WHEN WILL PEACE COME

LETTER TO THE NY TIMES

WHEN WILL PEACE COME -

”Carlo Strenger”s analysis, “TALKING-CURE DIPLOMACY,” omits the truism that war will continue forever because there is money to be made in it. We live in a world of constant conflict, much of it based on religious differences supported by huge amounts of money that in turn bring wealth to the few while the many are killed and dying.

The Arab-Israeli conflict will never end. All the parties to the conflict never sit at the same table. And, aside from Israel, those of the parties who do sit at the peace table have little power to affect the outcome of their meetings. That is simply because the beneficiaries of the conflict happily support it and see no good reason to end it. Only their wealth will be spilled at the peace table; not their blood. And it is the wealthy who are and control the body-politic.
So long as the Arab/Muslim world continues to show death-dealing animosity to Israel's existence, Israel will simply continue to prepare itself for war. When the bombs stop falling on Israel, when the Saudi text-books that show Israel's destruction as a good thing to young Arab minds are amended to teach peace, when the oligarchies of the Arab world show a willingness to normalize political and economic relations with Israel, when every Muslim and Arab terrorist organization created by the wealthy ceases its active war against the Jews and Israel, when the new nuclear-powered Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, ceases his denial of the Holocaust to loud applause by the Muslim world, and when 85% of the Palestinians cease to wish for, work for, pray for, the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, peace will come.

Israel’s power lies in its ability to say, “Yes.” And the Yes comes because of the benefits it can bring to those who are powerful and control the wealth of the country. Even so, were the decision in the hands of Israel's religious bloc, they and their Arab brethren in war, will operate to destroy peace.
Acceptance of the “Other,” in all its ramifications, cannot be attained through Pschology 101 nor religious teachings, through propaganda of the wealth-controlled media, through the profits of the arms makers and arms merchants, and finally, from the existing political hierarchies that control and are controlled by wealth. Rejection is the password to all peaceful manifestations. The mistrust of the other by the masses, engendered, supported, and educated by the power elites of the warring nations, will continue forever as a “necessity” of national defense, patriotism, and religious purity.

Following that state of affairs, the peace movements and the terrorist organizations serve up the citizenry of their countries as tender food for warlords, enthusiastically waving their banners, marching in rallies, occasionally contributing their lives for the cause, always unaware of the legalized power of war-mongers laughing at their naivete. For those who know, know that if by mistake peace is achieved, it will be short-lived.