The Heart of The Problem

I saw Queen Noor of Jordan on Larry King Live one day last week. In the midst of all that is going on, she reminded people what it at the heart of the problem in the Middle East. As an ally to Israel, we can get totally self-righteous about their right to exist. But the fact remains that their existence came at the loss and expense of others - others who haven't forgotten.

QUEEN NOOR: I also believe that previous administrations, because of their direct engagement with and many of them attempted to be far more balanced in their approach to both sides of the story, because both sides have stories of tragedy, of fear, of generations that have built up a great deal of distrust and anger, and I think there is one example, which is, because I keep going back, as so many others do, to believing that the heart of this problem is the Arab, the larger Arab-Israeli conflict which started in 1948 with the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, as the state of Israel was created. Those refugees have never been addressed properly, nor the ones that were forced from their homes over the next several decades, '67. There are now six million outside. So the annexation of, the occupation and annexation of Arab lands by Israel, the refugee issue and the prisoners that are held in contravention of international law --

KING: You're therefore blaming Israel for this?

QUEEN NOOR: I'm saying that those are issues that lay, are the root cause and what the militant groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who also have political roles, were elected in legitimate elections in their communities, in Palestinian territories and in Lebanon, what drives the militancy and what would sap all the energy and justification for this militancy, would be a resolution of those core issues, that are a driving force of the militants.