WHY THE MIDDLE EAST DOESN'T MATTER: That is from the cover of the May issue of Prospect Magazine. The lead article is Middle of Nowhere by Edward Luttwak. He writes about how the middle east experts are so consistently wrong: among other things on the effect of the Israel-Arab conflict on global conflicts:

Yes, it would be nice if Israelis and Palestinians could settle their differences, but it would do little or nothing to calm the other conflicts in the middle east from Algeria to Iraq, or to stop Muslim-Hindu violence in Kashmir, Muslim-Christian violence in Indonesia and the Philippines, Muslim-Buddhist violence in Thailand, Muslim-animist violence in Sudan, Muslim-Igbo violence in Nigeria, Muslim-Muscovite violence in Chechnya, or the different varieties of inter-Muslim violence between traditionalists and Islamists, and between Sunnis and Shia, nor would it assuage the perfectly understandable hostility of convinced Islamists towards the transgressive west that relentlessly invades their minds, and sometimes their countries.

On the one hand, we stress the importance of Israel as a democracy and as the advance shock troops in the war on terror. The result is that Israel becomes the center of attention--and contention--on dealing with and appeasing the Muslim world.

If Israel--and by extension the Israel-Palestinian conflict--was no longer a focal point, and the focus instead was trained on Islamist terrorism as it manifests itself in terrorist attacks around the world: would Israel be less in the lime-light, less pressured, and more free to defend herself the way she should?

It will never happen.
But read the article anyway.
[Hat tip: Prairiepundit]

Technorati Tag: Israel and Edward Luttwak.