Israel-Palestine conflict has long seen both sides seeking to internationalise their local land war
Demography is destiny. Population has been an overarching metric in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the last century or so. Today, there are just over seven million Jewish people in the area that constituted the two states proposed by the UN in 1948.
Many years ago, I met the brilliant Palestinian academic, Edward Said, who described the Palestinian dilemma succinctly by explaining that the Palestinians are the “victims of victims”. This resonates and represents, at least psychologically, a starting point. The fact remains that this is a relatively small land dispute between, on a global scale, a minuscule amount of the world’s people. We are talking about 0.2 per cent of the world’s population. Why are the other 99.
You can actually be pro-Palestinian, pro-Israel and pro-American, but that nuanced position is getting trickier In postcolonial Ireland, we have the most pro-Palestinian population in Europe yet the most pro-American economy in the world. The Irish street is Palestinian, while the Irish boardroom is American. The stock of American foreign direct investment in Ireland stood at $557 billion in 2021. There are about 950 US subsidiaries in Ireland, employing around 209,000 people and supporting work for another 167,000 indirectly.
For some time, the enemies of the West – Russia and China – have been looking for a “wedge issue” to divide it. They’ve found it in Palestine. Putin and Xi have met each other 42 times over the past 10 years. Their aim has always been to weaken the West and drive a wedge between America and Europe. They had high hopes for Ukraine, gambling on a soft Europe not having the stomach for a fight. They miscalculated. But with Israel-Palestine they have their issue.
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