The summit of the absurd: Middle East process without peace
09/23/2009
http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000776.htm
Eugene Ionescu or Samuel Becket could have written a play called "The Middle East Peace Process." Yesterday, in the Yet Another Middle East Summit that took place at the UN, we witnessed another scene in that play. Vladimir, Estragon and Godot himself appeared on the stage, said the same old things, provided the usual photo op, and departed to polite applause.
Over and over we hear the same pronouncements about the urgency of peace, about the final status agreement that is within reach, about the confidence building measures, about the need to compromise and make painful sacrifices, about the willingness to take risks for peace. We see the same photos of handshakes, tableaux that are repeated without end. The play has been running so long that all the actors have changed. Vladimir is played by Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Ehud Olmert, who replaced Ariel Sharon, who replaced Ehud Barak, who replaced Benjamin Netanyahu in his first appearance, who replaced Shimon Peres, who replaced the original Yitzhak Rabin, Estragon is ably portrayed by Mahmoud Abbas in place of Yasser Arafat, and Barack Obama replaced George Bush the Second, who replaced Bill Clinton, who replaced George Bush the First. Life, after all, must go on.
The essence of this postmodernist drama is that there is really no metanarrative. There is no plot. There is no progress, because there is nothing to progress towards. It is pointless diplomatic Dadaism. It cannot progress because of the "Human Condition" or in this case, the condition of the Middle East.
Continued here: http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000776.htm
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