Doug Mills / AP
President Bill Clinton, center, looks on as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, left, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat shake hands in the East Room of the White House after signing the Mideast accord in Washington on Sept. 28, 1995.
Sunday, May 23, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Ticktock, ticktock.
In another time, those words meant something very different than they do today.
In another time, those words referred to the idea that whatever we were working on, whatever we were doing, whatever we were even thinking about getting done, that time was flying by so we better get to doing it.
In another time, we were always concerned about the imperative for getting what we thought was important done. Opportunities for success don’t come around that often. So we thought ... way back then.
Today, those words have a different meaning. They are even spelled differently. And they are utilized by an entirely different generation of Americans who, not unlike their predecessors, may still believe in positively changing the world but who seem to be going about it in a way that produces fewer lasting results while wasting a lot of ticktocking time in the process.
People today prefer to TikTok.
It may simply be that this social media thing — this phenomenon that spends more time calling people to action than it does explaining why action is required — is not for me. Frankly, from what I understand, people using TikTok appear not to require context or facts necessary to make decisions of life and death or those of even greater importance.
But that ain’t me. And now that it appears there is a cease-fire in the Middle East that may hold for the next little while, I think I will spend just a little time trying to give the TikTokkers some of that context with which they rarely ever indulge themselves.
I am not concerned with people like Sen. Bernie Sanders who actually knows better than to threaten Israel by the withholding of lifesaving military support just because they defended themselves from the deadly missile attacks of Hamas — a world pariah and odds-on favorite to win terrorist organization of the year awards. Bernie’s agenda is driven by his politics, and while many of us may agree with some of his logic, we just can’t hold the lives of innocent Israelis hostage to his political whims.
But there are many young people in this country who just don’t know any better. Their lives are too new and their attention to the historical details of the past — that is the immediate term that preceded their births — is a distant priority to their desire to right the ills of society before their next birthdays.
Those are the young people worth talking to because they are the folks who we will all have to rely upon one day soon to ensure our tomorrows.
So, why did it take so long to get a cease-fire this time? And why didn’t the United States and President Joe Biden make it happen sooner? And why are 2 million people living in terrible conditions in Gaza? And why are children the unfortunate casualties of Israel’s defensive fire at the Hamas rocket brigades? And why isn’t there peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians? And why and why and why?
Those are good questions and there are many more. And there are good, reasonable and responsible answers to each and every one of them. But they are not asked.
And the answers don’t seem to exist — beyond the fiction that pervades the internet — on TikTok. Just opinions. For some reason, people just accept what someone else thinks — no matter how wrong or wrong-headed that may be — and move on from there.
When I think about the inordinate amount of pressure that the far left in our country and the Iran-sponsored terrorists who utilize social media have brought to bear on our own leaders, I can’t help remembering what could have been in the Middle East.
There was a time when real leaders did the real work of peace in that part of the world. Yes, sometimes to no avail but always with an eye toward making the lives of all the people in the Middle East a little safer and a little less anxious on a daily basis.
I think about people like Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Israeli President Shimon Peres, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Jordan’s King Hussein, and even some lesser players along the way who never stopped fighting and hoping and working for a lasting peace for their people. They didn’t use TikTok, but they understood the ticking clock of history and the imperative that peace required.
I also think a lot about my friend, President Bill Clinton, and the lengths to which he went to try to bring the parties in the Middle East to peace. He succeeded with Israel and Jordan but fell a bit short with the Palestinians under Yasser Arafat who, when the time came to act, just couldn’t say “yes.”
Arafat feared for his own life, and it has cost the lives of countless Palestinians ever since.
Some of those mentioned above acted differently. They acted for their people and it did cost them their lives.
Imagine what we could have been talking about today had Arafat said “yes” to what President Clinton managed to get the Israelis to concede.
Instead of lamenting the politically driven right-wing decisions under Bibi Netanyahu to build Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank, usurping the land that would ultimately be needed for a Palestinian state under a two-state solution, the Palestinians would be celebrating their own country today on 96% of the West Bank, including a part of Jerusalem as their capital.
But that didn’t happen. And 20 years have ensued, and now there is far less land and far more Israeli settlements.
Whose fault is that?
TikTok would have us believe Israel is entirely to blame. The facts tell a different story. And, oh by the way, when Arafat failed to say “yes” to peace, he also ushered in the terrorists of Hamas to divide the Palestinians and wreak havoc on their lives and their futures.
This is just one example of what the TikTokkers don’t know and the people with agendas around them either don’t want them to know or won’t tell them.
And it makes a difference. Because these young people are smart. And they want what’s best and fair and sane. What they lack is context and, too often, they don’t take the time to learn what many of us would like them to know. And, meanwhile, the clock moves closer toward war — not peace.
Ticktock. Ticktock.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
