De PVDVVDA En Het Midden-Oosten

Uit het regeerakkoord, kabinet Rutte II:

"Waar mogelijk draagt Nederland bij aan vrede en veiligheid in het Midden-Oosten en benut daarbij de goede banden met zowel Israël als de Palestijnse autoriteit." (lees hier)

Opmerkelijk. Er zijn nogal wat gewapende conflicten in de wereld, maar naast dat van Afghanistan waar Nederland direct bij betrokken is, wordt in het regeerakkoord alleen het Israëlische-Palestijnse conflict met naam en toenaam genoemd. En als we dat akkoord moeten geloven, voert de hoofdweg naar vrede en veiligheid in het Midden-Oosten via het Israëlische-Palestijnse conflict. Echt waar, meneer Timmermans?

"I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.

The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?

The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people." (lees hier)

"Solve the Palestinian problem and you solve the problems of the world. Or at least the region. Wrong then, wrong now, according to a senior Arab political source. “Make no mistake,” he told me earnestly over dinner last week, “We are on the brink of a catastrophe. And it has nothing whatever to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." He added:

'The Palestinians have never been among the top-10 priorities of any Arab government. Arab leaders don’t give a damn about the Palestinians. They have simply used the Palestinian issue to divert attention from their own failures – to cover up their ineptitude, inadequacies and corruption. Their oppressive security measures were never meant to combat ‘Zionist aggression’ but to suppress the anger of their own people. It’s been an exercise in cynicism, pure and simple. And even Western governments swallowed it.'” (lees hier)

Als we iets hadden moeten leren van de inmiddels twee jaar durende "Arabische lente" is dat de hoofdweg naar vrede en veiligheid in het Midden-Oosten niet via het Israëlische-Palestijnse conflict voert, dat dat conflict niet de oorzaak is van alle ellende aldaar, maar juist het resultaat is van de waanzin, die het Midden-Oosten al tientallen jaren in zijn greep houdt. Het is nogal beschamend en zorgelijk dat onze nieuwe kabinet deze evidentie nog niet heeft kunnen internaliseren.