The definition of Allopathic medicine is “a therapeutic system whereby a condition is created hostile to the disease…so that the body is no longer a host to bacteria.” It seems that recent politics uses the same model to create a situation/condition in which terrorists are clearly combated by more powerful hostilities. Judging by history and current events, this model is not working.

My sister has lived in Israel for 24 years. We have many times had to table discussions about Israel, the Palestinian conflict… and her answer to me has been, “You don’t understand if you don’t live here.” I have come to agree with her…to a point. I know that none of us can know what is going on anywhere. Even the saying “walk in someone else’s shoes” does not hold up given that it is about the feet, not just the shoe.

With the tragic events…all of them, on all sides…that have occurred in the past three weeks, I have seriously considered what might resolve the deadly and seemingly perpetual crisis in the Middle East.

When allopathic medicine was the single predominant modality, antibiotics ran the world of healthcare. In many ways, they still do. However, the bacteria that we
have been “controlling” have gotten smarter. They have “adapted” like the Borg of Startrek, who were able to adapt to weapons so fast that they were almost impossible to defeat. Sometimes, in small groups, they were defeated, only to come to reappear immune to the original weapons.

Going back to the medicine-paradigm, we currently have evidence-based medicine which is far broader a concept and practice. It uses multiple indicators to diagnose and restore health and assumes that the physician has to take into account multiple factors and cannot just prescribe antibiotics.

Applying the same model to the hostilities in Lebanon and Israel, it seems that the antibiotic of escalating violence no longer works as well as it once did. The response
to anger is smarter violence; there has been enrollment among other “bacteria”…and one cannot tell which is good and which is bad. The side effects are deadly to the organisms. Actually, it feels like both sides are
suffering from an auto-immune response…rendering the whole region chronically ill, now in an acute stage.

I do understand the history; I know what the political, social, and religious issues are. But, I am at a loss to fully understand why a solution has never been found.
I am aware of the rationale for the conflict, which is a description and justification for continuing conflict. However, neither side…and there are two sides…has been able to find a better alternative than hostilities.

So they kill each other only to wait until the next day for the next killing. Solutions are offered, not unlike medical directives. But, the “patients” are non-compliant…defiantly non-compliant. Just as chemotherapy may eradicate some cancer cells, but more arise from within the remaining healthy cells, just like a smoker who won’t quit smoking, a diabetic who loves sugar, or an alcoholic who just won’t quit
drinking and driving, the old fruitless remedies are tried again and again.

Maybe it is time to no longer practice allopathic politics or fight allopathic battles. Maybe we are looking at preventive care and creating viable incentives to stay “healthy” and avoid risky behavior. I am not that confident this approach will work since it has not worked in our own society. Drug dealers seem to market and peddle pharmaceutical compliance better than our healthcare system.

At any rate, something is clearly not working; the world is in the midst of a major, systemic infection for which there is no global antibiotic.