Lord Palmerston famously observed of the intractable and complex Schleswig-Holstein Question that only three people had ever understood it: Albert, the Prince Consort, who was dead; a Swedish professor, who had gone mad; and himself, who had forgotten the details. The same might almost be said of today’s Middle Eastern imbroglio – except that it is much less uncomplicated than the Schleswig-Holstein dilemma.
On the face of it, at caricature level, as often represented in the popular media, the Middle East crisis is starkly simple: a conflict born of racial and religious hatred between Arabs and Jews. Of course, that dichotomy is intrinsic to the situation; but it is traversed by innumerable cross-currents of conflicting geopolitical, economic and other interests that make it infinitely complex. Even the term “Arab-Israeli” is misleading, since one of the main players – Iran – is not an Arab nation. In the Middle East, nothing is what it seems.
