Please do not disturb, the World Cup is on. The crisis in Ukraine, the meltdown in Iraq, these are the stories taking over world news. There's no room for anything else. Three Jewish students go missing after taking off from their yeshiva near Gush Etzion. So what's the big deal? If a few settlers, kippah-wearing individuals, had kidnapped three Arab teenagers, Israel probably would have been all over the international press. Meanwhile, all Israel is managing to sell internationally after Holland's win are oranges. And what about terrorism coverage? Well, Iraq has been more than generous enough already. Kidnappings? Perhaps, if you're a bunch of unfortunate Nigerian girls caught up in Boko Haram's terrorist schemes. Besides, aren't the Palestinians the downtrodden of the Middle East? We must not forget, according to the international syndicates, the settlers are always the bad guys. If you are faint of heart, stay away from the reader comments on the current kidnapping coverage. But it is not the Palestinians who are this story's sad characters. Rather, it's the Middle East -- that pitiful place. On May 16, 1916, the French and British foreign ministers signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which was designed to divvy up the Ottoman Empire's foprmer Middle Eastern territories after World War I had ended. Great Britain and France sought to build a new world order. One hundred years later, and we can safely say that the new world order has expired. What we are experiencing now is disarray. Islamic extremism is a stone's throw in every direction. Iraq? It's crumbling and terror-stricken. Syria? See: Iraq. Lebanon? Fractured and divides as usual, with a hint of Hezbollah. Jordan? Stable, but subject to change. Libya? Torn between tribes. Egypt? Rehabilitating from the dream of democracy. Tunisia? Searching for tourists in the age of Islamism. Never mind what's going in the Gulf, or even Iran. There's a limit to how far you can go spoiling the World Cup. One should understand that the world cannot comprehend just how everything is connected. On Saturday, France deported a young man from Tunisia for enlisting jihadis. That young man, precisely like members of the Islamic group active in Iraq and Syria and the terrorist group behind the kidnappings of the three missing Israeli boys, is aspiring to achieve one thing: the fall of the West, removing Israel from the map and re-establishing the Islamic caliphate as it once was. Just think, that's the kind of organization with which the Palestinian Authority has built its new government. And it is precisely during such chaotic times, as terrorism is flourishing and thriving, that the U.S. has decided to wait and hope for the best. Our world does not really have a police force anymore. At most, the U.S. sends off the USS George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier (terrorists, relax, it's the ship, not the president) along with the message that it won't be sending troops (see: Syria, Iraq). If any of our neighbors tried to sublease his country for a few years, I think he'd have a little difficulty finding any takers. It reminds me of the Leah Goldberg story, "A Flat for Rent," turned inside out. It's as if she actually wrote it about the Middle East. The apartments are exquisite, but the neighbors... At one point, we looked at Lebanon and figured that was the big issue. We didn't realize that Lebanon was just the hors d'oeuvre: ethnic conflict, communal warfare, religious struggle, serious identity crises -- and, most importantly, terrorism. Today, Lebanon-ism has metastasized throughout the Middle East. At least the Iranians are happy. They have been invited to engage in Iraq, to protect its holy cities, and, most importantly, to hold negotiations allowing their nuclear program to continue. A terrorist state (Iran) has become Washington's hope for a better Middle East. And while we hope for the best, it's just too bad our neighbors aren't roosters, chickens, cats and squirrels, as in Goldberg's classic story. Instead, we got Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and a myriad of martyrs.
