1967 And All That

This week there's been a fair bit of coverage of the 40th Anniversary of the Six Day War, the most important incident in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The swift military action in 1967 that saw Israel overcome armies from Egypt, Syria and Jordan to occupy East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Sinai Peninsula dominates the conflict to this day. A conflict that sadly still shows no sign of reaching a resolution of any meaningful sort.

I was listening to a Radio 4 report by the BBC's loveable little news pixie Jeremy Bowen the other day, and he provided a telling quotation from Moshe Dayan, Isareli Defence Minister at the time. In 1967 he predicted the Palestinians would respond to the occupation with a sustained campaign of violence, and when asked why, said: "Because it is exactly what I would do if I were in their place." Hardly a groundbreaking observation in itself of course, but coming from one of the key architects of the occupation it tells its own story about the background to Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people.

And yes, they are people, although you'd be hard pushed to tell by the majority of news coverage of the conflict, particularly within America where there's no real or balanced debate on the subject. It's deemed almost politically suicidal for a member of Congress to hold a balanced view on Palestinian rights, while lobby groups like the American-Israel Political Action Committee work to create enough of a climate of fear around criticism of the Israeli government's actions that the chances of reasoned debate are minimal. You won't find many negative references to the present-day apartheid in Palestinian territories, the aggressive settlements programmes with 450,000 settlers living in the West Bank, or Israel's constant defiance of every reading of international law except its own in the corporate, westernised mainstream media. Which, lets face it, covers the vast majority of the media. Forty years have passed, but unless the realities of the conflict get proper and balanced recognition in the US - the only power capable of ending it - it will easily go on for another forty.

(Dick jokes are on the way).