The Palestinian Problem
Some problems never go away. And some problems just bubble away under the surface, hiding in wait, biding their time. The problems of the Middle East seem to embody both sorts. History and religion are difficult backdrops for justice and nowhere on the face of the earth has more of both than the corner of the world where three continents meet. Africa, Europe and Asia and their diverse cultures come together is some very rugged terrain that is wedged between the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Thinking anthropologically, humans as we now know ourselves, originated predominantly in East Africa. Assuming that the area bore any resemblance to its current landscape, the area in the northeast of the continent was less than hospitable for humans, so if they felt compelled to migrate in that direction, they most certainly were in search of a promised land that was more verdant and fertile. This wedge of land is the place that was called The Fertile Crescent by anthropologist James Breasted in 1914 and it starts in the Tigris and Euphrates River basins of modern Kuwait and Iraq and arches up into Jordan and Syria (touching on Turkey) and then continues down the eastern Mediterranean coast to encompass Lebanon, Israel and pauses at the harsh border of Sinai and perhaps even continues down the fertile Nile River Valley. It is where humans first engaged in agriculture and became settlers versus wanderers. It is where people had the time to develop writing, mathematics, mechanical invention (they say the wheel originated there) and even conveniences like glass, which probably occurred naturally in the hot sands of the area. This all happened 10,000 or so years ago and establishes the baseline of modern civilization.
That means that 400 or more generations of people have considered the area to be their home. They developed in various tribes and created a full array of cultures and, ultimately, religions. Religion seems to be a necessity of human life and I would posit that the limits of man’s imagination to understand the meaning of existence and the limits of his world explain its prevalence. But while science, mathematics, astronomy and other fact-based lines of thought, share a majority of realities, faith-based thinking can develop as a vast set of options based mostly on the world around them and whatever impacts specific men in their specific lives. The beauty of imagination, where faith tends to reside, is that it can travel in countless directions and take on countless shapes. The nature of religion is that its basis in faith quickly becomes an all-or-nothing proposition for its believers and this galvanization makes for rather extreme views. So the set-up for the region over these ten millennia is that everyone believes with all the fiber of their being that they are the owners of their home and the masters of their souls. No one else’s claims, whether based on history or belief mean much given the self interest and the cultural focus that is a central thesis of religion.
I am thinking about the Fertile Crescent this morning because my suitcase is out and mostly packed for our trip to Egypt and Petra in the next several weeks. I have been watching the global weather reports to try to be as good at predicting appropriate clothing needs as I can be. The weather seems to have drifted from comparable coolness to here, all the way to hot summer 90 degree weather. Actually, the few days we are spending in Rome next week will, indeed, be 60 degree weather, but then Egypt will be much warmer. Cairo will bridge the gap, but Luxor and Aswan to the south will be hot. After a return to Cairo for a few days, we will head over into the ark under the Fertile Crescent, going to Amman, Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea. Everywhere we will be is predominantly Arabic and thus influenced by the Muslim religion with doses of Christianity and Judaism. There is a blend of Nomadic culture, which dominates in the desert climes and the settled cultures from almost all regions of the world that have spent the last century trying to gain favor with the region in order to dominate its crossroads location and its energy reserves under its sands. We will spend a moment before going on Monday, to watch Lawrence of Arabia, that wonderful iconic movie that was both filmed on the very lands we will visit (specifically Wadi Rum, Sinai and Cairo), to remind ourselves about the struggles that have seemed ever-present in the region.
The dominant struggle in the region is based on the interface between Israel and Palestine and has raged for 75 years since the formation of the new state of Israel. The harshness of the land made the vestigial cultures in the region in 1945 very weak relative to the well-funded Zionist push to provide some meager reparation from the Holocaust. The result was the establishment of the modern form of nomads that are the Palestinians. I have seen that what began as a degree of empathy to these displaced people by other Arabic countries, turn into a more hostile wall that wants to protect the insular cultures of this region. The Palestinian Problem is now a palpable and shared reality that is still on the front pages regularly. It flares and it quells, but it does not depart. We will be in its midst and it will be interesting to see how much it can be felt in Egypt and Jordan that bound the problem zone of Palestine.
I came to think about the Palestinian Problem not because of any current flare-up or even because of my impending travel, but for a very different reason. For a week now we have watched the massive and harmful train derailment on the border between Ohio and Pennsylvania, half way between Akron and Pittsburgh. It occurred in a town called East Palestine, a town named for unspecified religious reasons, but most likely due to immigrants from the Middle East that settled in the area. I do not know the religious composition of the area, and I’m not so sure it maters after two hundred years of local development. What does matter is what this train derailment has exposed about our own cultural struggles in America. There may be religious undertones to a lot that goes on around the country, but I doubt anyone would disagree that our biggest differences these days are political.
Ohio is a dominantly Republican state with Governor DeWine now supported by Senator J.D. Vance, the perpetrator of the story of the Hillbilly Elegy. Pennsylvania has been a swing state, but has shifted back to a dominant Democratic state with Governor Shapiro and now Senator Fetterman. One of the great things about our country has always been the way we come together to address natural disasters and crises. This train derailment with all of its dangerous chemical spills certainly qualifies. And yet, when offered help by Joe Biden and the Federal government, the Ohio governance structure stood firm that they did not want federal assistance where the Pennsylvania government jumped in to help side-by-side with the feds and Ohio authorities. This partisan outlook is not based on need. The local electorate wanted all the help they could get. It was based on politics.
In the Middle East, the Palestinian Problem has the burden of millennial history and religious cross-currents. But the Palestinian Problem on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border has only forty years and more shared religious and cultural heritage than not. The Middle East problem is serious and understandable. The American political rift is simply unnecessary and venal.