This interesting tidbit appeared in the news today
"One of Saudi Arabia's leading Wahhabi sheiks, Abdullah bin Jabreen has issued a strongly worded religious edict, or fatwa, declaring it unlawful to support, join or pray for Hezbollah, the Shiite militias lobbing missiles into northern Israel."
http://www.nysun.com/article/36373Here is what one observer had to say about the fatwa:
"Personally, I wouldn't read too much into it -- the House of Saud has plenty of pet preachers who make a good living cranking out fatwas on royal demand. (Actually, the fact the Saudis felt it necessary to order one up against Hezbollah is probably a lot more significant than the document itself.)"
http://billmon.org/archives/002546.htmlWhile the USA appears to the world to be Israel's greatest ally, do not forget that the Bush family has close ties to the Saudi Royals,too, via the Caryle Group, the employers of Papa Bush and James Baker III. Do not miss the fact that the Taliban that we are no longer fighting and Osama whom we are no longer hunting are related to the Wahhabi, the Saudi Royal's preferred sect of
Islam---preferred because it preaches that the only way to run a devout muslim state is to have a monarchy. All other Islamic sects are scary to the Saudi Royals. because they preach that clerics or the people should run the country, not rich, corrupt, hereditary monarchs.
Sunnis and Shias are the Saudi Royal's worst enemies, for Class reasons, not Israel. Right now Israel is a great lightening rod to redirect anger away from the rich, corrupt, decadent Saudi Royals. Better yet, the Israel Army is fighting the Saudi Royal's Class enemies. If Saudi Arabia can pit Israel vs. Iran and get them to both go "boom", then it will have won the Mid East Chess Match, and the hereditary monarchy will be able to sail its yachts and summer in its resorts and buy its jewels for another five years in blissful peace, while the serfs imported from Africa and South East Asia labor like dogs in their country and their country's oil wealth is squandered with no thought to the future.
Class or economic wars are often framed in terms of religion or race. Look at all the witch hunts and crusades and pogroms in Europe. In WWII, the Germans made a cold blooded decision to villanize Jewish people in order to achieve their goals. Fear of the "other" is very useful when you want to manipulate the masses. I recommend W. J. Cash's "The Mind of the South" for anyone interested in how people can be persuaded to do things which are not in their best interest when they are appealed to in the name of racial solidarity. The same goal can be achieved in the name of religious solidarity. However, if you look closely at many of these conflicts, you will find at their root, an economic cause. A group in power wants to remain in power, so it creates a straw dog and sets its troops to fight it. An oppressed people who have been living in poverty in a land of wealth points to some distinguishing characteristic of the dominant class and calls that characteristic "evil" as their rallying cry.
People keep saying that the violence will not end until the basic problem is solved. I suggest that a solution will not be found until you focus on the correct problem. What if the problem is not Jewish people and Muslim people can never live side by side (they do in the United States and other countries)? What if it is something altogether different?
Why should the people of Israel and Gaza and Lebanon have to die, because a bunch of spoiled Saudi Royals are afraid that their own people may have a French Revolution? Or because Exxon is afraid that oil prices might drop if mid east countries nationalize their oil and starting pumping as much as they want?
If you approach the MidEast as an economic/class problem, solutions become much simpler. The Palestinian crisis becomes a crisis of income disparity---in which case the solution is for the uber rich Saudi Royals to share some of that wealth. There is no reason that they can not provide the Palestinians with enough money to build their own factories, businesses, schools ect. so that Palestinians no longer have to feel like third world citizens in a first world country, which I suspect may be the real problem, income disparity having been shown to be a worse health burden than absolute poverty itself. The US can foot the bill of rebuilding Lebanon, providing schools and hospitals and mosques and all the things that Hezbollah had to provide because the US could not be bothered to give financial support to the democracy which it claimed that it supported. Iran would be encouraged to donate money directly, not through any middle men terrorist groups. In Iraq, pull out US contractors, give the work and money to Iraqis, bring in aid with the goal of restoring the economy (and utilities).
The US had no problem bringing peace to Japan and Germany after WW II. We infused money and prosperity into the two regions. The same will have the same result in the Middle East. The only reason not to try it is if those calling the shots in Washington answer to the Saudi Royals who do not want to see peace and prosperity and democracy outside its own borders, because it might upset those within.
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