- Reaction score
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- Points
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Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is what I believe is a (roughly) fair and balanced, Western (as in Western culture), opinion about the Israel/Palestine mess:
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090108.wcogee09/BNStory/specialComment/home
A setback for Israel, a calamity for the Palestinians
MARCUS GEE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
January 9, 2009 at 12:00 AM EST
It is often said of the Palestinians that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The events in Gaza are a tragic vindication of that aphorism.
In 2005, after much agonizing, Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, dismantling its military bases, pulling out its soldiers and evicting all Israeli settlers after 38 years of occupation. It was a historic moment in more ways than one.
Israel was surrendering land captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, and it was doing so without any prior peace accord such as the land-for-peace deal with Egypt over the surrender of the Sinai Peninsula.
The pullout signalled a sea change in Israeli attitudes. After decades of conflict with their immediate neighbours, the Palestinians, Israelis were eager for an end to it all. Even the hardest of hard-liners, Ariel Sharon, had come around to the view that it was time to extricate Israel from the quagmire in the occupied territories, pull back to defensible borders and leave the Palestinians to fend for themselves, even if that meant the emergence of a Palestinian state that the Israeli right had resisted for so long.
The opportunity for the Palestinians was clear. If their leaders could maintain a minimum of order in Gaza and prevent it from becoming a base for attacks on the Jewish state, Israel would gain the confidence to take the next step: withdrawal from the West Bank, home to the majority of Palestinians. As Mr. Sharon said at the time, "it is the Palestinians' turn." Gaza was to be the proving ground for the future Palestinian state. The withdrawal was a trial of their willingness and ability to become responsible neighbours.
They have failed with flying colours. Rockets from Gaza have been raining on Israel from the start. Almost as soon as the Israelis pulled out, Palestinian clans and political factions fell to fighting among themselves. A civil war broke out pitting Fatah, the traditional leadership group, against the more militant Hamas. After winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hamas seized control of Gaza in June of 2007.
This was what Israeli rightists and settlers had warned would happen: Handed over to the Palestinians, a pistol-shaped Gaza would become a deadly weapon pointed straight at the heart of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu stalked out of the cabinet over the Gaza pullout, predicting that it would become a "huge base for terror." And so it has become. In 2005, not even the most wild-eyed zealot could have penned a scenario for Gaza as grim as what has actually taken place.
As much as that is a setback for Israel, it is a calamity for the Palestinians. If their leaders had behaved with more wisdom, they could have had their state by now, in both the West Bank and Gaza. When Israel pulled out three years ago, international donors and Palestinian exiles were queuing up to finance new roads, ports and factories. There was talk of railway lines, a rebuilt international airport and a thriving agriculture industry. Instead, Gaza remains what it's been for years: a miserable ghetto, producing nothing but extremism and hopelessness.
Much as Israelis (still) want the conflict to be over, they have lost whatever small confidence they had that the Palestinians might be tolerable neighbours. The idea of pulling out of the West Bank, only to see it become another, bigger base for terror, now seems unthinkable. Mr. Netanyahu, head of the Likud party, could return to office in next month's election on a tough program.
Israel began its current operation against militants in Gaza not with any relish, but out of despair at Palestinian failure. It knew full well that such an assault would cause angry protests in the Arab world, harsh words at the United Nations and civilian casualties that would make it look brutish in the eyes of the world. What's worse, it knew it might take all this abuse without, in the end, achieving its main goal of stopping rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. But the transformation of Gaza into a militant launching pad left it no choice but to react firmly, or face losing power to deter attacks against the Israeli homeland.
With separate Palestinian factions in charge in the West Bank and Gaza, one weak, the other shot through with hate, what is the alternative? The idea of talks leading to a Palestinian state living in peace beside Israel now seems as far fetched as at any time in years.
There is one remaining hope: that Palestinians see the disaster their leaders have wrought in Gaza and choose another course. That seems unlikely now that they are under attack, and the natural reaction is to rally around the green flag of Hamas. But maybe, just maybe, after the current violence is over, they will think again. The only way for Palestinians to get a state is to build one. The place to start is Gaza.
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It appears to me that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular have painted themselves into a corner. They have branded the establishment of Israel as a disaster for the Arabs and the Muslims. It, and the results of the subsequent 1948 war, was, certainly, a disaster for Palestinians – many, many millions of whom still exist (live would be too strong a word) in poverty and despair and in filthy hovels in dilapidated refugee camps in rich, prosperous Arab countries – hostages to a giant but cruel public relations exercise. These Palestinians are ‘educated’ with a deep and abiding hatred for Israel (and Jews) because they ‘stole’ their homes and drove them from their gardens into these dark, dirty hell-holes.
(No one ever suggests that these hell-holes could be, at very modest costs, made into safe, clean, modern communities with good schools, hospitals, shops and gardens. To do so would be to deny the ‘catastrophe’ and to do so would lessen the ‘price’ that Palestinians, generation after generation, must pay for Zionist aggression.)
The plight of the Palestinians serves to harden the resolve of all Arabs, indeed of all Muslims and of good people everywhere. We all say: “The Palestinians need and deserve a safe home of their own.” That’s what we all said, circa 1945/48, about the displaced Jews of Europe.
There are imaginative proposals to expand Gaza and create Egyptian controlled corridors to connect the West Bank and Gaza and, thereby, create (a) coherent Palestinian state(s). But I’m afraid a short ‘corridor’ connecting Gaza to Hebron in the West Bank through populated Israel North of Beersheba is a non-starter for another couple of generations. These can come to nothing so long as the Arabs put revenge ahead of development – as it must appear to most reasonable people that they do.
The fate of the Palestinians has, over the decades, taken second place to a bigger struggle to cleanse the ummah and, more, the ‘holy places’ of the ‘stain’ of the Zionists. Thus, driving the Jews into the sea has replaced any desire to seek accommodation of the Palestinians’ legitimate grievances as the cause célèbre for most Arabs.
The Israelis, understandably, don’t want to be driven into the sea – even though, as a culturally Western ‘people’ they remain strangers in a strange land.
Despite its great military strength, I have no doubt that eventually the Arabs must win; but I am 99% certain it will, truly, be a pyrrhic victory. The Arabs will be decimated, the region will be a wasteland for centuries, Islam will be shattered, despised around the world as a religion of murder and calamity. In places like peaceful Canada mosques will be shuttered and people will abandon any thoughts of Palestinian rights; Canadian Muslims will abandon their faith, become apostates, shocked and appalled at the actions and outcomes in the Middle East – but it will all be worth it, I guess.
The Jews will disperse again – to Australia, Brazil and Canada and, and, and … and all those countries will be the richer for it.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090108.wcogee09/BNStory/specialComment/home
A setback for Israel, a calamity for the Palestinians
MARCUS GEE
From Friday's Globe and Mail
January 9, 2009 at 12:00 AM EST
It is often said of the Palestinians that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The events in Gaza are a tragic vindication of that aphorism.
In 2005, after much agonizing, Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip, dismantling its military bases, pulling out its soldiers and evicting all Israeli settlers after 38 years of occupation. It was a historic moment in more ways than one.
Israel was surrendering land captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, and it was doing so without any prior peace accord such as the land-for-peace deal with Egypt over the surrender of the Sinai Peninsula.
The pullout signalled a sea change in Israeli attitudes. After decades of conflict with their immediate neighbours, the Palestinians, Israelis were eager for an end to it all. Even the hardest of hard-liners, Ariel Sharon, had come around to the view that it was time to extricate Israel from the quagmire in the occupied territories, pull back to defensible borders and leave the Palestinians to fend for themselves, even if that meant the emergence of a Palestinian state that the Israeli right had resisted for so long.
The opportunity for the Palestinians was clear. If their leaders could maintain a minimum of order in Gaza and prevent it from becoming a base for attacks on the Jewish state, Israel would gain the confidence to take the next step: withdrawal from the West Bank, home to the majority of Palestinians. As Mr. Sharon said at the time, "it is the Palestinians' turn." Gaza was to be the proving ground for the future Palestinian state. The withdrawal was a trial of their willingness and ability to become responsible neighbours.
They have failed with flying colours. Rockets from Gaza have been raining on Israel from the start. Almost as soon as the Israelis pulled out, Palestinian clans and political factions fell to fighting among themselves. A civil war broke out pitting Fatah, the traditional leadership group, against the more militant Hamas. After winning Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, Hamas seized control of Gaza in June of 2007.
This was what Israeli rightists and settlers had warned would happen: Handed over to the Palestinians, a pistol-shaped Gaza would become a deadly weapon pointed straight at the heart of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu stalked out of the cabinet over the Gaza pullout, predicting that it would become a "huge base for terror." And so it has become. In 2005, not even the most wild-eyed zealot could have penned a scenario for Gaza as grim as what has actually taken place.
As much as that is a setback for Israel, it is a calamity for the Palestinians. If their leaders had behaved with more wisdom, they could have had their state by now, in both the West Bank and Gaza. When Israel pulled out three years ago, international donors and Palestinian exiles were queuing up to finance new roads, ports and factories. There was talk of railway lines, a rebuilt international airport and a thriving agriculture industry. Instead, Gaza remains what it's been for years: a miserable ghetto, producing nothing but extremism and hopelessness.
Much as Israelis (still) want the conflict to be over, they have lost whatever small confidence they had that the Palestinians might be tolerable neighbours. The idea of pulling out of the West Bank, only to see it become another, bigger base for terror, now seems unthinkable. Mr. Netanyahu, head of the Likud party, could return to office in next month's election on a tough program.
Israel began its current operation against militants in Gaza not with any relish, but out of despair at Palestinian failure. It knew full well that such an assault would cause angry protests in the Arab world, harsh words at the United Nations and civilian casualties that would make it look brutish in the eyes of the world. What's worse, it knew it might take all this abuse without, in the end, achieving its main goal of stopping rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. But the transformation of Gaza into a militant launching pad left it no choice but to react firmly, or face losing power to deter attacks against the Israeli homeland.
With separate Palestinian factions in charge in the West Bank and Gaza, one weak, the other shot through with hate, what is the alternative? The idea of talks leading to a Palestinian state living in peace beside Israel now seems as far fetched as at any time in years.
There is one remaining hope: that Palestinians see the disaster their leaders have wrought in Gaza and choose another course. That seems unlikely now that they are under attack, and the natural reaction is to rally around the green flag of Hamas. But maybe, just maybe, after the current violence is over, they will think again. The only way for Palestinians to get a state is to build one. The place to start is Gaza.
--------------------
It appears to me that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular have painted themselves into a corner. They have branded the establishment of Israel as a disaster for the Arabs and the Muslims. It, and the results of the subsequent 1948 war, was, certainly, a disaster for Palestinians – many, many millions of whom still exist (live would be too strong a word) in poverty and despair and in filthy hovels in dilapidated refugee camps in rich, prosperous Arab countries – hostages to a giant but cruel public relations exercise. These Palestinians are ‘educated’ with a deep and abiding hatred for Israel (and Jews) because they ‘stole’ their homes and drove them from their gardens into these dark, dirty hell-holes.
(No one ever suggests that these hell-holes could be, at very modest costs, made into safe, clean, modern communities with good schools, hospitals, shops and gardens. To do so would be to deny the ‘catastrophe’ and to do so would lessen the ‘price’ that Palestinians, generation after generation, must pay for Zionist aggression.)
The plight of the Palestinians serves to harden the resolve of all Arabs, indeed of all Muslims and of good people everywhere. We all say: “The Palestinians need and deserve a safe home of their own.” That’s what we all said, circa 1945/48, about the displaced Jews of Europe.
There are imaginative proposals to expand Gaza and create Egyptian controlled corridors to connect the West Bank and Gaza and, thereby, create (a) coherent Palestinian state(s). But I’m afraid a short ‘corridor’ connecting Gaza to Hebron in the West Bank through populated Israel North of Beersheba is a non-starter for another couple of generations. These can come to nothing so long as the Arabs put revenge ahead of development – as it must appear to most reasonable people that they do.
The fate of the Palestinians has, over the decades, taken second place to a bigger struggle to cleanse the ummah and, more, the ‘holy places’ of the ‘stain’ of the Zionists. Thus, driving the Jews into the sea has replaced any desire to seek accommodation of the Palestinians’ legitimate grievances as the cause célèbre for most Arabs.
The Israelis, understandably, don’t want to be driven into the sea – even though, as a culturally Western ‘people’ they remain strangers in a strange land.
Despite its great military strength, I have no doubt that eventually the Arabs must win; but I am 99% certain it will, truly, be a pyrrhic victory. The Arabs will be decimated, the region will be a wasteland for centuries, Islam will be shattered, despised around the world as a religion of murder and calamity. In places like peaceful Canada mosques will be shuttered and people will abandon any thoughts of Palestinian rights; Canadian Muslims will abandon their faith, become apostates, shocked and appalled at the actions and outcomes in the Middle East – but it will all be worth it, I guess.
The Jews will disperse again – to Australia, Brazil and Canada and, and, and … and all those countries will be the richer for it.
) santioning or encouraging children (especially their own) to carry out targetted bombings of women and children. Eerliy enough, when was the last time some leader from Hamas (who do encourage these "targetted" - that being an operative word here - murders of women and kids) blew himself up vice the poor kids & young adults they recruit only for such suicide missions?
