Let us not mince words. The scenes from East Jerusalem this week are a grim tableau of modern political theatre. Israeli authorities, in their bulldozer wisdom, have demolished Palestinian homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. The Palestinians, predictably, are furious. The UK, in its role as the world's moral umpire, calls for restraint. And so the wheel turns again.
But let us examine this with the cold eye of a historian rather than the moist eye of a humanitarian. The demolition of homes is a tactic as old as empire. The Assyrians did it. The Romans did it. The British did it in the colonies. And now, in a post-Ottoman Levant, the Israelis do it. It is a blunt instrument of territorial control, a statement that says: we decide who lives where.
What is truly fascinating is the British response. 'Restraint,' they say. As if the British themselves, from the Balfour Declaration to the Mandate to the present day, have not left a trail of bricks and blood across this very soil. The UK calls for restraint with the weary tone of a retired colonial administrator, tutting at the young natives who cannot manage their own affairs. It is a posture of moral superiority built on a mountain of hypocrisy.
And the Palestinians? Their fury is genuine, but it is also politically convenient. The demolition is a gift to Hamas and the PA alike. It allows them to distract from their own failures, their own corruptions, their own inability to build a state. How convenient to blame the Israeli bulldozer for the stalled peace process. How easy to ignite the crowd with images of shattered walls and weeping children.
But let us be honest. The international community has grown weary of this conflict. It is a tired saga, a re-run of the same episode with slightly different mise-en-scène. The Israelis demolish. The Palestinians protest. The UN condemns. The US vetoes. The UK calls for restraint. And nothing changes. This is not a tragedy. It is a farce. It is a symptom of intellectual decadence, a refusal to think new thoughts or take new actions.
What would it take to break the cycle? Perhaps the end of the two-state fantasy. Maybe an honest binational arrangement. Or maybe just a pause in the eternal victimhood competition. But that would require courage, and courage is in short supply in the corridors of power.
So we watch the bulldozers do their work. We read the statements of condemnation. We cluck our tongues. And we wait for the next demolition, the next protest, the next call for restraint. It is the ritual of a civilisation in decline.
