The Brunch Table

When I was in high school, each of my two newly-formed stepfamiles began to argue for opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Interestingly, I don’t recall either of my parents taking a special interest in the subject while they were still married–make of that what you will.) It took about ten years, but I eventually found a helpful and pleasantly objective history book, visited Israel myself, and was even lucky enough to bump into an NPR reporter on a tour bus there who let me follow her around while she interviewed people in the street (fortunately for me, via interpreter). I don’t mean to suggest that this gives me any authority to speak about the conflict itself, but at least I’ve now got an opinion of my own. And, out of respect for the actual experts, I’m sure as heck not gonna tell you what it is.

Now, while I’m proud to say that there are many positive aspects to reaching out and engaging people in a dialogue on the subject, a pleasing lack of interminable warmed-over email-forward arguments is conspicuously not among them. Even if we no longer waste trees with this stuff, we’re still burning perfectly good coal. And the quality of the debate rarely advances past the level of a post-Thanksgiving-dinner family squabble.

And that’s why I’d like to share with you this fine example of an interminable warmed-over email-forward argument. Not as something to be actually read and studied, but as a sort of flying drone thing to practice your lightsaber skills on, if you’re so inclined. Because, well, after putting up with a decade’s worth of this kind of stuff, I do feel like I’m getting to be an expert on reading about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I’ve developed a rule for myself that I find very useful. If you follow it, you could drastically reduce the amount of time you have to spend wading through a lot of boring and profoundly unhelpful writing. I hope this tactic will preserve your interest, stave off confusion or outright despair, and let you build an informed opinion if you haven’t already. The secret is, before you actually devote time to reading the linked article, you scan it. Look for the following words:

1. oil
2. Wahhabism
3. Ottoman Empire

I should emphasize that these words don’t need to be present as part of any particular case for either side. And I’m definitely not suggesting that we should agree on whether oil, Wahhabism, or the Ottoman Empire play any particular historical role. Instead, the mere presence of these words is a sign that the author has actually given the topic some serious thought. In my opinion, any discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict that fails to mention at least one of those three things will, most of the time, turn out to be absolutely worthless. Simple as that.