Both sides in the Middle East conflict are fighting to sell their own narrative: us good, them evil.
But it's far more complicated
By Matt Hill04 Mar 2013
Is there another issue that generates as much sound and fury as the
Israel-Palestine conflict? Last month George
Galloway attracted derision for storming out of an Oxford University
debate when he discovered one of his opponents was an Israeli. The fallout
continued into last week, with students at the university voting on whether
to join a blanket boycott of Israeli companies and institutions.
The motion was defeated, but not before causing a storm of outrage that included hate mail, accusations of racism in both directions, and headlines in the national press.
The motion was defeated, but not before causing a storm of outrage that included hate mail, accusations of racism in both directions, and headlines in the national press.
As portrayed by diehard supporters of both Israel and the Palestinians, the
conflict is set in a land that bears less resemblance to the modern Middle
East than the Wild West of early Hollywood, with its good-versus-evil tales
of cowboys and Indians. Certain of the justice of their cause, both sides
shut their ears to the other’s views, resulting in a vicious circle of
solipsism. Instead of a debate, there are two echo chambers, airlocked
against doubt and nuance.
This is because the argument is an extension of the conflict itself. The
Israel-Palestine struggle has always been as much a war of narratives as of
tanks and missiles. Did the
Palestinian refugees of 1948 leave their homes voluntarily or at
Israeli gunpoint? ...READ MORE
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