The Middle East

Do you want a career guaranteed to provide employment for you and your descendants from the present time until who-knows-when? Then become a Middle East peace negotiator! There have been talks, discussions, debates, blatherings, speeches, and an endless stream of tongue-wagging for the past several decades in an attempt to reach an accord on the ongoing problems in the Middle East, and this is likely to continue for the forseeable future. Yasser Arafat, for instance, was "negotiating" for peace and a Palestinian state for twenty-five to thirty years, at least…and still there is no end in sight. Yet, while the politicians and negotiators talk and talk, innocent people on both sides of the conflict are cruelly murdered, day in and day out, in an unending vicious cycle of "this is our revenge for your reprisal for our decisive blow against your retaliation!" And because this particular struggle is a life-or-death fight in the homeland of three of the world's most popular religions, it has become a center stage in the political arena, overshadowing other conflicts that are even more bloody and inhumane. The eyes of the world are upon Palestine and Israel, and this spotlight is unlikely to move away or even blink.

This, of course, is why the atrocities committed by both sides in this conflict have been so brutal. In a place such as the Chad-Libya war, armies and "resistance fighters" for both sides can commit atrocities galore, with barely a mention being made anywhere in the international media. In Israel and Palestine, anyone can pick up a rock and get national headlines if he throws that rock in the right direction. This is why both sides are proceeding so relentlessly down the path towards anarchy and annihiliation. Noteworthy is the Charter of Hamas, which outlines a root cause of the whole bloody mess: Because of religious fervor and the so-called "belief" that it's okay to kill others in the name of the Divine, Hamas rejects any ideas of negotiation and any compromise. It states: "Hamas is one of the links in the Chain of Jihad in the confrontation with the Zionist invasion…[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement." It makes you wonder why Israel funded Hamas for 20 years, it should at least.

If God is so just and such a lover of peace, why is it that the lion's share of inhumanity is committed in the name of religious beliefs?

The Arab-Palestinian point of view of the conflict can be seen at The Electronic Intifada, though of course this site focuses primarily on the atrocities committed by Israel. The number of pro-Palestinian Web sites considerably outnumbers the sites promoting the the pro-Israel point of view; so they've countered with an equally biased "Middle East Facts" site..

Anarchist Against the Wall

Israeli anarchist group opposes the Apartheid Wall; holds frequent protests in solidarity with Palestinians.

Barry Chamish

Israel's counterpart to wild political conspiracy theorists in the vein of Alex Jones.

Hamas

Terrorists and murderers, yes…but they're not just terrorists and murderers. They also aid the Palestinian people when no one else will.

Informed Comment

Scholar Juan Cole's blog on the Middle East.

Iran Freedom Foundation

A fearmongering political group dedicated to manipulating media reports to make you afraid – afraid enough to support a US attack on Iran.

Iraq Freedom Congress

A democratic, secular, progressive, libertarian, non-violent group that opposes nationalism, Baathism, and Islamism.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

Libertarian, anti-fundamentalist, democratic, secular, progressive group.