Until The End Of The World
In modern Israel, the Jezreel Valley separates the hilly areas of Galilee to the north from those of Samaria to the south. It’s the only important break in the ridge of mountains that runs the length of Palestine. It’s one of Israel’s most fertile regions. Nazareth, of which you will hear much in coming days, is on its northern side.
One of the main routes of the ancient world cut through the plain on its way from Egypt to Damascus and Mesopotamia. It was known to the Romans as Via Maris (the Way of the Sea) and hosted traders and armies alike.
War leaders fought over it, from Nebuchadnezzar to Napoleon and Saul to Saladin, and its fertile soil has been soaked by the blood of Jew and Gentile, Saracen and Crusader. They have all fought here, and died as well: Greeks, Mongols, Franks, Egyptians, Persians, Turks, Germans and Arabs.
At the head of the valley, on the west side, is Mount Megiddo or, in Hebrew, Har Megiddo, better known as Armageddon. According to the book of Revelation in the New Testament, it is where the final battle between the forces of Good and Evil will take place at the end of the world.
The end of the world? It’s bad enough as it is. Just as we might have thought that things had flattened out, everything changed. It was partly spillage from the war in Iraq. And Syria, smarting from its expulsion last year, was willing mischief. The trigger was a massive stroke suffered by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
His successor Ehud Olmert is a dull man, but one intent on not being seen as a lame duck. By late January, when Hamas won a landslide victory in the Palestinian election, the die was cast.
In July, Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers, and the Israelis retaliated with a violence of which Saul and Gideon would have approved. They flattened Lebanon. Thousands died. Roads, rails and bridges were pulverised.
The Americans backed Israel, seeing this as an extension of the war on terror. They foresaw a quick, decisive campaign, but for all the Israeli bombast, Hezbollah wasn’t to be beaten. The war dragged on into stalemate. Israel withdrew claiming victory, Hezbollah moved back in, also claiming victory. Ordinary farmers wondered how much worse the end of the world could be.
It’s the crucible of a conflict involving everyone within 5000 kilometres. Israel has failed in Lebanon. The US is failing in Iraq. All thoughts now turn to the post-American epoch. The contending forces watch and ponder how the cards will fall post-withdrawal. Good? Evil? Whatever…Har Megiddo hasn’t seen its last battle by a long shot.
Cartoon Violence
Some of us were foolish enough to think that the world had made progress towards tolerance and democracy by the end of the 20th century. Sure, there were many bad places but on the whole…

We soon realised the error of our ways. A small dedicated army of fanatics had been out there in the madrassas of Afghanistan and especially Pakistan, re-imagining Islam and propagating a new and militant form of the religion that, on one hand, harked back to the most primitive of precepts – and, on the other, utilised modern technologies with a savvy beyond that evident from, say, the CIA.
They want to go back to the tents, to the literal meaning of the book. They even want to recover el-Andalus from Spain, bemoaning its recapture by the Spaniards all of 600 years ago. Believe me, this ain’t no disco…
But this year it wasn’t war that stoked their hysteria, it was cartoons. Unbelievable, really. Some cartoons (originating from a Danish neo-Nazi publication) were published in a Danish satirical magazine, one of which linked the prophet Mohammad with terrorism.
The agitators took off around the Muslim world. It took a while to light the fire but in time it lit. The Danish embassy in Indonesia was ransacked. Effigies were burnt in Pakistan. Palestinian gunmen seized the EU office in Gaza and warned citizens of Denmark, Norway and France to leave. There were bomb threats to newspaper offices in Europe, and vile threats from menacing masked Muslim marchers in the UK.
In Ireland we had ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations. But at least they were peaceful. President McAleese said the Irish abhorred the cartoons. Did we? I can’t abhor what I never saw. And I don’t like toadying.
Later, in August, it was ‘revealed’ that British suicide bombers were within days of blowing up aircraft. Allegedly they planned to target five US cities. Was it real? Was it a fake? Who knows? Arrests followed, along with stringent new restrictions on airline baggage, with which we’re only now getting to grips.
The cynical think it was a ploy to further tighten surveillance, which is already unprecedented in the US and the UK. Add the ongoing frazzle over the wearing of the burqa, and you have a growing tension that looks like bedding itself in. It’s not good.
Meanwhile, the fundamentalist Christians burrow away, promising Armageddon for us all and rapture for the Elect. They’re probably as bad as the al-Qaeda militants, though better at disguising their wars. Or better at conscripting powerful figures like the present US president to advance their agenda.
Life (And Death) After Saddam
2006 was another year of non-stop carnage in Iraq. In February, sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shi’ite factions descended to unprecedented levels, with more than 300 lives being claimed in massacres, suicide attacks, reprisals and other armed clashes.

Further divisions between Sunni and Shi’ite arose over the question of former dictator Saddam Hussein’s future. Saddam was, and still is, broadly respected and trusted by the Sunni community from which he sprang; secular, anti-Iran, anti-theocracy, his outlook mirrored theirs, Among the Kurds and Shi’ites, however, whose periodic demands for greater autonomy had been met with savage repression by the Saddam regime, there was no such affection.
On November 5th, the Iraqi Special Tribunal sentenced Saddam to death for crimes against humanity. (Curiously, the announcement came only days before the US mid-term elections: the timing struck many as suspicious). Iraqis reacted in entirely predictable fashion: Sunnis were outraged, while the Shi’ites and Kurds celebrated well into the night.
Internationally, the verdict provoked similarly mixed feelings. There is no denying the ample evidence that Saddam was a blood-thirsty megalomaniac who claimed lives on a scale comparable with the accredited monsters of the age. He enthusiastically favoured the use of chemical weapons on civilian populations, most notably in an attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. Thousands of testimonies from those familiar with Iraqi affairs confirmed the picture of an irredeemably brutal and remorseless mass murderer, whose continued existence would constitute a permanent long-term threat to national stability.
Opponents of the verdict did not dispute the general assessment of Saddam’s character. They pointed out, however, that if this were justification for invading his country and deposing his regime, half the world’s nations might reasonably expect a similar fate. In any evaluation of his fascinating career, Saddam’s accomplishments as a statesman are clearly outweighed by his track record of extreme blood-lust. Nonetheless, the man was long viewed by US strategic planners as a vital regional bulwark against the spread of both Communism and militant Islam, and his disastrous 1980 invasion of Iran was heavily financed by the United States. From 1959 until roughly 1989, he was on extremely good terms with the CIA, which for a time was under the command of one George Herbert Walker Bush. The irony of the latter’s son pontificating from on high about ‘the tyrant facing justice’ should be lost on no-one.