The coming US election is probably the most important vote in the history of the world. If John Kerry wins and the whole world breathes a sigh of relief he must take steps to reunite the world. He must recognise the anti war vote because the world is desperate for a new strategy, a Peace strategy.
Winston Churchill was instrumental in creating many of the borders that exist in the world today. Many are still disputed but none more so than Israel. As a founding father in 1948 Churchill saw Israel “as one of the most hopeful and encouraging adventures of the 20th century.” It was to prove a bloodthirsty adventure, but it’s not the history we focus on it’s the strategy.
If you tried to explain to an Amazon native who speaks very little English the nature of the Israeli conflict. You could possibly do so in three short sentences.
1) Two parties claim ownership of the exact same piece of land
2) The current owner of the land oppresses the other party in order to demoralise their resolve.
3) The oppressed party retaliates; seeking to inflict similar suffering to the suffering it receives.
Conclusion: On the human side constant suffering.
In trying to predict an eventual outcome we seem locked in a tautology. The tactics implemented by both sides have created a war that can never be won. By this I mean that if one side wins, the loser just swaps roles. The nature of the tactics suggests that it’s possible to have the same war with a different history – a revolving door of eternal war.
Whilst being the prime peace negotiator of the Israeli conflict. George Bush also strongly contests his ability to host his war on foreign soil i.e. the Middle East. Apart from the consequences for peace in the region, the President has adopted the strategy of the battle itself. The result is that we are at the beginning of what has the potential be an eternal war.
This is what most worries people of all faiths. If a strategy cannot even be shown to work in the imagination, how can it work in reality? Taking a more scientific route – the tactics of both sides have failed to work since Israel’s creation half a century ago.
In a BBC news online interview with Ollie Stone-Lee in August 2002 Winston Churchill’s grandson Nicholas Soames MP was suspicious of the outcome of a pre-emptive strategy.
“It would be lunacy to pretend you can just go into Iraq without having regard to what is going to happen in the Middle East… My own view is that it’s better to be jaw, jaw than war, war. It’s much easier to go to war than it is to go to peace.” – Nicholas Soames MP
With the worst-case scenario unfolding in the Middle East it maybe that the warning of Churchill’s grandson is akin to Churchill’s warnings of Hitler and Stalin.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Winston Churchill