Murray McCully, the peacemaker

Good news! Murray McCully, the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs, is off to the UN Security Council to sort out the Arab Israeli conflict. In the last 78 years a number of prominent politicians had a go at this, Israeli politicians, Ohlemrt, Barak, Shamir, Gold Meir. were all willing participants in negotiations. For the time being, there is a general feeling that the issues are irreconcilable. Arabs don't want a Jewish state in a land that they perceive as Arab land, Israelis are determined to hang in there and have a Jewish state in which Jews determine their own fate. Still, undaunted, Murray McCully will reconcile the irreconcilable. He looked around the world, and found that the Arab – Israeli conflict is the greatest danger to world peace. There is a war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Donbass in Ukraine, Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, and possibly many other places. Tragically, there were 72 fatalities in the Arab – Israeli conflict this year, 28864 in Afghanistan, 41976, in Syria, 5430 in Yemen, 2145 in the Sinai insurgency, Egypt, But New Zealand is a small country, it is appropriate that it should focus on the smallest conflict. What's more, there is no downside, no price to pay for being the harbinger of peace, or more likely, false hope, to Israel and the Palestinians, whereas bringing peace to Yemen might antagonize Saudi Arabia, a large trading partner, or talking to Indonesia about Papua New Guinea might upsetting them, even meddling in the Iraqi and Syrian conflict may be bad for business, but there is nothing at stake telling Arabs and Israelis to be nice to each other and stop killing each other. The risk of failure is also negligible. No one expects Murray McCully to achieve anything significant. He comes from a country where people don't fear getting stabbed on the way to school or mowed down in a synagogue while praying. Living with such daily threats is beyond the imagination of a well meaning New Zealand politician.