The Middle East is a puzzle – and no two pieces fit together

Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
July 19, 2006 Wednesday
Final Edition; All Editions

By Dick Feagler, Special to the Plain Dealer

We were sitting around in the coffee shop, trying to figure out the
Middle East. But it was beyond us.

"I’ve been watching it all on TV," said Frank. "And what I get is
that some of the missiles they’re shooting at Israel were made in
Iran and shipped in through Syria."

"That’s what they say," John said.

"So my question is this," said Frank. "What the hell are we doing
in Iraq?"

"Nobody knows," I said. "By now, we’ve forgotten why we went there.
If we ever knew."

"I mean our archenemy now is Iran, right?" said Frank. "And Saddam
went to war against Iran, right? So when we stomped out Saddam,
the Iranians should have liked us, right?"

"You might think so," I said.

"Not over there," said Joe. "There’s no logic to what goes on over
there. They’ve all been fighting each other for more than 50 years.
It makes no sense."

"Sure it does," said Dan. "They all hate Israel. They don’t want Israel
there. You think 50 years means anything to these people? Their version
of God tells them that the land of Israel is their land. But Israel’s
God says that Israel has reclaimed the land promised by God."

"Well, man, those two Gods were really slugging it out over the
weekend," said John.

"Not really," I said. "Israel could have done far more than it did."

"What are you talking about?" said Dan. "Israel is bombing the hell
out of Beirut. You saw that picture on Page One of that poor Lebanese
woman bleeding."

"They’re bleeding in Haifa, too," I said. "But that’s not the point.
Suppose somebody launched a bunch of missiles at Cleveland. And
suppose we knew where they were made, how they got there and who
fired them. What would we do?"

"I don’t know," said Frank.

"Whaddaya mean, you don’t know?" said John. "We’d bomb the hell out
of them and take them down."

"Like we did after 9/11," said Frank. "Except after 9/11, we invaded
a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. We might as well have
invaded Indiana."

"I knew a woman, she’s dead now," I said. "She used to go to Lebanon
every year. She was Armenian, and she had her own history to tell
about the slaughter of the Armenians.

"But she always brought back such pretty things. Brass coffee tables
with inlaid wood on the legs. The brass was so wonderfully etched,
you could have hung it on the wall.

"Her family had suffered terrible atrocities in that part of the
world – things we didn’t hear about in history class. But she always
told me, ‘Richard, you have to go to Lebanon. Richard, you have to
go there. It’s better than Paris.’ "

"Did you ever go?" said Joe.

"No," I said. "All I know about Lebanon is what I saw on TV this
weekend. I don’t think my friend would have liked to have seen it."

"My mother wouldn’t have liked to see Haifa," said Joe. "It’s a
beautiful resort town, you know."

So we sat around trying to figure out the Middle East. Men have tried
for centuries and have always failed. Lines have been drawn in the
sand and been covered over and lost as meaningless.

Laureen came over to pour us a round of coffee.

"I heard you talking about Lebanon," she said. "My boyfriend’s parents
are from there."

"What does he think about what’s going on?" I asked.

"Oh, no," she said. "He’s an American. He don’t think at all."