The Shifting Sands of Sinai: A Personal Journey Through the Narratives of the Middle East

Since I was a small boy, I have been told that Israel is the good guy. In Finland during the Cold War era, Israel was seen to fight for their existence, defending itself against the Palestinians that were commonly called ‘rättipäät’ — a very derogatory expression meaning ‘those who wear rags on their heads’. The Six-Day War in 1967 was on the news portrayed as Israel’s heroic battle against evil.

We in Finland felt that we were on the right side of history. Israel was like David, who happened to have slightly better slingshots from the US than Goliath with the rag on his head. The brute force of Arabs was thrown in pieces in the sands of the desert where they belonged. Or so we believed. Or made to believe.

Only when I became a teenager did other views start to arise. Yasser Arafat (1929–2004), one of the founders of Fatah, Palestine’s military and political organisation, which later became the dominant force within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), started to appear in the news.

Many young people like me started to ask questions. Does Israel have the right to threaten Palestinians? What right did they have to occupy the Gaza Strip and West Bank? Was the displacement (Nakba) of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 anything but a cruel attempt to wipe them off from existence? Is Israel doing to the Palestinians the same as the Nazis did them?

“The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for 40 years”. — Eli Yishai, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.

The high-tension international wire of geopolitical tightrope walk

Since my teenage years, I have been puzzled by the very one-sided narrative about the crises in the Middle East. It doesn’t make any sense at all. The former Soviet Union, now known as Russia, initially supported the founding of Israel in 1948.

But it didn’t take long for Russians to realise that their dream of a socialist Middle East would not bear fruits. The dunes of political sandstorms grew when the Soviet Union tried to form closer ties with Arab states — Egypt and Syria as their main focus — to progress their anti-colonial stances. For these nations, Russians provide military, economic and diplomatic support in abundance. It was the sand in the shoes of Western countries.

Russians recognised the PLO, which naturally made it impossible for the USA and their allies to even think of accepting the fact that Palestinians deserve the right to live, rule and be in peace in their country — the country that was squeezed smaller and smaller by the military force of Israel.

Meanwhile, countless innocent people were slaughtered, and the dunes of politics became permanently coloured red by their blood. Both sides were marching on that sticky, blood-smelling, macabre sand laid out by decision-makers thousands of kilometres away.

The talk was cheap and cheesy, while the deaths of ordinary people were the price of those talks. But who paid for those high horses, such as Arab horses and other similarly militarised galloping slogan palominos?

Follow the money.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Middle Eastern geopolitical quicksand are intricately linked with global arms and oil dynamics. The region is a strategic buffer and rehearsal room between bigger powers to test their military technologies — and pump oil money to lubricate the war.

According to Aljazeera, between 2018 and 2022, at least 35 countries imported weapons from Israel. That export was worth $3.2bn. Third of the exports went to India, and then Azerbaijan, the Philippines and the US followed. So, Israel has not only bought some high-tech murder tools but was actively selling them with great success. Does it surprise you? Israel has also received about half of all US foreign aid since WWII. Money talks louder when it speaks from the well-oiled machine gun.

At the same time, the USA has been pouring money for Palestinians. According to The Times of Israel, Americans have given over $5 billion since 1994. That is money for humanitarian purposes, but we can safely assume that not all went to the schools and hospitals but to tunnels that funnelled the missiles.

Hamas, which is now the aim of Israel and does not recognise Israel’s right to exist, was founded in the 1980s, and it has been opposing the PLO fiercely. The rumour has it that Israel first helped to finance it to build some pressure against the PLO.

Hamas has been labelled as a terrorist group. However, not all buy that idea. For example, it has been supported by Turkey (a NATO member, mind you). Also, Qatar has warmly taken Hamas in its embrace, giving it $1.8 billion.

While the diplomats talk about peaceful solutions, it is impossible to even think about it when the decisions of war and peace are made in the board rooms of arms traders. And whatever happens, the profits are collected by those who live far away from the conflict zone.

As long as money is being made, the conflict is sustained. However, since conflicts are always man-made (and often literally so), it ultimately comes down to leadership and how very few people can unintentionally, foolishly, or maliciously worsen the situation.

But why now?

The Hamas has been sending missiles to Israel and vice versa for a long time. Why, then, has everything escalated just recently to the point of unprecedented mass murders on both sides?

When several wars are going on, escalating one is never an isolated event.

Netanyahu has had his political challenges before the recent attack by Hamas. He has faced growing discontent and several setbacks within his government and parliament. He has been accused of corruption (money again raises its ugly head) and other not-so-nice things, as The Wall Street Journal explains.

The attack came at a strategically opportune time for Netanyahu. When a politician faces the prospect of failing miserably, the best step is to take a page from Trump’s playbook: poke, provoke, and pull the strings before anyone can ask questions or think clearly.

And in the same vein, in the other part of the world, at the gates of Europe, Putin’s war and occupation of Ukraine is not going well. For President Putin, Hamas sent an immeasurably valuable gift to move the world’s attention from Ukraine to the Middle East. And also a lot of military aid. Now Putin can practice war crimes without too much attention to detail, sell oil to China and India and keep missiles and drones flying.

It is scary that these two ruthless leaders have been able to get away with murders they instigate at an ongoing pace. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to see how these two totally unnecessary tragedies have been launched by two trigger-happy leaders who want to cement their power.

As an outcome for both Netanyahu and Putin, history is already constructing their shrines in the hall of fame of the worst war criminals of the century. Let’s see if Xi Jinping and other candidates of the same calibre join them. Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao had been waiting for them in those hollow halls since the last century.

All is not lost, but everything can get worse before it gets better.

Because I am not a conspiracy theorist but interested in history and the many dependencies global politics offer for a curious mind, I believe that human heart, soul and intelligence are stronger than arms.

“With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” ― Malala Yousafzai.

In both wars described in this article, the only way to peace is through a total ceasefire. And, as in any war, only those with overwhelming power can initiate it.

Americans knew it when they had to flee Vietnam. The only way to win a war is to stop it.

The only way to eradicate terrorists, like Hamas is now considered to be, is to address the root causes of the conflict and eliminate them. These causes have always been greed, anger, and ignorance. To stop the war, we must prioritise respect for life in all its forms and foster compassion, wisdom, and courage. This approach promotes collaboration, sharing the good equally, and eradicating evil without resorting to force but through understanding.

The leaders may pull the trigger, but it is the people who will ultimately bring about change. Instead of being cannon fodder, people will, in this time of global awareness, reach a tipping point and consign the trigger-happy leaders to the dungeons of history where they belong.

War is never the brave thing to do

When Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 for their attempts to secure peace, I remembered how far they had travelled from my teenage memories when Israel launched the six-day war in 1967. There was hope and great expectations.

But since then, the leadership of both parties has drifted away from that path, and we can now see the consequences of that myopic and hate-filled journey.

The truth is not on one side or the other but understanding the bigger picture. Putting labels and listening to only one side leads to extremism and blind faith. But the most important thing before we can understand anything is to stop the war.

There is no bravery in war but in making peace.