Do as you have been done by

In the fabulous graphic novel by Guy de Lisle, Jerusalem: chronicles from the holy city, I've just reached the part where the protagonist finds a bar and gets talking to a psychologist on the next door stool. He questions her about why Israel might treat Palestinians the way it does. She tritely replies: 'You see, people who were battered as kids are likely to batter their own kids in turn. So we thought, maybe the same pattern applies to entire populations?'

The protagonist replies: 'But if today's persecuted people all persecute others tomorrow, we won't be out of the woods anytime soon. It's endless.'

The novel, written in cartoon strips, gives a wry look at life in one of the most complicated parts of the world, and the depiction of the pyschologist is, I hope, with tongue in cheek, but when you look East, West and North and South from Jordan, you've got to wonder.

Syrians continue to spill over any border they can - with 20,000 people arriving in Iraqi Kurdistan since last Thursday. It is particularly hot and dry, with most air conditioning units, including ours, giving up under the weight of all that water sucked from the air. And I can't imagine what it's like in the camps, let alone on a roof top, or a dusty plain.

It looks worryingly like Lebanon might be sucked into the mix, with its equal thirds of Sunni, Shia and Christian populations.

And now Egypt too, with nearly 1000 dead in the last week. The Egyptian miliatary are becoming increasingly heavy handed with protesters, with equally vicious retaliation from Muslim Brotherhood supporters. But many locals here, including the Glammy and Egyptians like Sayyad our janitor, think the military crack down is a good thing because in their view the Brotherhood spells trouble. 'These people are terrorists,' one Egyptian said to me. 'The army needs to bat them down.'

Bad examples beget bad behaviour, for sure. But during a meeting with the UN this week, I talked to a man who has lived and worked with his family in this region all his career, he said none of these Sunni - Shia - Christian rivalries existed 10 years ago in Syria or Egypt. They've been sparked, he said, by the cruel and irresponsible leadership of the likes of Al Assad.

In a tragic of example of this, I read about the disappearance of the Italian Jesuit, Father Paolo Dall'Oglio from Raqqa, from a city in northern Syria now held by Jihadists. He settled in Syria in the 80's after he went there to study Arabic. After restoring a monastery in Deir Mar Musa in northern Damascus, he concentrated his energies on improving relations between Syria's religious communities who 'lived in harmony but ignorance of each other.'

No one knows where he is. And with 100,000 killed in Syria's civil war so far, it's humans like he who are so desperately required to try and restore balance in this regional melting pot which is beginning to risk self immolation.