Ed Morrissey quotes a Barry Rubin piece that “attempts to explain to Westerners the reasons why our efforts to deal with the Palestinians on a rational basis have no hope of success”. His own commentary is just as good.
When Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat 95% of the territory he demanded for a Palestinian state, Western leaders thought that Bill Clinton achieved a major breakthrough. Clinton could not be faulted for thinking so; a string of American presidents had pressed Israel into returning the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace, and Clinton had finally succeeded in making it happen.
Of course, Arafat turned it down. Why? Because the deal gave him what he demanded, but not what he wanted. His answer to the Israeli offer came in the form of two intifadas, while Europe continued to castigate the Israelis for their continuing oppression of the Palestinians who terrorized them.
Last year, Ariel Sharon decided to give back Gaza unilaterally. The disengagement gave the Palestinians their own territory to govern, and it solved a tough military problem for the IDF in protecting the few thousand settlers among over a million Palestinians. One would have expected the Palestinians to celebrate and establish their own governance of the territory, especially since the Israelis gave back all of it. What happened? They complained that the Israelis left without negotiating for Gaza’s return, and then paid them back by using Gaza as a launching pad for hundreds of rocket strikes. In the meantime, the Palestinians did nothing to maintain civil control of Gaza.
They do not want peace. They want Israel. Nothing short of that will satisfy the Palestinians, and all of the talk in the world will do not one whit of good until they understand that we will not allow them to destroy Israel, and of course neither will the Israelis.
Those comments are bang on. The Palestinians have never wanted peace and never will, all they want is Israel destroyed. What I often wonder is why the MSM, CUPE, Liberals, etc seem to think they are the victims and Israel is the aggressor?
If tomorrow the Palestinians could occupy Israel they would turn it into a putrid wasteland like the one they occupy. Having a state requires more than simple geography. It requires laws, a civil society, equal rights for women, fair elections, technology, investment in infrastructure, all of the very things that the Palestinians for generations have made no investment in.
We have done Israel(and the Palestinians indirectly) a big disservice for decades in tying their hands, forcing them to take half measures, in militarily defeating the Palestinians once and for all. The Palestinians need the total defeat and surrender, the whole paradigm change that follows, that forced Nazi Germany and Japan into democracies. Internally and left to their own devices, they can’t do it.
The wall is a the way to call the bluff. The only problem is it isnt quite a retreat to the 67 borders. They do cut into some parts of the land.
Whether this is a negotiating tactic or a sop to internal israeli politics. The reality is the bluff is never really called, practically speaking, until the 67 borders are the real borders.
Now before I get in trouble here, I too suspect that certain elements of the PA only want a one state solution. However hanging on to even 1 % of the land outside of 67 borders just leaves Israel open to challenge.
I say nothing about how they get to that point, whether its unilateral or negotiated, whether it should be immeadiate or in 25 years, but only at that point will Israel really be able to call the PA’s bluff, asuming it is a bluff.
The demands seem to be ongoing, and Jerusalem will be the ultimate problem area, I believe it was split pre 67….
Ignoring the PA wont do any good and caving into the PA wont do any good either.
A two state solution is the answer people know is correct. Unfortunately the palestinians have suffered from horrendous givernance and thievery from their “leaders” in the past.
As someone said of Arafat….he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity….
Stephen – what makes a retreat to the ’67 borders necessary or virtuous for Israel?
All of the wars where Israel gained territory were started by the Arabs. There is no law or rule that the instigators upon suffering defeat have to get squat back. Egypt was lucky to get the Sinai peninsula back because they had no legal leg to stand on in getting it returned given that they were the defeated aggressors. Live by the sword, die on it.
Typical Arabs. Instigate murder and mayhem, then play the victim game on the world stage when nailed for bad behavior.
Most of the Palestinian’s “suffering” they have brought upon themselves. Ireland is never getting Ulster back. Only the irrational would continue that fight. Life moves on.
penny said: “Only the irrational would continue that fight”.
As a friend of mine said, (about the Arabs), when we were in Saudi Arabia, “They have no comprehension of Cause & Effect”.
penny, you can’t ‘militarily’ defeat the Palestinians because they have no military. The occupation was a version of defeat and accomplished only the development of a pathological hatred among both sides, for each other. Jewish settlers and rabbis can be just as virulent in their rhetoric and acts as can the Palestinians.
Equally, you have a large proportion of Israelis who consider that there should not be any Palestine, that there is not and never was and never should be any such thing as a Palestinian, that all who claim to be such should be absorbed by Jordan and/or Egypt.
You also have a large proportion on both sides who wish it would be settled. Ha’aretz is a good source for these comments, and also B/Tselem.
The Oslo Accords were not about a Palestinian state; Israel has never recognized a Palestinian state – and that is, in itself, a problem. The Accords were only about municipal self-governance regarding issues such as culture (?), health, education. Nothing about borders, economy, foreign relations, resources, military- that remained in Israel’s control. So, they were rejected because of that.
And I agree that Arafat didn’t want a Palestinian state because he would lose control (he would probably not be elected leader). Sharon didn’t want a Palestinian state either; otherwise, why was he so busy settling the occupied lands?
Gaza is not self-sufficient; it is essentially a ‘city’, densely populated and kept alive only by imported food, water, money. The key is the West Bank, which can be farmed.
I reject those ‘cultural identity’ conclusions which assert that Palestinians are ‘all evil terrorists’. I think one has to, if one can, ignore the rhetoric and actions of both sides and look simply at ‘what is’ and try to deal with that mess.
1) The reality is a large population with no-where to go. Israel refuses them for that would nullify the Jewish majority. Jordan and Egypt refuse them. How do you deal with this?
2) This large population has no state identity, they are occupied and can’t get Israel to give them the West Bank and Gaza. They have no economy, for Gaza, as I said, is dirt poor; the land base is the West Bank. But, Israel is busy settling the West Bank. They used to have jobs working in Israel but that has disappeared with new immigration to Israel and the intifada.
3) A proportion of their population have turned to terrorism to end the occupation and get that state. Some are, like the Israeli settlers, asserting ‘all or nothing’ (all the land belongs to Israel vs all to the Palestinians). The terrorism sets up a dead-end roadblock. Every act is an act of retaliation for another act and it is endless.
4) Rhetoric and talk is completely useless. It is useless to asssert ‘they deserve it, they are all evil’. The basic issue that talk and emotions and finger-pointing ignore is the reality – there are these millions of people. No-one will ‘absorb’ them. Therefore, they aren’t going to disappear. What does the world do??? The world isn’t flat; you can’t simply walk them over the edge. What is to be done with these millions?
5) The only thing I can think of – is for the world to insist on Israel exiting the West Bank and Gaza and turning it over to the Palestinians and giving them a compensation settlement in return for ‘the right of return’.. Abbas has already said that his gov’t only wants the W Bank and Gaza; that it recognizes Israel.
Israel has so destroyed the Hamas gov’t by arresting its members – and like it or not, it was democratically elected – that the Hamas can’t control any militant groups. Palestine has no gov’t.
Hamas was elected, Israel refused to deal with it, but people elected Hamas because Fatah had done nothing for them and was extremely corrupt.
6)The bottom line is – there are these milion people living there. What is the world going to do about them? They aren’t going to disappear. So?
7)I think that a Palestinian state has to be set up and Israel has to recognize it. Then, it would probably require UN (useless as the UN is) or some other coalition to supervise the area for a few years, until the extremist ideological rhetoric of both sides – and it’s on both sides- gets marginalized and a Palestinian economy and re-education system is set up.
What other options are there?
“Gaza is not self-sufficient; it is essentially a ‘city’, densely populated and kept alive only by imported food, water, money.”
One might say the same thing about Singapore. The key difference? Singapore is not an Arab Muslim state.
People that believe they can negotiate with thugs make my blood run cold. Thugs only pretend to negotiate when they believe that is a less costly way to get what they want; but they will never loose sight of their final objective. The way Regan handled the Soviet thugs is a classic case of bold tactics and a realistic mindset. Who could think that Arafat was really going to bargain?
There will never be peace in the middle east.
When inbred (religious) cultures collide annihilation is the only finality.
ET – your points are well taken, but I firmly believe that the Palestinians, and large tracts of the ME for that matter, aren’t going to internally or organically change until they hit the brick wall that German and Japanese fascism hit. They were soundly, unequivocally trounced, disarmed, occupied and converted at gunpoint to the religion of civilized democracy. There were no half measures with them. 60 years later, it worked.
In the stupidity that is all politics Palestinian, has it ever occured to these cretins that they are wedded to Israel, like it or not, if they ever hope to have employment, technology, decent medical care and trade? They want Israel destroyed. 6 million Jews aren’t going to magically evaporate just like the Protestants aren’t in Ulster. The irony of Ulster today is that with their fabulous economy of the past decade the Irish wouldn’t want it back. My point, again, that the focus on land issues by the Palestinians is bogus in the long run. Quality of life is much bigger than the location of the dirt you have your home on.
missed the spot where the Israeli’s still got to expand their settlements thats why Palestine didn’t accept the deal.
September 1996
5th – Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, meets with the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, to discuss the peace process. As a consequence of the meeting, there are threats of revolt within Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party.
November 1996
15th – In Israel, the High Court allows the secret police the power to torture an Islamic groups members to glean information about attacks against Israel.
27th – The American Administration claims that the Israeli Prime Minister Mr Netanyahu is endangering the Middle East peace talks by proposing to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
28th – Nearly 126 UN member countries demand an end to the Israeli expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Who doesn’t want peace and why do they hide whats going on in Palestine. Palestine is like a pie with a bunch of spots on it where Israeli settlements are, thats the real problem.
Like Saskatchewan building a bunch of towns around Albertas oil fields Ralph would get pissed
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel
The world council of churches has been helping the palestinians in the villages that have settlemnts close by. The violence used against the pastors and children as they go to school each day are recorded on film, if they can sneek it out, as the Israelis take film that shows Jews in a bad light.
I prefere to get my information from a third source “www.eappi.org/” their site and the story they tell.
http://www.adc.org/tom_hayes.htm
This documentry is done by the same man that brought us the award winning documentry of cambodia “REFUGEE ROAD”. His story is enlightening things we never hear on the 6 o’clock news watch
“People and the Land”
Well, what Palestinians and their backers will say about the Clinton-Barak deal is that it may have been what the Israelis regarded as giving Arafat everything he wanted, but it still fell far short of what the Palestinians consider a viable Palestinian state.
Whether or not subsequent events justify that interpretation I’ll let others decide for themselves. I’m just providing what their defence is, because I’ve heard it over and over and over again.
penny – I don’t understand your comment on ‘the focus on land issues is bogus’. Without land, you can’t farm, or set up anindustry or factory of business. What am I missing in your argument?
I don’t think the Palestinians are ‘wedded to Israel’. There’s no necessity for them to be a dependent economy UNLESS Israel insists on retaining control of all water access and electrical access and the basic infrastructure of a modern economy. Will Israel do that? Yes, it might.
My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the Palestinians should attempt to move out of the peasant agriculture they now have, move out of the low-skilled jobs they now hold, if any, in the Israeli economy, and focus on high tech electronic services. That’s a generation in the future, for the population has to be re-educated out of its peasant mode and into an industrial mode. But, presumably, the world will still be here in a generation, so – why not make the attempt?
With regard to the comparison between Singapore and Gaza, it’s a false comparison. Singapore is an industrial economy; Gaza is a peasant economy.
The whole ME, as I’ve been commenting repeatedly, was a tribal peasant economy, with peasant rather than industrial agriculture and essentially, no industrialism. Oil, discovered and managed by the industrial West, simply provided them with money but didn’t change the lifestyle for the majority. That’s because the political system remained tribal – and the leader tribes got the money. The rest of the population got nothing. That’s the ‘root cause’ of islamic fascism.
Singapore is an industrial economy. Could Gaza move into such a mode? Sure, but again, it would take almost a generation. The entire population has to be educated into an industrial entrepreneurial economy. It has to drop the economy of local olive farms, local vegetables and move into a high-tech mode. It has to move out of tribalism and into a civic mode of governance.
Could it happen? Of course it could, and Gaza could readily become a high-tech industrial node. In fact, that’s the best option for it – since there’s no land. But it’s an unfair comparison to make Singapore NOW with Gaza NOW. Try Singapore 200 years ago and Gaza now.
But the reality of the situation is – there’s a million and a half people sitting there. What’s to be done? No matter how much any side wishes the other were to disappear, it’s not going to happen. So?
I don’t know how people still fall for that poor palestinian victim crap time and time again. These thugs have been at it so long they have no concept of doing anything else. Just witness what they did with the abandoned Israeli settlements.
” Wow, a great big greenhouse operation. Let’s get it running and feed our people, sell produce and make some money for the future. Naaa, let’s trash it and blow the stuff up, after the CBC reporter finishes filming our kids that is.”
Hey sports fans, just google a satelitte map of the area. Just from the green color or lack there of, can you tell us where the palistinians are growing dirt? Hard to grow anything and make IEDs at the same time.
Arafat is thin now, but his creed is alive:
“as he explained in a 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci,
“Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else.” …-
When Arafat in an October 21,1996 speech at the Dehaise refugee camp, proclaimed, “We know only one word: Jihad, Jihad, Jihad,” he fully meant it. All his words and actions clearly prove this. If for some tactical reasons he uses the word “peace” it is only because, as he explained in a 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci, “Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else.”
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep97/shusteff.htm
ET,
What is to be done with the millions of Palestinians? You’ve made some good points. But the question remains.
Negotiate a land settlement and still allow Palestinians to govern themselves, with the UN in between – as you suggested – and all we’ll see is blue helmets ducking.
The problem with the Palestinians is their backward religion, or cult. A cult that will not allow them to modernize their economy, as you suggested. And a cult that will not allow them to peacefully coexist beside Israel.
It wasn’t long ago that their Minister of Culture put an end to belly dancing as a form of entertainment, because, “…it’s going to make people want to kill somebody.”
So the question remains, what is to be done?
texas canuck, yes, the land base of the Palestinians is not green; that’s lack of water. Israel controls the water resources and would only allow Palestinian access for personal use, not for irrigation. The Israeli farms were irrigated.
There won’t be any solution within a rhetoric of hate, flinging of accusations, counter-claims of who is the most evil. All of that is useless.
The reality is – there’s one and a half million people. What happens with them?
One hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago, the solution was basic. Send them to Australia (the criminals). Send the starving and dispossessed to Canada, the US, S. America. There WAS a place to send them. But that option isn’t available in Palestine. Most certainly, Israel would prefer to have all of the W. Bank. Gaza is essentially useless; there’s no land, water, it’s nothing but poverty-residential. But, there’s no ‘new land’ to send them to.
So? What’s the answer?
Penny, I don’t think that Germany and Japan were converted at gunpoint to civlized democracy, though I get your point. I’m only commenting that democracy can’t be forced on a population. I think that both were essentially fascist, and fascism seems to emerge when a society is at the cusp of collapse and prevents it, not by moving into the more difficult democracy but by retreating into the emotional Will-Essentialism of fascism.
That’s what has happened with the ME states, which have come to a crisis point by retaining tribalism and rather than moving into democracy have chosen fascism.
But the Israeli-Palestinian situation isn’t about fascism. It’s quite different. I think it inadvertently developed when Israel was set up, and figured that the 600,000 Palestinian refugees would be absorbed by Jordan/Egypt. That didn’t happen and the population tripled in a generation. What does one do with such a massive population?
Israel began as a democracy and also, an industrial economy. Most immigrants to Israel were already operating in an industrial mentality; indeed, the small percentages from the ME area who were still tribal and peasant economy (such as from Yemen) were considered ‘lower class’ by many Israelis. So, Israel rapidly became highly industrial, and with some of the best universities and science research in the world.
Palestinians, however, have remained non-industrial; they haven’t had the education and the political system to change. Arafat could have done something; he could have insisted on education, on developing universities, on developing a high-tech economy, on moving them out of a peasant agriculture. He failed them, all their leaders failed them. The world failed them too; it could have insisted on this change, instead of aiding them into being perpetual victims.
But, the reality remains – what does the world do???
As I said – rhetoric about who is evil, who is good, who deserves whatever punishment – is useless. It doesn’t answer that question. And the question has to be answered.
The problem with the ’67 borders is that they cannot be properly defended. This is recognized in UN Resolution 242 which demands that Israel return lands gained.
The Europeans maliciously chose to interpret 242 as requiring Israel to return ALL that land. Furthermore, the land was gained from Egypt and Jordan. Egypt got back what it wanted and now it and Jordan expect Israel to hand what’s left over to a third party – the Palestinians.
From the Israeli perspective, nothing since the ’67 war has substantially changed the “political vector” of Arab anti-Semitism their and desire to have the Middle East Judenrein. Compromising on geography would be suicide, yet that is just what the usual suspects expect them to.
I made the point last week that this will not be resolved by peaceful means…there is too much ingrained ethnic hatred on both sides and it expands with every atrocity committed(by both sides).We keep foisting our western morals on these warring groups,a ridiculous and arrogant undertaking!
Look at the conflict between the right and left in NA and the anomosity and hatred expressed for many fellow Canadians that share no more than different views on how our democracy should work(as we all sit on our contented,well-fed asses).We then have the gall to sit and tell others involved in a neverending,hate-filled bloodbath on the other side of this massive globe how to seek everlasting peace?
We are watching a slow motion war…until that war ends,there can never be peace.Maybe,just maybe,they should fight this war quickly,and to the END.Sorry to shock you,but that is reality.That is history.That is mankind!
Ultimately,if these groups cannot live side by side and neither can relocate,one must destroy the other to survive….We only fool ourselves if we deny man’s most basic of instincts….kill the enemy,protect your own!
ET – why farm when your next door neighbor is an agricultural surplus country? Your kid has a complicated medical disorder, your next door neighbor has state of the art medicine or your kid goes without treatment? Your son’s only chance at a trade is suicide belt assembly, but, your next door neighbor has colleges, adult ed, and jobs with a future, would it be asking too much to swallow your historic grievances and get him out of the terrorist industry?
The Palestinians need Israel, for all of my examples above, just by virtue of proximity to it, if they ever want to arise from the gutter.
Japan was an interesting case of forced democracy having not had a history of it. They committed gross atrocities on the neighbors. They were primitive. The Emperor was God. Another cult. Total submission with total defeat, followed by an imposed script to follow(we wrote their constitution)and they changed on a dime given the length of Japanese history. My point, again, is that the one scenario that we have forbidden Israel is the total all out crushing of the homicidal mayhem that is Palestine. I think it has been a mistake because the biggest beneficiaries would be the Palestinians themselves.
canadian observer – I think that’s a simplistic solution. You are essentially saying that if two peoples disagree, then, one side should completely kill the other. I don’t think that we live in that type of world. At least, I hope we don’t.
There are, by the way too many Palestinians to ‘kill them all’. And I am presuming you don’t mean that the Arab states should move in, to help the Palestinians, against Israel.
The problem, and the people, therefore remains. What do to?
I disagree with your conclusion that they can’t, at some time, live side by side, peacefully.
I don’t see any solution to the problem other than for Israel to acknowledge that Palestine should be a state; that means the West Bank in particular. Gaza is simply a massive concrete block. But, with a land base, the Palestinian ‘remoulding’ could begin.
But, it requires that land base, and it requires leadership, a leadership focused on two things: massive education along with a focus on high-tech industrial service dev’t. There isn’t enough of a land base to develop an industrial agricultural economy, but, a high tech industrial service economy could develop. They’d need a 10-20-30 year plan for this development.
But- what other option is there? The reality is one and a half million people. No country wants them. Not Israel, Jordan or Egypt. The current generation may be trapped in hatred but surely the children can be brought up in a different perspective, and feel part of the industrial world.
Yes, ET, There are a million and a half people sitting there; they are not going to disappear. So? So…Israel should make a series of suicidal concessions to those who want to destroy it as a nation? If concessions to Palestinian leaders were the path to peace, Israel would have conceded heaven and earth already.
Israel wants peace, but they are surrounded by a population whose school texts teach that Jews are pigs and apes, and that the Palestinian struggle won’t end until these sub-humans are destroyed. It’s hard to see how Israel making concessions is a good idea in this context, even though the idea seems like a good one to rational people thousands of miles away.
Suppose Israel did exactly what you suggest: completely exit the West Bank and Gaza, and pay some massive sum to the Palestinians. In what way is that proposed solution different, other than in scale, to the various concessions Israel has granted in the past which were only met with renewed and redoubled attacks on them?
If you were faced with an enemy whose stated objective was to destroy you and your family, and who had in the past taken every territorial concession you had made only to use it to gain a better foothold from which to attack you, would you still consider further concessions to be the correct approach to dealing with the situation?
There’s almost bizzarre tendency among many in the west to reflexively look at Israel as the party who needs to make amends, and to somehow forget that any necessary “solution” will have to involve the demonstrated collective will of Palestinian people, some indication that they finally understand that their quasi-pathological belief system, which has hatred as it’s foundation, is a colossal handicap to them, and not a glorious path forward.
The idea of Israel making concessions for PEACE is a good one — no, make that a GREAT one — but so far, it’s been concessions for nothing, and then more concessions for nothing, all followed by demands for more concessions. In such a context, making more concessions would be like, oh, a physician granting concessions to cancer cells in the name of good health.
From Gaza with Love is the Blog of Dr. Mona El-Farra.
She reports daily on the happenings and todays blog tells of the hardship of the palestinians living under siege. They can’t go fishing for the sardines.
http://www.fromgaza.blogspot.com/
The time for Israel to make concessions is over.
The Arabs now known as Palestinians have zero interest in peaceful co-existance with Israel.
1.5 million in Gaza, 2.5 million in the West Bank. (CIA World Factbok)
One solution would be to deport the 4 million to Jordan, the first Arab state created from the Palestine Mandate. (Jordan, currently 5.9 million)
Another solution, the world purchases a chunk of Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara) and relocates the 4 million there.
Rich fishing but the land is no utopia. It would keep the Palestinians “busy” trying to establish a society. And it has the added benefit of moving them to the other end of Africa.
By the way,
Western Sahara – 266,000 sq. km.
Population 273,000
penny – I disagree with your scenario that there is no need for Palestinian agriculture because Israel, which irrigates its land has a surplus of food(while the Palestinians don’t have the rights of water access to do that). And same with education, medical care.
Couldn’t you apply the same scenario to Canada and the US? Why should Canada have universities when the US has more, and better, universities? Why develop agriculture up here, when the US, which has a milder climate, can produce more? And so on. I don’t think your outline makes sense. The Palestinian population base should develop their own agriculture – and high tech industry – and their own universities.
Because the Japanese king was also considered a god, does not make it a cult. That’s actually a specific type of political-social system that is found in, believe it or not, all irrigation economies. Not a cult; that’s very different.
EBD – as I said, it’s useless to discuss whose rhetoric defines whom as ‘evil pigs’. The rhetoric on the Israeli side by settlers and rabbis can be just as bad. Such ‘who speaks the most foul’ is useless. It doesn’t solve the problem.
Israel has not, so far, enabled a Palestinian state, so your suggestion that it somehow has made such concessions in the past, puzzles me.
You aren’t going to get any ‘demonstrated will of the Palestinian people’ when they don’t believe that Israel has any intention of enabling a Palestinian state. Not with those massive West Bank settlements, not with no acceptance by Israel of a Palestinian state.
I think that it has to be Israel that makes the move. The one with the strength has to make the move. Again, what do I think should be done – given the reality of one and half million people, and NO NATION will take them in – what should be done?
Israel should declare that it recognizes a Palestinian State, made up of the West Bank and Gaza. All settlements should be removed. A financial settlement to deal with the ‘right of return’.
And then – an external coalition should move in. Since the UN is useless, make it the ever-present and able US, Australia, UK, even Canada, and some other European country – to help set up a reconstruction plan for Palestine. Israel should not be involved.
The plan should be on a 5-10-15-20 year agenda, with clear ‘achievables’ marked. This should guide the Palestinians from a tribal peasant economy to an industrial one.
I don’t think they can do it alone. As I said, Israel was settled by people who were already ‘western’, who were most definitely not tribal but had a civic democracy, who were industrial. Palestinians are living the way they lived 400 years ago. You can’t change that in a blink. So, they have to be assisted in this monumental change – it requires education, the development of an industrial and education infrastructure. And it will take that long, but, it can be done.
What other option is there? So far, no-one has come up with a viable option.
ET,
“…but a high tech industrial service economy could develop. They’d need a 10-20-30 year plan for this development.”
Maybe if you rubbed a lamp.
Even if the Palestinians got what they wanted (which is debatable as to whether that’s an independent nation, the destruction of Israel, or both), who is going to come up with this plan, let alone implement it?
Currently, Palestinian kids get a good portion of hateful Islamic indoctrination served up along with their math and spelling. Are these the people that are going to create this modernization?
If Palestine is to succeed it has to be taken out of the islamofascist sphere of influence. That means, as Penny has already stated, some sort of foreign imposed goverment, whether that’s Israeli, or something else – for an incubation period.
If that were the case, I might have some confidence in theirs and the regions future.
They can’t go fishing for the sardines
Cry me a river. The Israelis and their little kids have lost their lives getting a pizza or an ice cream cone.
Then, buy sardines in cans. They are cheap as sin. Lacking basics like refrigeration, because of whittling away decades of energy and money on the terrorist industry instead any meaningful domestic economy, the canned sardines are safer to eat anyways.
The rhetoric on the Israeli side by settlers and rabbis can be just as bad.
Rhetoric is one thing; blowing up innocent civilians, glorying in the thought that you’re on your way to having 72 white grapes, and being considered a hero is quite another.
Israel should declare that it recognizes a Palestinian State, made up of the West Bank and Gaza. All settlements should be removed. A financial settlement to deal with the ‘right of return’.
It would help if the Pals start acting as if they were a state-in-waiting. But they won’t.
And if Israel were to carry out everything you mentioned – removal of settlements, giving up on the West Bank, financial reparations, yada yada yada – the Pals would still commit acts of terrorism. That’s the whole point of the original article – They do not want peace. They want Israel. Nothing short of that will satisfy the Palestinians, and all of the talk in the world will do not one whit of good…
What other option is there? So far, no-one has come up with a viable option.
Your “option” seems to include no expectations of the Pals, and a Lucy-holding-the-football-for-Charlie-Brown inability to see the Pals for what they have been in the past and what they will continue to be in the future.
Shouldn’t the very least be the condition that there’s no state for them if they continue to act as terrorists? Why on earth did we send troops to dismantle a terrorist regime in Afghanistan if all we’re going to do is set up another nearby?
“I think that’s a simplistic solution. You are essentially saying that if two peoples disagree, then, one side should completely kill the other. I don’t think that we live in that type of world. At least, I hope we don’t.”
ET,you make my point well…our western sensibilities will not allow us to even consider this as an alternative.We seek negotiations and peaceful resolutions,even when they have failed miserably for decades and have NOT even slowed the innocent lives lost.
Quite frankly,whether you think they should act in one way or another is,as a westerner,completely irrelevant.To deny their bloodsoaked past and the fact they are already at war and”hope”they can all just learn to get along is naive and,quite possibly,causing more loss of life in the long run…just something I suggest you try very hard to keep in mind.
BTW,I am not arrogant enough(not quite)to claim a solution to this,I am just trying to get others to consider the harsh realities of this ethnic war,as opposed to endless wishful thinking.
“…then an external coalition should move in. Since the UN is useless, make it the ever-present and able US, Australia, UK and even Canada…”
So, let me get this straight ET. You think that if Israel gave them the West Bank and Gaza, plus reparations, that the Palestinians would all of the sudden realize their need to modernize, abandon their fight against Israel, and ask for help from a Kaffir coalition?
If it was up to the Palestinians, how would you feel about a Saudi, Egypt, Libya and Syria coalition, instead?
There are at least 2 major societal differences between Israelis and Palestinians:
Israelis live in a true democracy. Palestinians don’t. They may have taken the first steps but their government is hell bent on war. We do not know if this government would ceded power in an election.
Israel does not institutionalize hatred of the other. The Palestinians do. (Regardless of ET’s equivalence preaching, this is a basic truth.)
A third point is that the greater culture to which the Palestinians defer, also suffer from the above defects, albeit to varying degrees.
I doubt this issue can be solved until there are big changes in the Muslim world as a whole.
canadian observer – your solution is akin to the ‘final solution’ of another regime. How do you propose to carry out this solution, and it IS a solution, even though you deny coming up with a solution. Their ‘blood-soaked’ past is due to their not having a country, not to any innate genetic disposition.
And, so far, from the other posts, all I can see is the usual ‘well, they don’t deserve anything; they are evil people’…’they will still commit acts of terrorism’…’islamofascists’…
Or, first, they have to show that they can ‘behave’ and ‘be peaceful’ or they won’t get anything.
That doesn’t solve the problem.
First, islamic fascism has NOTHING to do with the Israeli-Palestinian situation and it is, in my view, a serious error to merge the two. Islamic fascism is a result of the failure of a political system, tribalism, to mature into a civic political system, which it ought to do, because of its increased population. That has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
Second, the rhetoric of ‘evil people are bad and won’t change’ won’t solve the problem.
Third, the dictum of ‘first be quiet and behave or …’ won’t solve the problem.
So far, we’ve only had two suggestions for solutions.
Wipe them out completely in a Final War. Strangely, I don’t think it will work. You can’t wipe out a people, never mind the morality of such an agenda. You certainly can conquer them. I think that’s only viable for nations. I may be wrong but I don’t think it will work here.
And my suggestion – give them a state, made up of the West Bank and Gaza and financial compensation, and,as penny also suggests, introduce a coalition of ‘governors’ and peacekeepers to assist their change from a peasant to an industrial economy. Keep Israel out of it.
Is there any other option? Or is it to be an endless, endless, 1,000 years of back and forth hatred and kiling?
ET: “Is there any other option?”
Perhaps ‘we’ (and that includes the pro-Palestinian states) could leave it completely to the Israelis and Palestinians to settle. If that means total war and defeat for one or the other, so be it.
This mess gets way too much of our attention.
I’ve provided a third solution. Move ’em
(if the west has the money to waste on them now, we’ve got the money to move ’em)
Unless someome comes up with a method to break 4 million people out of the cult of death and death to Israel fixation, I would suggest it’s the only genuine solution.
(continually pounding on Israel also won’t solve the problem)
ET – A few points.
Right of return is a red herring. Approximately as many Jews left surrounding ME countries for Israel as Arbs left Israel for Jordan, etc. Note that Israel absorbed them while Jordan, Egypt, did not.
Also, there are many Arabs living in Israel that are Israeli citizens. If I remember correctly, about 1 million. Arabs that are citizens of Israel are treated as such. There are a number of Arab members of the Kenesset (sp?). Contrast that with how Jews are treated in some Arab countries.
I will also point out that prior to losing the 1967 war, there was easy access to Lake Tiberious. It seems to me that the failure for such things as lack of water and a failure to properly educate citizens for jobs in the modern world has little to do with Israel.
Also note that the only fresh water flowing into Lake Tiberious comes from the mountains the the north and much of it flowing from Syria. Israel and Syria have an ongoing dispute over Syria tapping that flow of water, with the Israelis fearing that the Syrians will cut off their fresh water supply.
“Israel has not, so far, enabled a Palestinian state, so your suggestion that it somehow has made such concession in the past puzzles me.”
Ah, but they did, ET. Not only did they offer up over 95 percent of the West bank as a starting point in negotiations, but the two-state solution has been accepted and proposed by Israel at various states in negotiations. Your suggestion that Israel needs to “enable” a Palestinian state is predicated on the false notion that such a state has been prevented by Israel. Sharon for one proposed such a solution, but, in the words of Eric Rozenman at New Republic, “The Palestinian leadership determined that its war of attrition was necessary not because Israel refused the two-state solution, but because it has insisted on it”.
According to Abu Toameh, an Arab journalist, “for over 50 years (the Palestinians) have been teaching their children ‘this is the key to your house in Jaffa. You will go home.’ How can you tell them now, ‘You can go to (the West Bank)?’ They don’t want that. Read the literature. Listen to the poems and the songs. Look at the documentaries on Palestinian TV and elsewhere…What do they talk about? The fig trees and olive trees in Jaffa and the Galilee.”
When you suggest that Israel “enable” a Palestinian state, do you mean the state the Palestinians want, or the state you suggest?
The Palestinian population base should develop their own agriculture – and high tech industry – and their own universities.
Fine. It will never happen. But, why the need for such total autonomy? It’s not sound economic advise, in the age of the global economy, for any country. If Israel, having achieved all of those coveted goals, is your neighbor wouldn’t it be smarter to board the train rather than spend the future futilely trying to derail it? Israel isn’t going to disappear. Even if their Islamic ally, Iran, tried to make Israel disappear, they’d all be killed too.
Is it better to eat your canned sardines under a 25 watt bulb in your mud hut, rage with Allah over your historic grievances and vote Hamas than surrender to the hard cold reality that history isn’t always of your liking?
ET wrote: 1) “There won’t be any solution within a rhetoric of hate, flinging of accusations, counter-claims of who is the most evil. All of that is useless.”
Also, 2) “As I said – rhetoric about who is evil, who is good, who deserves whatever punishment – is useless. It doesn’t answer that question. And the question has to be answered.”
Then, 3) “I don’t see any solution to the problem other than for Israel to acknowledge that Palestine should be a state; that means the West Bank in particular.”
I’m not an expert on the ME and I usually find ET to be rational.
However, here, I know a thing or two and I also detect a disturbing blind spot.
The moral equivalency ET posits between Israel and Palestine is totally unacceptable. Unlike Palestine’s aims for Israel, Israel’s aim is not to “drive Palestine into the sea”, but simply the right to pursue the aims of SECURITY, on which rest order and good government, for its citizens. As ET has rightly pointed out many times, when one has an implacable, tribalist, primitive enemy like the Palestinians, military defence is a necessity.
So, to the unequivocal question asked by ET, “who is evil, who is good”? The answer for me is not difficult: Evil? The actions of the Palestinians, who desire the outright destruction of Israel, whose terrorists, in non combat garb, both hide in their own civilian population and target innocent, unarmed Israeli civilians. Good? The actions of the Iraelis, who have the only established, functioning democracy in the ME, who have reclaimed a physically hostile land and made it fruitful, who bestow on all citizens, including the many Muslims in their midst, freedom of religion and all other rights of citizenship. (The Palestinians, in their own state, have few rights–or corresponding accomplishments–of any kind. What rights does ET think an Israeli–or any other non Muslim–might have in Palestine?)
Re the “War Against Terrorism” and the West, why does ET rightly stress over and over again the tribalist nature of the enemy and the uselessness of negotiation, while holding Israel to an entirely different standard? This double standard is even more indefensible–aren’t they all?–when one considers that, unlike us, Israel is right next door to the enemy and altogether vulnerable to attack.
ET states that Israel should “acknowledge that Palestine should be a state”: Now that’s rich. First of all, Israel ceded land to the Palestinians: If they wished to become a state, Israel certainly didn’t stand in their way. However, that the Palestinians chose to elect as their government Hamas, a terrorist organization, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, has, quite understandably, caused some difficulty for Israel re recognizing the Palestinian state. (It’s also caused some difficulty for many Western nations, including Canada, which, under the estimable leadership of PMSH, was the first to halt funds to the new Palestinian state because of the Hamas government, which the Conservative government of Canada has rightly identified as a terrorist organization. I wonder what part of this picture ET doesn’t get.)
So, ET doesn’t see any solution other than Israel making more concessions? I couldn’t disagree more. Doesn’t the onus rest with the Palestinians themselves?
And, as far as the rest of us are concerned, how about the Palestinians not being allowed to get away with being terrorists and toddlers? In every other situation, ET seems to ask the same question–and NOT defend the right of political Muslims to bully the rest of us.
Re Israel, this double standard is most distressing.
in my one international poli sci course (lets not get into THAT again!!!) I opined that the sol’n to mideast peace isnt religious or political or military or cultural. its economic. give the palestinians a piece of the action, give them something of value, something cherishable that can be developed and handed down to the next generation. something of clear tangible value that provides livlihood and promise. THEN they will act in ways to maintain that foothold on the future. schools turning out doctors, engineers, lawyers and economics professionals etc etc.
diversification of their economic base and increased training etc etc, all the earmarks of a developed economic infrastructure. world class banking system etc etc.
sadly, I have abandoned that idea as well. it was based on the rationale of enlightened self interest but the palestinians sole interest is itching for a fight with Israel. at every opportunity.
what is left?
I dont know. I really dont know. I am on the verge of fully accepting that THERE IS NEVER GOING TO BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. its all rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. pretty hard to swallow but thats what its starting to look like to me.
greenmamba,
I think there’s a third difference. Israelis are, afterall, jews – On the other hand, ‘Palestinian’ is a geographical designation not a racial type. For example: the UN resolution 194 in 1948 did not call them Palestinian refugees – which would relate to identity – they were called Palestine refugees – relating to geography.
In fact, their political and academic behavior has been to create a Palestinian/Arab identity that never existed, including the co-oping of Jesus, as the first ‘Palestinian.’
“We must not forget that Jesus (Messiah), may peace be upon him, is Palestinian, the son of Mary, the Palestinian…”
(Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov 18, 2005)
“Our struggle today against the other side is an eternal one. It can be said that it started 2000 years ago and continues until today. I demonstrate this through the figure of Jesus…”
(PA TV, July 21, 2000)
How do you deal with revisionist lies that have culminated in racial/cultural beliefs? These people think they have a right to all the land, as their birthright.
I don’t believe they can be dealt with in any logical and peaceful negotiation of settlement. That would require rational/logical people, on both sides.
to gunney99:
reagan pegged the russians for what they were. liars thru and thru. even when you reach ‘agreements’ they have planted loopholes enough to drive a 4 engine freight train thru.
when that fails they simply ignore the ‘agreements’. reagan knew this from watching at a distance for decades.
then he found himself in the white house at that pivitol moment thing, *nows my chance to do them in*.
no negotiating, no compromising, no concessions, push push push. call their bluffs, no more loans, technology exchanges, etc etc.
and the coup de gras: star wars. just the idea of such a system broke the soviet delusion.
say what you will about ronald reagan and deregulatiuon and reaganomics but the man takes full credit for doing it to communism.
watch ‘in the face of evil’ for all the details.
“Where were the Arab countries, were they watching?” Complain, complain. …-
The body of Ruan Hajaj was draped in an Islamic Jihad flag. One faction member told the mourners through a loudspeaker:
“Here is the martyr,
here is the child,
here is the mother of martyrs.
Where were the Arab countries,
were they watching?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1663287/posts
“Is there any other option? Or is it to be an endless, endless, 1,000 years of back and forth hatred and kiling?”
ET,once again you argue some semantics but end your post with a statement that concedes my point,they are probably condemned to repeating their violent history.
Again,the question from myself and others is;
When diplomacy and negotiation have failed,what are the alternatives?
I again submit,wishful thinking will not create peace,that most likely will only happen when one side is defeated or relocated.That is sad,but that is reality.You seem intent on claiming some type of moral high ground on this conflict,where none exists.
penny – I’m not sure of your points about the cold mud hut. I agree that our global economy is networked. My point was only that the Palestinian economy shouldn’t be a subset of the Israeli, or any other, economy. It should be linked but not sublevel linked, if you get my meaning.
robert in calgary – move them where? I pointed out that 200, 300 years ago, people were indeed moved – to Australia, Canada, USA, S. America. But now??? It can’t happen.
lookout- you are just back into the rhetoric of who is good and who is bad. That’s useless, in my view, for what is the point? What ultimate good will it do to come to any conclusion on this? Will such a conclusion enable a solution?? No. That’s why I say that such endless rhetoric is useless.
I didn’t ask any ‘unequivocal question of who is bad or good’. I’m saying that asking such questions is useless.
Lookout – in order for Palestine to be a state, Israel has to recognize them as a state. So far, it has refused. Ceded land? Which land?
And they elected Hamas, not for its terrorist actions, but for its social services, which were far more in evidence than Fatah’s corruption.
irwin daisy – the British referred to the area as Palestine and to the people resident there as Palestinians. So what’s your point? At one time, there wasn’t a ‘Canada’. Are you therefore saying that we shouldn’t live here and be called Canadians? A name is irrelevant.
And so far – what is primarily happening, is that people are ‘doing the usual’. Blaming one side, blaming the other side, pointing out that one people are good, the other are bad, that one are capable of reason, that the other are not capable of reason. On and on and on. My point is that such rhetoric is utterly useless. It solves nothing.
Again – the reality is basic. And that is all that one should consider. Basic reality. Not the qualitative additions. The basic reality is a population of about 1.5 million in Gaza and 2.4 million in the West Bank. With nowhere to go. No nation will take them. I’m sure that in 1948, when the population was about 500,000, Israel expected them to be absorbed by Jordan/Egypt. It didn’t happen. Now what happens?
Of course, after a generation of being occupied, of being without a state, of being without citizenship, without the capacity to develop an economy, to move out of peasant farming, without control of water resources, land, road, exports, etc, etc…you have a people whose only mode of existence is emotional. What is there to reason about?
So- what’s the answer? And no, Can.Obs. I’m not intent on claiming any moral high ground. I’m pretending I’m from Mars – and observing a situation on Earth – and asking ‘What should be done’. I’m not involved except as an objective observer.
1) Move them. Impossible. No-one will take 4 million people.
2) Can. Obs. Kill them all. Equally impossible.
3) Military defeat. Sounds great, but, it is really also untenable. Why? Because Israel won’t accept them within its territory because their numbers would negate the Jewish majority. So, Israel can’t defeat them in war and claim their territory…because..they are still there.
In Europe, one country could defeat another nation and incorporate that defeated land within its nation..and incorporate those people who would have to swear allegiance to the new state. Same in N. America…parts of the US came from Mexico and the people there became Americans.
But, the problem with doing the same in Israel and Palestine is that Israel doesn’t want these people as citizens!!! So, it can’t defeat them militarily (though obviously it could, in practice)…because it doesn’t want them as citizens!
4) The only solution I can think of – and I’m not taking sides – I’m pretending I’m from another planet – is to assign the West Bank and Gaza to them – as their state. Not a municipal style governance. National governance. But, for at least 10 years, under an international governance that assists them in the dev’t of local industries and massive education. Israel has to stay out of this.
I can’t think of any other solution.
Again – the rhetoric of some, as to who is good and who is bad, and etc – is useless. It can go on until our earth disappears. It won’t solve the situation.
The Pals don’t want a state. They want control over land that was formerly controlled by Muslims. They want to kill some Jews and put the rest into dhimmitude.
ET….what is the point of all your writing if there is no solution?
I reject your “it can’t happen” response.
People can say I’m being outlandish, but really, does anyone have a better idea?
The western democracies have spent how many -Billions- on the Palestinians over how many years? And to what result?
Gaza is 360 sq. km with 29% being listed as arable land.
West Bank is 5,860 sq. km with 16% listed as arable.
I’ve suggested the rich western democracies buy a portion of the Western Sahaha 266,000 sq. km and a population of 273,000.
In other words, lots of land, few people.
1/3 of the Western Sahara would be slightly smaller in size than Jordan.
Rich fishing but almost no arable land. Not a lot of water. It would be a challenge. The Palestinians could use a POSITIVE challenge instead of their culture of death.
Frankly, it’s 4 million I’m talking about moving not 40.
(water desalination and smart agriculture/horticulture would be critical)
Anybody ever wonder if the withdrawl of Israeli settlers from the ‘Palestinian’ territories is a tactic that will allow for future massive strikes by Israel? What better way to save your own people from destruction while setting up Gaza and the West Bank with very large bulls-eyes?
Once all (or almost all) Jews are out of these areas, any aggressive taunt by the Palestinians could be greeted with a very deadly response. Virtual complete annihilation if so desired.
That would at least answer ET’s question of “where would they go?”.
ET, sure, create a Palestinian state. That won’t stop the rockets and suicide bombings though, will it? And why not? Exactly the point of the article. There are enough Palestinians with access to guns, bombs and rockets that are willing to martyr themselves in the cause of destroying the state of Israel that peace in the region will continue to shimmer in the unreachable future like a mirage.
Sadly, I believe the Palestinians are being used by the likes of the Saudis, Iran, Syria etc. Helps keep attention focused off the despotic regimes.
A few explorations of how easy/difficult it is for Palestinians (and Pakistanis etc) to get an exit visa from Saudi Arabia once they’ve gone there for work should illuminate my point.
You could file this pst under ” No Shit Sherlock ”
OMMAG