Lost in the Middle East.

• Author: Jones, Curtis F.
• Position: Column

Editor's Note: Curt Jones, long a close student of the Middle East, has frequently commented on the region in this and other publications. Here he draws, on the basis of closely reasoned analysis, conclusions that many readers will hardly find reassuring. In particular, he relates the Arab-Israeli dispute to the broader regional conflict now looming.

One night in olden times, two learned healers were exchanging boasts in a coffeehouse in Baghdad. Said Ahmad, "Just yesterday I saved a dog that was foaming at the mouth." "Animals!" snorted Salim. "I save my skills for humans. If I had had the time, I could have saved the dog, and taught him to say thank you." Some days later, Salim was summoned to the palace. The sultan gave him a long hard look, then said, "I hear you can teach dogs to talk."

You don't say no to a sultan. "Yes, sire," Salim stammered, "but it's a long hard process."

"We have time, inshallah," declared the sultan. "Here is my suluki, the smartest animal in the city. Be back one year from today with an articulate dog."

On the appointed day, Salim prostrated himself before the sultan. "Bad news, sire. That dog turned out to be a habitual liar."

"Liar! What kind of lies?"

"Well, as he was learning to speak, he began to tell wild stories about where you used to take him on evening walks."

The sultan was outraged. "That's high treason!"

"Exactly, Sire," Ahmad replied. "The miscreant has been executed."

That ancient folktale is told nowadays as a parable. The sultan represents all the governments, local and foreign, that have despoiled the East. The fiction about teaching animals to speak is a metaphor for the fraudulent Arab-Israeli peace process. The unfortunate dog is Palestine.

For the past sixty years, the Middle East has been afflicted by two related conflicts. One is a power struggle to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the Safavid (Iranian) Empire in the 1700's and the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in the 1800's. The issue is hegemony. The outcome will be decided by the Middle Easterners. Western powers have meddled in it, but as foreigners they have no final voice.

A simultaneous conflict arises from the effort of a Western-sponsored colony--Israel--to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The issue is more crucial than hegemony; it is land. To succeed, the Israelis have to accomplish two miracles: eliminate the opposition of the Arabs they dispossessed of Palestine; and win regional acceptance of the new state.

For...