You know, the longer I live on this planet, the less I think I know about reality.\u00a0 I can remember as a small child in grammar school hearing about the various Arab-Israeli conflicts.\u00a0 And it was always assumed that only the wisest and most sober of men would ever be able to untie the Gordian knot that was that conflict.<\/p>\n
But Donald Trump will do it?\u00a0 Look, I love Trump.\u00a0 He\u2019s some sort of bizarre cross between P T Barnum and Pericles by way of Madison Avenue.\u00a0 He\u2019s the first American politician since Andrew Jackson to side with the regular people.\u00a0 He towers over his enemies like a colossus.\u00a0 But how in the name of everything reasonable can he end an intractable war between peoples who hate each other so viscerally that death is preferable to compromise?\u00a0 And yet, if the news is to be believed, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first step of the Trump Peace Plan; return of all the hostages alive and dead and Israeli stepping back to some first line of withdrawal.<\/p>\n
But how many different ways can this process fail?\u00a0 The list is infinite.\u00a0 Even with complete good faith on both sides I can imagine endless scenarios that could upend this effort.\u00a0 And when in the history of the mid-east has there ever been good faith on both sides?\u00a0 Never.<\/p>\n
Now in Trump\u2019s favor, this negotiation includes many Arab and Moslem countries acting as surrogates to prod Hamas toward ending the war.\u00a0 There is a desire on the part of almost all of the middle eastern countries to end the ceaseless cycle of attacks and counterattacks that makes this whole region of the world hell on Earth.\u00a0 Could this finally be the day when sanity and the will of the vast majority of people there manage to smother the fire of violence under their collective bodies and end this disgusting abomination of death and hatred?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll have to confess, I just can\u2019t come around to believing it.\u00a0 It would require these people who have done horrific things to each other for more than half a century to somehow find a miraculous solution to their problem.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if both sides are forced to navigate through a minefield that both sides have mined but neither side still has reliable maps of.\u00a0 At any moment disaster can strike and any disadvantage on either side can inspire the other side to press for a kill shot.<\/p>\n
The whole thing sickens and disgusts me to the point where I just want to forget it exists and move forward without ever thinking of it again.\u00a0 But the last time I did that, planes started flying through buildings in New York.<\/p>\n
So here we go again.\u00a0 Good luck Donald Trump.\u00a0 I guess if anyone can pull off the deal of the millennium it would be him.\u00a0 But I almost think he\u2019ll have more success with Ukraine than Gaza.\u00a0 Sure, they\u2019re almost as crazy there but as bad as it is I don\u2019t think the level of hatred between the Russians and Ukrainians can ever come close to the savagery of what happened two years ago.\u00a0 Maybe a little prayer would help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You know, the longer I live on this planet, the less I think I know about reality.\u00a0 I can remember as a small child in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[4297,4269,2259,16],"class_list":["post-34829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-trump","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n