Ben-Gurion had predicted it all in 1919. "Everyone sees the problem in relations between the Jews and the Arabs," he said. "But not everyone sees that there's no solution to it . . . The conflict between the interests of the Jews and the interests of the Arabs in Palestine cannot be resolved by sophisms . . . I don't know of any Arabs who would agree to Palestine being ours . . . We want the country to be ours. The Arabs want the country to be theirs." In the end, Ben-Gurion was willing to divide the land. The Arabs were not. There may be little comparison between the two national movements who fought the British and each other over Palestine and the contentious groups struggling for power in Iraq today. But the danger of a foreign power fighting a long war to force compromise on combatants who have no interest in compromise is hauntingly similar.
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A liberal anti-war piece not filled with invective!
Of course it avoids pointing out that there's a strong case to be made that they'll be killing us here if we're not able to kill them there. It's not the same as the historical examples like Israel that he cites. Remember 9/11? And no, we weren't in EITHER Afghanistan or Iraq then...
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