Slaying the Dragon

It was the great English writer G. K. Chesterton who said: “Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” As you can probably tell, he is not merely a great writer but also a very quotable one. 

source: modernisminc.com

Dragons are traditionally very fearsome and ill-tempered creatures, who wreck the lives of all that happen to be in their path. With scales harder than tempered steel, they are difficult to slay, unless you are, say, Prince Charming (and no, I'm not referring to that grotesque idiot from "Shrek"). But how can that great dragon of Mid East politics be slayed? Where is the real Prince Charming when the world needs him?


To be fair, people have previously tried to slay the great dragon on their own. In 1967, Israel launched a preemptive strike on Egypt in what was to be called the Six Day War. From it, Israel gained the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, an action which Arab countries responded to with a vow saying they shall have "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, [and] no negotiations with it." The UN Security Council responded with Resolution 242, calling for Israel's withdrawal from those lands and lasting peace in the region. Evidently, Israel did not listen.


Conflict soon broke out once more, with the UN constantly trying to broker ceasefires with no end in sight. That is, until the signing of the Camp David Accords on March 26 1979. U.S. President Jimmy Carter had helped negotiate a framework for peace between Israel and Egypt, which resulted in the Sinai being returned to Egypt and the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries. However, not much was accomplished in regards to the issue of Palestine.


After years of continued conflict, the next sign of hope rose in 1993, when Israeli and PLO representatives met in Norway for secret negotiations. These talks led to the signing of the Declaration of Principles, otherwise known as the Oslo Accords. In it, the PLO officially recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security, while Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO renounced the use of terrorism, and committed itself to resolve conflicts peacefully. The accord gave Palestinians autonomy in Jericho (a city in the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip, under the newly-created Palestinian Authority (PA). 


But the violence soon stirred again, resulting in massacres of Muslim worshipers in Israel, terrorist attacks on Israelis, and the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Israeli who disproved of the PM's peace initiative.


In the summer of 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton invited Israeli PM Ehud Barak and PA President Yasser Arafat to attend a summit meeting at Camp David. It ended up in failure, with all parties blaming the others for the dismal results.


Since then, restarting the peace process has been the objective of Mid East mediators. But it's not so easy when the majority of Israelis and Palestinians don't believe in the prospect of permanent peace. According to a poll done by the Gallup Organization in 2010, only 25% of Israeli Jews believed in a peaceful future, while 66% did not. For Palestinians, 18% said they believed in a peaceful future, while 75% did not. How can they slay a dragon when they say it cannot be slain?


Fairy tales can be great moral lessons to all of us, regardless of age. However, one thing that fairy tales don't tell us is that Prince Charming was never real. There is no magical prince who can save the day everyday. However, is that a good enough reason to lose hope of a better future? Dragons can be killed - as long as we retain faith in ourselves.