Middle East so slippery, even Arabs can’t grab it

The European Union (EU) and the US are forever trying to meddle in Middle East affairs. Each thinks it knows what it’s doing in the Middle East. Both are wrong.

We know the EU and US don’t know what they’re doing in the Middle East because we see that the Arabs themselves don’t know what they’re doing in the Middle East.  If the Arabs who live here don’t know what’s going on in the Middle East, how can those foreigners from Europe and the US know anything?

They don’t.

The proof for this assertion lies in the news from June 17, 2015. The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) news service, Ma’an News Agency, has reported that an official of Fatah, the Party that rules the PA, has announced that the Prime Minister of the PA-Hamas Unity government handed in his resignation to PA President Mahmoud Abbas (“Palestinian unity government resigns”).

That sounds straight-forward enough, doesn’t it? The PA Prime Minister handed in his resignation. The PA President has now asked him—the Prime Minister who just resigned—to form a new government.

What’s the problem?

The problem is, as soon as a Fatah official announced this resignation, another Fatah official announced there was no resignation (ibid).

Oops.

This second Fatah official had an explanation: this was not a ‘resignation’. It was a planned ‘dissolution’. Fatah was dissolving the unity Hamas-PA government because it had been unable to govern in Gaza, where Hamas rules (ibid). The idea was, forming a new government would reshuffle the deck, as it were, so that governing both the PA and Gaza would be easier (ibid).

Okay, that makes sense, right?

Well, it might make sense to you, but no one told the other half of the unity government about any of it. Hamas is supposed to be a governing partner with Fatah. As soon as Fatah announced the resignation-dissolution, Hamas said, basically, “what are you talking about?”

A Hamas spokesman complained, “No one told us anything about any decision to change and no one consulted with us about any change in the unity government” (ibid).

Oops.

The Jerusalem Post suggested (perhaps) that one motivation for this ‘dissolution’ might actually be that Fatah officials in Ramallah are extremely angry at Hamas for supposedly secret ‘peace’ talks with Israel (“Palestinian unity government resigns, Abbas adviser says”, June 17, 2015). They’re angry because any kind of ‘sort-of’ peace deal between Hamas and Israel could crush PA hopes for creating a new state under PA control (Alex Fishman, “Israel's secret cooperation with Hamas”, YNET, April 26, 2015). The PA is reported to be fuming (ibid). The media in Ramallah are accusing Israel of helping Hamas in Gaza establish itself as a rival leadership (ibid).

Perhaps ‘dissolving’ the unity government is the PA’s way to push back against Hamas. No one knows.

Hamas certainly seems not to know. It’s accused Fatah of ‘spreading lies’ (Jerusalem Post, ibid).

The Egyptians, meanwhile, seem to have been caught completely by surprise (Avi Issacharoff, “In end to latest PA government, much ado about nothing?”, Times of Israel, June 17, 2015). They’re upset. They’re angry (ibid). Something’s going on behind their back.  

So here we are in the mysterious Middle East. Fatah doesn’t know what Hamas is doing. Hamas claims it doesn’t know what Fatah is doing. And the Egyptians apparently don’t know what anyone’s doing.

Then there’s Israel. Oh…well…Israel isn’t saying anything to anybody.

The bottom line is, the Arabs don’t know what’s going on. How are the EU and the US supposed to know anything?

Of course, if the EU and the US weren’t so hostile to Israel, they could ask Israel what’s going on. But then, they seem to hate Israel. The Jews are the last people the EU and US would talk to.

That brings us back to the beginning. The EU and US don’t have a clue what’s going on in the Middle East; and if you want to know the truth, so long as they’re hostile to Israel, they’re never going to know.

You must understand something: the Middle East is a place of sun, sand and mirage. If you want to know what it’s like to be surrounded by a burning sun, slippery sand and impossible mirages, go ask the EU and the US. They’ve become the experts at getting lost in a hot, bright world where the promises of water and sweet fruit forever beckon but are always beyond reach.

The Middle East: it’s where Arabs know what can happen if you get lost, and where white folk go who think they’re smarter than the Arab.

It’s also where G-d put the Jews.

Want to find out why G-d did that?

Stay tuned.