Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Syria: The Staging Point for a Third World War

Today, Russian warplanes bombed targets in Syria.  The Russians say that they were targetting the Islamic State.  Unfortunately, this is just another one of Putin's lies.  Indeed, Putin's claim that he is helping fight terrorism in Syria is just as hollow as his assertion that his forces are not directly involved in the occupation of eastern Ukraine, not to mention his takeover of Crimea last year.  In the short term, Putin is simply giving more support to fellow dictator, Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad. In the long term, however, he's doing something even more dangerous.  He's creating a staging point from which he and his Iranian allies can conquer the entire Middle East.

Russia's military buildup in Syria has barely started, yet it is already substantial and includes soldiers, tanks and even anti-aircraft weapons.  I know I'm not the only one asking why Russia needs anti-aircraft systems to fight the Islamic State when the latter has no air force to speak of.  It's time to face up to the facts.  The forces that Putin's Russia has deployed to Syria are not there to fight the Islamic State or any other terrorists.  They're there to defend Bashar Al-Assad's regime and safeguard the strategic Russian naval base in the Syrian port of Tartus.  Putin already lost an ally in the Middle East when Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi was deposed and he does not want to lose another one. Actually, it is very unfortunate that the Western powers did not intervene in Syria as they did in Libya, not only because doing so would probably have saved thousands of lives, but also because Assad's removal from power in Syria would have significantly curtailed Russian and Iranian influence in the region.  Russia would likely have lost its naval base in Syria and their foothold in the Mediterranean, while Iran would have lost their most important ally in the region, along with much of their ability to support Hezbollah and Hamas in their attacks on Israel.  Hence, the Western powers missed a golden opportunity to curtail Russian and Iranian influence in the region.

Syria and World War III

Over a year ago, as the world commemorated the anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, I wrote a blog post arguing that the possibility of a third world war was very likely and that such a war would pit a bloc of countries led by the West against another alliance of states led by Russia, China and Iran (see: World War I Began One Hundred Years Ago.  How Likely is Another World War?  Unfortunately, Very Likely).  So how does Syria play into this scenario?  If you read my blog, you will notice that I mention the Middle East as being one of the key fronts in the third world war, where some of the bloodiest battles will take place.  I even suggest that the war may begin with an attack on Israel.  If such an attack is indeed what starts World War III, I believe that it will be staged from Syria and will be part of a wider offensive by Russia and Iran to conquer the entire Middle East region.  



Saturday, September 26, 2015

Why Do Many Canadians Not Vote?

Many years ago, I remember driving through the Kensington Market neighbourhood of downtown Toronto and seeing some graffiti posted on a brick wall that said, "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."  If I remember correctly, the graffiti post was done by members of a socialist youth group, but I'm not certain.  Regardless of who did do it, the point is that there are people in this country that don't think voting in elections changes anything.  In fact, a lot of people think this way. But there are also a lot of people that think voting is a civic duty and that no one should ever miss the chance to vote in an election, be it municipal, provincial or federal.  Some people even think that voting should be mandatory.  So why such a difference of opinion on exercising one of our fundamental democratic rights?

Chances are that the people who tend to stay away from the polls and think voting doesn't change anything are people who feel disenfranchised; people who believe that no one standing for election cares about them.  But who are these people?  Well, in most places where people do enjoy the right to elect their leaders, the usual suspects among non-voters are the poor, marginalized ethnic or religious groups, and almost always young people under the age of 30.  So it's no surprise that in Canada, if you're young, poor, aboriginal or perhaps more than one of these things, you're less likely to cast a ballot come election time.

The people who do tend to show up at the polls are, at least in my opinion, mostly folks who do believe that the candidates up for election will represent their views and concerns - at least to an extent.  These are often the same people who will tell you that if you don't vote, you forfeit the right to complain about the issues because you failed to show up at the ballot box.

Personally, I think if you have the right to vote, you should exercise it.  I make it a point to vote in every municipal, provincial and federal election and have done so since I was in my early 20's.  This includes the most recent Ontario provincial election when I "declined" my ballot, which in effect meant that I voted none of the above.  But hey, I still showed up, which is more than I can say for almost half of the eligible voters who didn't cast a ballot in that election.  So do I agree with the argument that failing to vote means forfeiting your right to complain?  I most certainly do not, for a number of reasons.

Say, for example, that in the upcoming federal election, there is a candidate in your riding that you think deserves your vote.  So what's stopping you from going to the polls and casting a ballot for him or her?  Well, how about the fact that the candidate you want to vote for is running for a party that has no chance of winning in your riding.  After all, even if you do vote for that person, you'll be throwing your vote away because not only does he or she not get elected, but since Canada still uses the ridiculously antiquated first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system, which has been abandoned by most mature democracies, your vote won't even make a difference in how seats are distributed in the House of Commons.  Think about this and you realize that voting for the person you want is a waste of time.

Heck, even if your ideal candidate is running for a party that will have seats in the next parliament, you still might be wasting your time going to the polls.  Your chosen candidate may, for instance, be a New Democrat, and I think it's safe to say that there will be NDP members in the next parliament. But before you start trotting off to the ballot box to vote for the Orange Crush, remember that you're in a riding full of staunch Conservative voters, and based on what the opinion polls are saying, the NDP has virtually no chance of winning in your riding, which means that by voting for an NDP candidate, you'll basically be throwing your vote away.  The same goes for someone who wants to vote for a Conservative candidate, but lives in downtown Toronto where the lefties rule the roost.

Now of course, there are municipal elections where candidates don't run on party tickets.  But as most of us know, municipal politicians don't even have half the power that their provincial and federal counterparts do.  Let's face it, folks, the real power is based in Canada's provincial capitols and Ottawa.  And worse still, that power isn't even in the hands of the candidates you cast ballots for.  It's in the hands of their party leaders, who don't give a damn about what their backbenchers think.  So perhaps you're full of joy when your favourite Liberal Party candidate wins in your riding, because you know that he or she is just as opposed to allowing abortions as you are.  Then you find out that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau told his caucus a long time ago that anti-abortion votes in the House of Commons won't be tolerated.  To make a long story short, the person who won the election in your riding with the help of votes from people like you can't even represent you properly because he or she is too busy towing the party line.  When you realize this, you might be asking yourself why you bothered to vote at all.

I think it's safe to say that if folks who believe that voting in elections is a duty read this, they will probably tell me that we can't take our democratic rights for granted and that we should exercise these rights in the name of all of those brave people who fought and died so that we could keep them.  To these people, my response is that we've already taken our democratic rights granted.  We've taken them for granted by allowing party discipline to get so draconian that our elected politicians represent their party leaders rather than us, and by allowing the continuation of an electoral system that perverts the will of the people, gives more representation to parties that don't deserve it, and gives little representation, if any, to people and parties that do.    

           

Sunday, September 20, 2015

My High Holiday Rant

Jews call the period that begins with Rosh Hashana and ends with Yom Kippur the "High Holidays", because it's supposed to be the most important period of the Jewish calendar from a religious standpoint.  It's the time when even the most secular of Jews attend synagogue.  Not me, though.  I remember dabbling in synagogue in my childhood, but now I make it a point not to set foot inside one unless it's for someone else's sake.  And personally, I don't know how people who do go can stand it.  For one thing, it's expensive, at least if you live in the Diaspora.  Here in Canada, the High Holidays is when the synagogues hit you with their membership fees, which are usually a small fortune.  I honestly don't understand why people would pay thousands of dollars when they only attend a few services during the High Holidays.  It just doesn't make sense to me.  And as if the synagogue membership fees aren't bad enough, there's also all the other inconveniences that come with attending services during this time of year - the overcrowding, the repetitive prayers, the endless getting up and sitting down, the rabbis who just want to hear themselves talk forever, and of course the boredom.

Okay, so going to synagogue during the High Holidays is a drag, but there are good things about the High Holidays too, right?  Meh, sort of.  It's a time for family togetherness, which I think is a very good thing.  But other than that, I don't really view this time of year as a time of joy.  Now just to be fair, Yom Kippur was never meant to be a joyous occasion, but rather the time we ask forgiveness from the Almighty for our sins.  Someone should explain to me, however, why Rosh Hashana has to be so somber.  Indeed, if you're Jewish and your Rosh Hashana is anything like it is for members of my extended family here in Canada, it consists simply of a family dinner and synagogue.  This is a far cry from the way most people in the world celebrate New Year's Eve on December 31st. Fireworks, parties and so forth.  It's unfortunate that the most festive thing we Jews do for our new year is dip apples in honey. Wow, big whoop.  I would personally love to see fireworks light up the sky all over Israel on Rosh Hashana.  But instead, I keep hearing stories about Israelis packing the airport to leave for the High Holidays because they want to be in a happier place.                

Sunday, August 30, 2015

What Would Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister Mean for Canada? Look at Ontario to Find Out

If you want to know what Canada with Justin Trudeau as prime minister would look like, you need look no further than my home province of Ontario, where the provincial Liberal Party has been in power since 2003.  So what does Ontario look like after over a decade of Liberal rule?  Do you really want to know the answer to that question?  Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Ontario under the Liberals has suffered from years and years of fiscal mismanagement and scandal after scandal.  As soon as they came to power, the Liberals didn't waste any time in tearing the province apart.  The first major blow came shortly after Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty was elected.  One of his first moves was to bring in a very large new tax known as the Health Premium.  According to the National Citizens Coalition, this amounted to the largest tax grab in Ontario's history - and from a party that promised not to raise taxes if it was elected.  Then came the HST and skyrocketing hydro rates.  Indeed, ever since the Liberals came to power, Ontarians just can't get a break from their seemingly endless money grabs.  The results?  Lost jobs, lost businesses and a lot of pain for the average Ontario taxpayer.

Worse still, the Liberals have squandered Ontarians' tax dollars in one fiasco after another.  If you live in Ontario and follow provincial politics, terms like eHealth, gas plants and smart meters all provoke the memories of scandals that cost the province and its taxpayers billions of dollars.  Ontario's debt has more than doubled, its debt-to-GDP ratio has risen significantly and its credit rating has been downgraded.  But what does this have to do with Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals?  A lot, unfortunately.

Trudeau is basically pitching the same kind of tax and spend policies that have run Ontario into the ground for over a decade.  He's announced plans to run budget deficits for the next four years if he becomes prime minister.  Clearly, he's not afraid of a backlash by more fiscally prudent-minded voters.  And why should he be?  After all, running big deficits and racking up debt has unfortunately not hurt the Ontario Liberals.  Heck, they went from a minority government to a majority in the last election!  The question is, will all of Canada make the same mistake that Ontario voters have made three times already?  I sincerely hope not, because just as the provincial Liberals under Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne have made Ontario a have-not province, their federal cousins under Justin Trudeau will make Canada a have-not country.      

   

Friday, August 28, 2015

Canada Votes 2015

Well Canada, it's that time again.  Time to stand up and make your voices heard at the ballot box.  So is anything different in this federal election than in previous ones?  On the surface, not much.  The issues are pretty much the same.  The economy, health care, and so forth.  Also the same are our choices.  As in other elections prior, our choice is primarily between the three fat cat parties, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democratic Party, whose leaders are all equally uninspiring.  Yes, there are other players, such as the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois, not to mention a bunch of other fringe parties that most Canadians have never heard of.  But in a country that still uses the unfair and antiquated first-past-the-post, winner-take-all electoral system, none of these parties have a chance of forming the next government or even taking part in it.  Most of them will be lucky just to win seats in the next parliament.

And as if our electoral system doesn't make our elections unfair enough, the current government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper has changed the rules so that this year's election might be the most unfair in Canada's recent history.  For starters, the election campaign is a record eleven weeks long.  Why does this matter?  Because the Tories have more campaign funds than the Liberals and New Democrats combined, so they are much more capable of sustaining an effective, long-term campaign than their challengers.  The Tories have also phased out the per-vote subsidy, public funds that were allocated to political parties based on the number of votes they garnered in the past election.  This subsidy helped small parties like the Greens compete in an electoral system that heavily favours large parties with deep pockets.  To make a long story short, the Conservatives have stacked the rules in their favour and made it a lot harder for the opposition parties to remove them from power, not to mention the fact that they've spent millions of our tax dollars on partisan government advertising that has essentially given them a giant head start over their challengers in winning the hearts and minds of Canadian voters.  Still, the latest polls show a tight, three-way race between the main parties with many voters undecided, hence Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair, the leaders of the Conservatives, the Liberals and the New Democrats respectively, all have a chance to become Canada's next Prime Minister.  So what do I have to say about these three uninspiring party leaders?  Plenty, believe me.

Stephen Harper: The Increasingly Arrogant Incumbent

I have traditionally supported our current prime minister, especially in matters related to foreign policy.  But over the last year or two, he's been trying my patience with his growing arrogance.  He's been arrogant with our tax dollars, spending millions of them on partisan ads promoting his so-called Economic Action Plan.  Some action plan, Mr. Prime Minister!  You put all of Canada's eggs in one basket, relying solely on oil to fuel the country's economic growth.  So now since the oil boom has become a bust, what's your plan for the future?  I'm still waiting for an answer, and until I hear one, I'm going to assume that your arrogance has blinded you to the needs of anyone who lives and works outside of the oil patch.

Unfortunately, the only thing Prime Minister Harper has been good at of late is bribing Canadians with their own tax dollars, promising bigger tax cuts; tax cuts that will see more money flow mostly into the pockets of wealthy Canadians instead of into programs and initiatives that will give help to those who really need it.  Universal prescription drug coverage?  Affordable childcare?  Dream on, Canada!  Prime Minister Harper needs to feed his wealthy friends.

Justin Trudeau: The Little Boy Who Won't Grow Up

I want to be honest with everyone reading this.  I hate the Liberal Party.  I have for ages.  Furthermore, I have never voted Liberal in any federal election and I don't know if I ever will, especially when the party is headed by a juvenile incompetent like Justin Trudeau.  The current Liberal leader is essentially a wannabe.  He seeks nothing more than to fill the shoes of his father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau.  Personally, I think that if he didn't share his father's last name, he wouldn't even be on the map as far as Canada's political scene is concerned.  Moreover, the only trait that Justin seems to have taken from his father is his arrogance.  Yes, I believe that Justin is just as arrogant as his father was, if not more so.  The big difference is that Pierre Trudeau actually had a vision for Canada, whereas his son Justin does not.  Actually, having original ideas is very uncharacteristic of the federal Liberal Party outside of the Pierre Trudeau era.  The federal Liberals have a history of stealing ideas from the New Democrats and Conservatives and winning election campaigns with them.  So in a way, Justin Trudeau is the perfect leader for the Liberals.  He is certainly not, however, a good candidate to be Prime Minister of this great country we call Canada.

Worst still, the young Trudeau knows nothing about what it takes to govern a country.  He's never held a post in any government on any level.  He can't even hack it as an ordinary Member of Parliament.  If he could, he wouldn't have held the infamous distinction of having the worst attendance record of any MP.  So inasmuch as you may be annoyed by those frequent Conservative ads saying that Justin Trudeau is "just not ready", the truth is that he isn't ready in any way, shape or form to be the next Prime Minister of Canada.

Tom Mulcair: A Liberal Pretending to be a New Democrat?

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that NDP leader Tom Mulcair was actually a Liberal.  Much to the chagrin of some NDP faithful, Mulcair is probably the most centrist of leaders in the history of the party.  In fact, he used to be a Liberal, at least at the provincial level, having served as a member of Quebec's National Assembly since the mid-90's and eventually making his way into the provincial cabinet.  He actually became a New Democrat less than ten years ago, winning a federal by-election in a Quebec riding in 2007.  Now of course, it is certainly not uncommon for politicians to switch allegiances, but the question I have to ask is, does Mulcair actually believe in the traditional left-wing principles of the NDP, or is he just disguising himself, campaigning like a New Democrat, but planning on governing like a Liberal if he wins the election?

Pick Your Poison, Canada

Well, there you have it.  We get to choose between an incumbent prime minister, who doesn't seem to care about anyone without deep pockets, an inexperienced young buck who is so bereft of ideas on how to run this country that he makes everything up on the fly, and a guy who wraps himself in NDP orange, perhaps only to cover up the Liberal red underneath.  Isn't democracy great!?  

    

       

Monday, July 20, 2015

Are Jews and Arabs Really So Different?

I think it's ironic that Jews and Arabs currently find themselves in such a divisive conflict, because the truth is that we're not that different from one another.  In fact, we share several attributes in common, starting with our origins.  For those of you who know your Bible, you're probably familiar with the story of Abraham, which is found in the Book of Genesis.  Abraham is considered a patriarchal figure by both Jews and Arabs.  Why?  Because both Arabs and Jews are descendants of Abraham's offspring.  The Arabs are the direct descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's first born son.  The Jews are the direct descendants of Jacob, whose father was Isaac, Abraham's second born son.  Hence, the Jews and Arabs are cousins.

It is probably no coincidence then, that Jews and Arabs have similar languages.  Any linguistics expert who is familiar with the languages of Africa and the Middle East will tell you that Hebrew and Arabic are both in the same family of languages - the Semitic family.  And as someone who has studied both Hebrew and Arabic, I can tell you that the two languages are very often quite similar to each other.  Many of the words are either the same or at least somewhat similar.  I can still remember how much easier it was for me to learn Arabic than it was for the others I studied it with since I already had a working knowledge of Hebrew at the time.  I also had a work colleague from Egypt who said that she took a Hebrew course and achieved a grade in the high 90s because, as she told me, the two languages are very similar and knowing one makes it a lot easier to learn the other.  Those of you who have studied languages probably know that studying a new language is a whole lot easier if you already know a language of the same linguistic family.

So Jews and Arabs clearly have commonalities in both origins and language, but our similarities don't stop there.  Jews and Arabs also share various cultural traits and values.  For example, both Jews and Arabs in general have the frequent tendency to use hand gestures to communicate.  This is a cultural trait that is common not just amongst Jews and Arabs, but amongst all Mediterranean cultures, including the Italians, Maltese and Greeks.  Jews and Arabs also share another commonality with other Mediterranean cultures in that both peoples have a very special relationship with food.  If you've ever been to a meal in a Jewish or Arab home, you'll understand what I mean.  Indeed, if you do get the opportunity to be hosted by a Jewish or Arab family, you'll quickly find out that food is big part of our common tradition of hospitality.  Now of course, being hospitable is not something distinct to Jews and Arabs, but I would say that the two peoples are more well-known for it than others.  Jews and Arabs also both have a long tradition of being very family-oriented.  I can tell you from personal experience that for many Jews and Arabs, the family is the number one priority.

The fact of the matter is that Jews and Arabs have more similarities than they do differences.  Unfortunately, it is the differences between the two peoples that the Arab-Israeli conflict has magnified.  These differences are mainly political, though there is one other important factor that has divided the children of Abraham: The fact that while the Arabs have remained in their homeland, we the Jews were largely exiled from ours for approximately two thousand years.  Why is this important?  Well, a lot can happen to a people when they are dispersed and largely absent from their original homeland for two millennia.  One thing that happen was that the Jewish people, particularly those of us who lived in the Western world, went through cultural, linguistic and even racial changes.  We were also exposed to modern, Western ideas that had largely not yet made their way to the Middle East.  Hence, by the time we Jews began returning to the Land of Israel, we and our Arab cousins didn't recognize each other anymore.  The Arabs looked at us and saw just another wave of European colonizers, while we looked at them and saw a primitive people who had no grasp of modern civilization as it was understood in the eyes of Europeans.  So what should have been a joyful family reunion instead became the beginning of a long and bitter family feud - a feud that I hope will soon come to a peaceful end. 

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Building a True Peace Between Israel and its Arab Neighbours

In my last blog post, Iran Nuclear Deal is Bad, Bad, Bad!, I concluded that now is the time for Israel and the Arab world to bury the hatchet for the sake of collective security against an Islamic Republic of Iran that will surely emerge much stronger and much more dangerous after sanctions are lifted.  So how can the decades-old Israeli-Arab conflict be brought to an end?  Most people who have at least a general understanding of politics in the Middle East will probably say that the key to resolving the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours lies in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I do agree that without an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab states is unachievable, but I also believe that even if and when such an agreement is reached, there will still not be true peace between Jews and Arabs.  What do I mean by "true peace"?  I mean a peace in which Jews and Arabs respect not just their mutual borders, but also each other.

Right now only two Arab states, Egypt and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, have peace agreements with Israel and have since established diplomatic and economic relations.  But it is a cold peace at best.  The fact of the matter is that Israel is still viewed as the enemy by the general public in both Egypt and Jordan just as it is in the other Arab states that do not recognize Israel.  Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may bring peace between the Israeli and Arab governments, but it won't immediately bring peace between the Jewish and Arab peoples.  For Jews and Arabs to be at peace with each other, both peoples will have to change how they see each other.

Promotion of Discriminatory and Racist Attitudes Must End

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that Jews and Arabs in the Middle East don't view each other very fondly.  In the Arab world, for example, it is quite easy to get a hold of anti-Jewish writings, such as Hitler's Mein Kampf or the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  Holocaust denial in the Arab world is also rampant.  Television and newspapers in the Arab states are full of anti-Jewish stereotypes.  Worse still, it is not uncommon for Arab media outlets to promote and encourage the killing of Israelis and Jews in general.  The amount of Jew-hatred in the Arab world is actually ironic since very few Jews now live in the Arab states where there were once hundreds of thousands of them.  The reason for this?  Repeated campaigns in various Arab countries to murder Jews, expel them and seize their property.  Indeed, the Jewish exodus from the Arab states following the creation of the State of Israel is just as worthy of attention as the plight of Palestinian refugees, if not more so.  Unfortunately, the international community doesn't see it that way.

Anti-Arab racism certainly exists in Israel, but not to the extent that Jew-hatred exists in the Arab world.  Whereas those who advocate expelling Arabs from Israel or killing them just because they are Arabs are on the margins of Israeli society, those who advocate killing Jews and Israelis and wiping Israel off the map are considered mainstream in the Arab world.  Hence, although Israel does have to make more of an effort to root out racism amongst its people, the Arab states have a far greater task in erasing Jew-hatred from the minds of their citizens.  Until now, unfortunately, the governments in the Arab states have only been fueling Jew-hatred, and this has to end if Arabs are ever to view their Jewish cousins with respect.

Historical Narratives Must be Respected

Both the Jews and the Arabs have a different view of history in regards to the creation of Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict.  For example, Jews view the creation of Israel as the fulfillment of the Zionist enterprise to restore Jewish independence for the first time in two thousand years.  The Arabs, in contrast, view the creation of the State of Israel as a tragedy, or Nakba, in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homes and made into refugees.  The fact is that although ethnic cleansing was certainly not the agenda of the leaders of the new State of Israel, expulsions did take place, crimes were committed against the Palestinian Arab population and much of their property was seized.  It is also true that throughout Israeli history, different Israeli governments have sought to erase the country's Arab heritage through various means.  Many Palestinian villages were destroyed and replaced with Jewish communities.  More recently, some Israeli politicians have sought to prevent Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel from commemorating what they view as the Nakba. 

Meanwhile, the Arab world still refuses to recognize any modern Jewish connection to what they call Palestine.  Many Arabs, for instance, refuse to acknowledge that the holy Jewish temple that once housed the Ark of the Covenant once stood on the grounds where the Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque are now.  And whereas Israel has accepted the principle of compensation for Palestinian refugees, I have yet to hear even one statement from a leader in the Arab world acknowledging the crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of Jews in Arab countries who were murdered, expelled and/or deprived of their property, let alone talk of compensation for these people.

For a true peace between Arabs and Jews to exist, both peoples must acknowledge the crimes that they have committed against each other.  In fact, if and when Israel does establish relations with the Arab states, both sides should look to set up a truth and reconciliation commission similar to that of post-Apartheid South Africa, so that witnesses can come and testify as to the crimes allegedly committed against them, and the alleged perpetrators can acknowledge their wrongdoings without fear of prosecution.  There must also be fair compensation and/or restitution not just for the Palestinian refugees, but also for the Jews who were expelled from Arab countries and deprived of their land and possessions.

Both Arabs and Jews must also stop trying to negate the heritage of one another in the Holy Land.  For the Arabs, this means recognizing that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland and that the State of Israel is the embodiment of that right.  It also means acknowledging the historical legacy of Jews in the Arab states, including the future state of Palestine.  For Jews, it means making efforts to acknowledge the history of the Palestinian Arabs in parts of Israel where they are no longer present.  For example, it would be a good idea for Israel to create a memorial at the site where the village of Deir Yassin used to be in order to acknowledge the existence of the previous Palestinian Arab inhabitants and the massacre that occurred there at the hands of Zionist militia.

I believe that the Jewish and Arab peoples both have the right to their own perspectives on history, especially as it concerns the Israeli-Arab conflict.  So if, for example, the Arabs want to view the creation of the State of Israel as an event that brought misery to the Palestinian people, then they should be entitled to this opinion, just as much as Jews should be entitled to view Israel's creation as a positive event in their history.  The Arabs cannot and must not, however, use the way they see Israel's creation as pretext to delegitimize the existence of the state, for it is the embodiment of the Jewish people's inalienable right to self-determination.  They also cannot and must not deny historical fact, which includes but is not necessarily limited to denying the fact that the Holocaust did take place.  In the same respect, Jews cannot and must not deny that crimes were committed against the Palestinian Arabs during efforts to create and maintain the State of Israel.  The fact of the matter is that there can only be true peace between the children of Abraham once Jews and Arabs are prepared to respect and tolerate the way each of them perceives their history.

When True Peace Between Jew and Arab Comes, so will Collective Security

Creating an environment in which Jews and Arabs view each other with respect will allow Israel and the Arab states to form a strategic alliance against the terrorist menace that is the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Such an alliance is vital as Iran presents an existential threat to all the independent states of the Middle East region.  It is my hope that upon ending their conflict once and for all, Israel and its Arab neighbours, or at least those not under the proxy control of Iran, will unite to form this alliance - a military alliance similar to NATO.  One that obligates each of its members to defend one another from external threats, whether those threats come from Iran or anywhere else.  If the countries of the Middle East can put aside their differences and create this strategic military pact, it will be much harder for the Islamist regime in Iran to achieve the dominance of the region that it seeks.  If they fail to do so, however, the Iranians can start picking off each independent Middle Eastern state one by one, and before you know it, the flags of Iran's Islamo-fascist rulers will be flying over the capitals of Baghdad, Riyadh, Jerusalem and so forth.  So I sincerely hope that the leaders of the Middle East will choose to pursue unity over division.