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Had I not had to travel to Israel for work, I would most likely not know any more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict then I did this time two years ago, which is pretty much saying I only know they really like fucking killing each other. But when your boss says you're going to Israel for a week, you sure can turn your attention to world affairs in a fucking hurry. Keep in mind all this violence started on the very day my first trip there ended back in September 2000. I mean we took off and things were great, and when we landed back in New Jersey all the headlines featured the riots breaking out. It was that fast.

Anyway I digress, the purpose of me writing this jazzy little article is to explain to those of you who don't know (or really give a fuck) what all this Middle East shit is about and where it's most likely going. And I’m going to do so without wasting too much time on the trivial details or political backspins.

To understand current events, let’s take a fast look into the past to see if we can’t see a cycle of events here.

So let us first turn back the hands of time, to when life first formed here on Earth. Deep in the muck and protoplasmic slime, we see two groups of single celled organisms. Those from Group-A begin throwing microscopic flecks of stardust at Group-B, who in return fire back with microscopic rubber bullets. Then a cell from Group-A absorbs a bit of methane gas, migrates over to Group-B and promptly explodes, killing not only himself but mortally wounding several Group-B cells in the process. The remaining Group-A cells rejoice, as Group-B cells plan a counterattack after some of their cells learn they can become airborne.

These puddles of muck and slime will, after continental shift, become the lands we know as Israel and the West Bank, and yes I suspect the violence has been going on that long.

Okay now let’s spin our clocks ahead to like the 0 A.D. timeframe. In thirty words or less, Jews were enslaved by various civilizations most of which were settled in the Middle East and whose roots can be traced as the ancestors of the many Arabic countries we know today.

(You read as: Arabs enslaved the Jews since the word "go").

This you-enslave-me-but-you’ll-never-win-our-hearts-and-minds relationship went on for a bazillion fucking generations until eventually the Jews fled their “Promised Land” and found new places to live where they weren't persecuted, and the Arabs absorbed the vacated areas.

Now spin the time dial forward to the late 1930's. The Jews have settled more or less all over Eastern Europe. Enter a short little man with a mustache and a big gas bill, and with the conclusion of WWII we also see the conclusion of some 6,000,000 more Jews. Well, at the end of WWII, the powers that be (the US along with Britain, the Soviet Union, and France -- hahaha just kidding about France) held the Jews up and said, "Holy shit you poor people, you've had the living shit kicked out of you for some few thousand years or so. Tell us where would like to live in complete sanctuary for the rest of your days?"

As I recall, they narrowed it down to some place in Africa (where is inconsequential now so if you know don't tell me I don't give a fuck) and some land in the Middle East, which we now know as Israel. Well it doesn't take Colombo to figure out where they chose, and the US more or less said to the Palestinians, "Hey nice place now get the fuck out." The Palestinians were pushed out, and the Jews returned to the land they held way back when people wrote on walls with rocks.

Presto-whiz-bango, the State of Israel was officially born. Queue bands, music, banners, food, etc, etc, etc.

Now the Israelis -- as they were now officially called -- said to themselves, "Okay we've been the party bitches for everyone pretty much since the beginning of recorded time, especially with this Holocaust thing, so we have to make sure this will never happen again." And so it was decreed that every Israeli citizen, both male and female, would spend time in the military so everyone knew how to defend their civilization. So they trained and trained and prepared and prepared, all to insure the persecution of their kind would never happen on such a monumental scale again.

Now spin the clock forward to 1967, and we find Israeli surrounded like they are today - pretty much by angry Arabs -- Syria to the North, Jordan to the East, and Egypt to the South. Israel is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the West for those of you geographically challenged. Well the president of Egypt at the time decided that he didn't want Israel to exist any more, so he picked up his Bat-phone and dialed all those Arab states surrounding Israel, and called upon them to wage one of their Holy Wars to, “rid the world of the Zionists pigs." (“Zionist” being a cool catch phrase for a Jew).

Israel, being prepared this time and determined not to be beaten like a rented mule, deciding they would be having none of this and popped the top on the “Extra Strength Can of Whoop Ass”. Thus commenced the "Six Day War".

Why’d they call it the Six Day War, you ask? Because that's how long it took Israel to beat the fucking snot out of all three of their attackers. Six fucking days. You think we whipped Iraq or Afghanistan's ass quick? Hell no. June 5th, 1967 Israel beat the fuck out of Egypt, the Jordanians on the 7th, and finally the Syrians on the 9th.

So by the time the 11th rolled around, the Israeli soldiers were back in streets of Tel Aviv doing the, "We Kicked Your Fucking Arab Ass Dance", having captured lands known as the West Bank (where the Palestinians are living), the Gaza Strip (from the Egyptians), and the Golan Heights (from the Syrians). Thus the establishment of the Israelis as people not to be fucked with and their, "If you ain't Jewish, you ain't shit," attitude.

It's important to note here that in the West Bank are Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and a snot load of other very religious places that hold high regard in both Judaism and Islam. And there’s no separation between them either, both Jewish and Islamic holy places all mixed in together to a “Berlin Wall” type solution just wouldn’t work.

These spankings kept things quiet save for a few skirmishes in the 1970's, until 1982 when Israel decided to lay the pimp-smack down on Lebanon. The key thing to remember here is one of the commanders in the Israeli forces at the time was a General Ariel Sharon (name ring a bell?), who not only orchestrated many of the attacks on the Lebanese army, but also is accused by many Arab nations of ordering the slaughter of a shit load of Lebanese civilians.

Now, whether or not this slaughter actually happened -- both sides claim opposite stories and I don't fucking know who to believe to be honest -- doesn't really make a fucking difference. The point is the Arabs believe he did and nobody, but nobody, is going to change their minds. In their eyes he's a butcher who kills women and children, period, end of discussion.

Again there were a few little skirmishes in the 1990’s, but again nothing too major and all is quiet for a while until the year 2000 (see a twenty’ish year cycle here?). The existing cease fire between the Arabs and the Israelis was threadbare after all this time, and it's now that the retired Ariel Sharon makes the dumbass decision to visit one of the Jew’s most religious places (good) but does so on one of the most holy days in the Islamic faith (bad). The Arabs go fucking nuts withthe return of "the butcher", riots start, bullets fly, and the rest we can get off CNN.

So for eighteen months now, it's been Arabs throw rocks, Israelis shoot bullets. Arabs shoot bullets, Israelis use tanks. Arabs make suicide bombs, Israelis launch planes. Then things cool down for a few days, maybe a week, and we start all over again with Arabs throwing rocks, Israelis shooting, and we're fucking back to square one.

In the past few weeks we've seen a few dashes of hope that this whole Middle East violence thing might be wrapping up. The Saudi peace plan looked most promising in my opinion, but even that's doomed to fail. Why? Well, the deal is Israel gives back the land they occupied back from the Six Day War -- a big bone of contention for many Arab countries -- and in return Israel will “officially be recognized” by those same Arab nations.

Riiiiiight. So that “recognition” will last about three to four weeks, and then one of the Arabic nations will snub their nose at either Israel or Ariel Sharon or both, and the rest will inevitably follow suit. Israel will then cry foul, the US will agree, and thus we’ll be secured for another twenty years in the eyes of Arab nations everywhere as, “the American capitalist dog, masters of the puppet Sharon and his Zionist regime.”

Then one of the militant Palestinian groups - not happy with getting their land back but will instead want to push the issue to a boiling point, will throw a rock at Israeli border guards. This will of course lead to the Israelis shooting back with rubber bullets (sound familiar?), which will lead to more rocks being thrown until an Israeli soldier gets seriously wounded, then the real bullets come in and, well, I guess I don’t have to tell you the rest. You already know it, now don’t you?

Look I’d love to hold your hand and sing “Kum’bi’yah” with the rest of your friends -- I’d like to see peace in the Middle East as much as anyone else, I’d get to travel again, gas prices would go down, and these people would be off my fucking news -- but the simple fact is it’s never, ever, ever, ever going to happen. Never. Ever. Period. The best anyone is ever going to do is orchestrate a ceasefire which will be doomed to fail before it even begins. The fires of hatred glow brighter here than in any other place on earth, and there’s no politician or peacemaker with gloves thick enough to handle it for more than a few seconds at a time.

Sad but true.