Iron empires, iron fists, iron domes TEL AVIV, Israel — I went
to synagogue Saturday not far from the Syrian border in Antakya,
Turkey. It’s been on my mind ever since. Antakya is home to a
tiny Jewish community, which still gathers for holidays at the
little Sephardic synagogue. It is also famous for its mosaic of
mosques and Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian and Protestant
churches. How could it be that I could go to synagogue in Turkey
on Saturday while on Friday, just across the Orontes River in
Syria, I had visited with Sunni Free Syrian Army rebels
embroiled in a civil war in which Syrian Alawites and Sunnis are
killing each other on the basis of their ID cards, Kurds are
creating their own enclave, Christians are hiding and the Jews
are long gone? What is this telling us? For me, it raises the
question of whether there are just three governing options in
the Middle East today: Iron Empires, Iron Fists or Iron Domes?
The reason that majorities and minorities co-existed relatively
harmoniously for some 400 ye