My memory might be wrong but the Jewish and Arab populations in Israel and the territories are of comparable magnitude with the Jewish population being somewhat larger.
The Zionists currently enjoy a kill ratio of better than six to one. Deaths are numbers in scores for Israel, hundreds for Palestinians, and thousands for the US. In statistical or epidimiological terms all the losses are non-trival but *very* low on the list of causes of death. The *insult* to national pride and the sense of security is where the rational scholar looks not at the epidemiological cost. Russia in WWII or France in WWI ... now *those* were epidemiologial disasters. Look, I choose to discount the Zionist claim to some sort of incontrivertable, inalienable deed to a patch of dirt in Eurasia as so much myth and absurdly ancient history. The Zionists had and have a program that required colonizing territory at the expense of a relatively strong and sophisticated indigenous Arab people. These sorts of colonial projects have been very successful when the colonizers resorted to genocide, ethnic cleansing, ethnocide by forced assimilation, or ethnic apartheid. Israel has a few choices. First cut the territories lose. A treaty is nice but not necessary. This will actually *increase* insecurity in Israel. However, Israel will be able to characterize the acts as illegal inter-state agression. Currently terrorism by the Palestinians is **legitimate** because it is an act of war in a campaign of national liberation against an infinitely stronger colonial and imperial force of occupation. Let me repeat that: ANY action by Palestinians is justified because they are legitimately in a war of national liberation against absurd odds. Second, Israel could find an excuse to massacre *HUGE* numbers of Palestinians. Repeated, this could be a viable method of genocide given the current geo-political disposition. Third Israel could expel large numbers of Palestinians. This would be best under cover of some international crisis. "Unfortunately" the Palestinian community has learned from history and Israel will probably find it very difficult to get the indigenous population to abandon their domiciles. However, under *obscenely* heavy shelling they might have little choice..... This is the ethnic cleansing option. Forced assimilation is probably not a viable option. Not least because of Jewish squeemishness and scruples on this point. A major problem with forced assimilation is that it has unpredictable effects on the occupier and not just the occupied. Apartheid comes in several versions and was the status quo prior to Oslo. The Palestinians never did meekly accept their low caste status. The consistent refusal of the Palestinian population to be duped into managing their own occupation means that the Israeli occupiers will need to always repress the indigenous population. Repression is *never* eternal. Therefore, variations on apartheid simply are not viable over the long term. However, they seem to always be very attractive in the short term for Israel and the Zionist project. On Monday 03 December 2001 22:52, you wrote: > Dan M. wrote > <snip> > <<There is no parallel between the United States and AQ.>> > But of course. Count percents. *We* have more dead. > Ilana from Israel ---------------------------------------- Content-Type: text/html; name="Attachment: 1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Description: ----------------------------------------
