Realpolitik and breaking the Gaza siege

I think it is admirable that anybody is trying to break the unjust siege of Gaza but for a nation that shamelessly killed thousands of people in Lebanon and Gaza in front of the whole world, I don't expect they will be too worried about stopping the flotilla. I think the day Israel starts to worry about what international public opinion says of it is the day that they have lost the war completely. That is a fact. If you are strong you don't need to worry about what people think about you.

In fact in the Middle East industry (yes - it is a living for many people on both sides of the divide), most people miss that point. Mao Zedong put it aptly, power flows out of the barrel of a gun and no one understands this better than the Zionist. Not that there is anything wrong with that logic. It is almost like a mathematical rule, in fact it is a necessity for anybody keen on surviving to understand the nature of power and how it flows like a stream through rocks and pathways, concentrating in little pools here and there. In that sense, when the student of politics examines the statements, political positions and public expressions of the Zionist government or military, you find expressions of strength and sovereignty in every nuance. It is something on which there is no compromise.

Machiavelli was demonised forever when he tried to sum up what a prince would need to do in order to acquire and then maintain his power. It was not about morality or right and wrong. The morality of nations is different from individual morality. To confuse the two risks injustice on a massive scale. Incontinent people, always ready to miss an opportunity at knowledge, refuse this equation foolishly. As the Arabic saying goes, الفرد في يد المنيح يدبح"the gun in the hands of a good man kills". What that means is that a weapon, in the hands of a self-styled good man, will kill because of his eagerness to do good. Good and evil have different meanings when it comes to the morality of nations and this requires individuals of a particular kind of stomach.

When one looks at the opposing camp, the majority of Arab nations lack this in their dialogue and that is because the majority have decided that they would rather become protectorates. Where you do find the same non-compromising, sovereign and power-conscious discourse is in the speeches, nuances and every detail that emanate from Iran, Hezbullah and Syria.

In this way you begin to identify the two opposing poles around which power is being concentrated. An alliance of Muslim and Arab countries on the one hand, and the Zionist state on the other. The key though is always to be able to recognise power. How is it expressed? Where is it located and what are its limits? Everything else is secondary whether it is culture, tolerance or 'freedom'.

To conclude, if your analysis of the Middle East lacks this nuance then it is flawed. Discussions of peace, tolerance and co-existence are irrelevant. Once the reins of power are assumed there is not a nation in history that has ever given them up willingly. The Cold War ended only with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rome destroyed Carthage. Sparta defeated Athens. Nazi Germany and Japan were crushed to a pulp. This is a zero-sum game, it is neither tragic nor triumphant to recognise this fact. In the same way that you know two male lions will continue to fight until one of them is dominant, or two stags will continue to clash until only one of them wins the mate, so too the struggle for the Middle East.