been held at bay only through vigilance and ongoing toughness. Their history of efficient and surgical response to military crises make us expect a speedy resolution, but that’s not what we are hearing and seeing. I believe the 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive have schooled us in how much harder it is to root out entrenched residents and resisting troops than to repel invaders. The last twenty-five years have also taught us a lot about the agony and horror of terrorism and urban warfare. Hostages and human shields are pernicious tactics that get deployed in terrorism and these are further highlighted in the worst possible way through the use of social (or should I say anti-social) media. As I listened to the translated speech by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, I heard words that are hard to hear. The comment that struck me more than any other was “By attacking us, Hamas has made a mistake of historic proportions. We will exact a price that will be remembered by them for decades and by generations to come.” Those are strong words, even for Netanyahu.
I have listened to both sides of the debate on what should come next in Israeli response. In the past, Israelis have always rallied around their leaders in all the prior regional conflicts. This time things are different. Netanyahu has been put upon politically for some time and his far-right leaning and posturing, including his quest for judicial “reform” has struck many Israelis as a slide too far toward the autocratic for what has heretofore been a fervent democracy. If there was one thing that most Israelis liked about Netanyahu, it was his image as a strong defense PM. This surprise attack by Hamas has caught Mossad off-guard, and in so doing, it has made the Israeli PM look less competent or strong than people assumed. Some go so far as to say that it has been his strongman policies with the settlements and his “imprisonment” of the Palestinians in Gaza under harsh conditions (45% of them are below the poverty line) that has not been sufficiently appeased by small efforts like increased Israeli work visas, that has caused this pot to boil over as it has. No one, not even moderate Palestinians, are condoning the tactics of Hamas, but the thought that this boiling pot has been boiling for 75 years (three generations) and, according to Netanyahu, will be boiling for generations to come, is a depressing thought.
When I studied history, it always amazed me when I heard of things like The Hundred Years War in the late Middle Ages between England and France. How could a war go on so long? The wars I knew most about, WWI and WWII went of for four and six years respectively, and those always seems so very epic. And now, Netanyahu is telling us that we may see this war, or series of wars, go on for 150 years. Generational warfare is the worst thing for humanity because children, whether they are Palestinians living in Gaza or Israelis living in a settlement, will grow up only knowing the hatred of war. That is a sad, sad prospect to contemplate.