SUMMARY: by Rami G. Khouri, The Daily Star, Lebanon

There is no single thread that explains the turbulent Middle East today, no single map being redrawn, no one dominant force that motivates the actions of hundreds of millions of agitated people.

For thousands of years – almost 10,000 years to be precise, since Natufian-era hunter-gatherers started to settle down into small, permanent year-round communities – families and larger communities have constantly done this by negotiating coexistence relationships with neighbors and foreign powers alike, or fighting them when needed.

This week’s events of U.S. President Barack Obama sending another 200 troops to Iraq, or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombing Gaza, or everyone in the region attacking ISIS are passing moments in a larger picture of the forces that will shape the future of this region: the micro-motivations and survival strategies of tens of millions of families and hundreds of thousands of communities that work to make it through the day, as they have made it through the millennia, by cooperating with both ISIS and American troops with the same ease, for the same purpose

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/Jul-02/262315-the-principle-of-survival-defines-the-middle-east.ashx#ixzz36GmxhrpE
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)