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So Who Still Thinks Israel Is the Root of Middle East Problems?

(Independent-UK) Dominic Lawson - Forget the massacre of thousands in Syria and Egypt, whether by chemical weapons or more conventional methods of mass slaughter. The Middle Eastern issue galvanizing some of our musical mega-stars and their followers, even now, is the treatment by Israel of Palestinians. When the wave of popular uprisings known as "the Arab Spring" reached Syria, Damascus' envoy in London went on BBC's "Newsnight" to say that "the Israelis could be behind it...they could be behind any bad thing in the world." Actually, the Israeli government was most discomfited by the uprisings in the region, rather preferring the dictators it knew to the possibility of Islamist regimes in their place. The idea that Israel is the proximate cause of any tension within that part of the world - and therefore of the sea of blood sweeping through Egypt and Syria - is paranoiac when not deliberately mendacious. The tribal and sectarian dispute between the Sunni and Shia has about as much to do with Israel as did the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. And the peoples involved care very little, if at all, about the fate of the Palestinians.
2013-09-04 00:00:00
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