[bjourne]

> Just imagine the PLO ever accepting an order to recognize the right of Israel to exist.

PLO first recognized Israel in 1988: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/08/world/arafat-says-plo-acce... Then again in 1993 during the Oslo Accords: http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook9/P... The Palestinian Authority now in control of parts of the West Bank has also done it on several occasions and even Hamas has de facto recognized Israel: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20141011-forget-its-charte...

Meanwhile, Israel has not once recognized the right of Palestine to exist.

Why discuss this detail of his essay? Because details are important and if you are ignorant about them, like this author is, you reach the wrong conclusions. The ignorance forms preconceptions that are not true in the slightest. In this conflict, we have one side who is occupying the other and refusing to let go of territory it has conquered. Resisting that is justified and obviously based on nationalism, not the Thar concept the author writes about.

You can't just claim that all those Middle Easterners are driven by Thar, and we Westerners are always the rational ones. It's not so easy.