Tunnel Vision

Why isn’t there peace in the Holy Land more than 60 years after Israel won it’s war of independence? How could it be that America, Germany and Japan became the closest of allies while Muslims, Christians and Jews continue to kill each other in the Middle East?

Two words tell the story better than volumes of history books, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Friedman, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher combined.

Tunnel vision.

And not just figuratively, but as the current fighting between Israel and Hamas revealed, literally too.

Who would be driving a Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche or Volkswagon if after losing World War II, German thugs had hijacked vast national resources building tunnels to continue attacking the victors instead of industries, schools and a society in which children grow up with the opportunity to pursue their dreams and potential?

With that kind of tunnel vision, would anyone be wearing Adidas, sipping Reisling, wearing a Breitling, cutting with a Solingen, or listening to the hourly chimes of a Black Forest cuckoo clock?

Imagine if after the horrific American nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese leaders had decided to forever divert the passion and resources of their people to embracing hatred, violent jihad, and digging terror tunnels instead of delivering on their obligations to future generations. Would anyone be watching football on a Sony, driving a Toyota, or checking email on their Toshiba?

What if after winning their freedom, slaves brutally brought to America in chains had chosen instead of creating a better future, they’d teach their children to hate and build tunnels to the homes of the most vicious of former slave owners so they could take their revenge?

And what if the surviving Jews and others throughout Europe who lost millions of family members, homes, entire communities and possessions passed down for generations had chosen instead of rebuilding their lives to send their children to work and die building tunnels to exact vengeance on those who participated or supported Nazi atrocities? How many diseases would remain uncured, fields unexplored, industries undeveloped, films, books, poems and melodies never written, homes and communities never built?

No one has to wonder what the future will look like for millions of Palestinians if the tunnel vision of those who control their resources and dreams continues to focus on winning a war they’ve lost time and again instead of creating a better future for their children that can still be won.

The world would be a very different place if the tunnel vision of those who sought to destroy Israel at its moment of rebirth in 1948 and the descendants they’ve encouraged was the foundation of life in Israel, America, Europe or Asia.

By definition, tunnel vision is becoming so focused on what’s right in front of us that we don’t see everything else that’s all around. In the context of the Palestinians, it’s the tragedy of decades spent sacrificing their future while immersed on a single goal that will never be realized.

How many of Gaza’s residents were asked if they preferred to see concrete delivered from Israel and elsewhere for humanitarian purposes diverted to creating vast tunnels from which Hamas gangsters could murder Jews? How many voted for tunnels instead of schools, parks, homes, hospitals or even bomb shelters to protect their children in an area that hasn’t known peace for generations? How many of those who made the decisions are accountable to anyone of those today mourning more than 1,000 deaths, each of whom was someone’s son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, mother or father?

No one has to wonder what the future will look like for millions of Palestinians if the tunnel vision of those who control their resources and dreams continues to focus on winning a war they’ve lost time and again instead of creating a better future for their children that can still be won.