Pen Meets Paper Jan 5 '09

Pen Meets Paper
Opinion by Helge Nome
In this first week of January, 2009, I would like to shed some additional light on the conflict between power factions in Israel and the surrounding territories. Please step out of the fray for a minute and refrain from looking at this conflict as ideological, ethnic or territorial.
Have you noticed that during the last 60 years, since the formation of Israel as a state, within the territory that used to be called Palestine, there has always been some kind of conflict, or other, which has grabbed the attention of the world and routinely gets featured in the headline news everywhere. This is despite of the fact that the number of people involved, and the total casualties over the years, are miniscule compared to conflicts elsewhere, such as in Africa.
One very significant result of this ongoing attention has been a massive inflow of money into the region from supporters of all factions from all over the world. So the combatants on both sides are continually benefiting directly from their conflicts.
The so called “Two State Solution”, Israel and Palestine existing side by side, is a dead duck in the water, because neither state would be financially viable and there would be little incentive for supporters to pour in money if there was no conflict.
So, as usual, the common folk on both sides are held to ransom by their respective “governments” who are, in fact, armed gangs exploiting them for their own gain. (By the way, the kill ratio is about 100/1 in favour of Israel)