Nigeria, Sept. 2 -- It should be evident by now that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not so much about religion, but basically a clash of two nationalisms, one Arab, the other Jewish. As we noted in a 2021 paper, "Xenophobia as bogeyman: The post-apartheid State in South Africa", the most appropriate theoretical framework for robustly analysing such a conflict is 'new nationalism' - predicated on the demonisation of the 'other' and its casting as an existential threat to the 'self.' This gives a conflict of this nature a zero-sum game flavour, whereby your adversary's gain is your loss; with no grey areas allowed and allowable. No conflict of this nature has lent itself to easy resolution in all of history.

I was tapped by the Nigeri...