>Judging the conflict sofar, I'd say it is a situation where because >of the lack >of a regular well established and well armed force backed up by the >international community, (wich would make it possible to establish an armed >'peace') Palestinians reverted to guerilla warefare a long time ago. They seem >to adhere to the motto that if you cannot win right away or at least force a >stand off by using a strike force, stick to demoralizing the enemy. After all >it did work for the Vietnamese and other guerillas as well.... > >I wonder what Israelis expected during all these years of conflict. Maybe they >naively expected Palestinians to simply roll over and die? I guess that it >didn't work out that way. > >The whole conflict actually reminds me of this metaphor: If you drive a wild >cat into a corner, in order to escape and regain it's freedom it'll bite and >scratch you any way it can. And call me 'apologist for the Palestinians' or >not. I can actually sympathise with that point of view. > >Sonja
Why can't you sympathize with the point of view that what the Israelis naively expected of the Palestinians was that they would abide by the terms of the Oslo Agreement--that the PA abandon terror as a tactic, that Israel in return allow the PA to start building up its governmental infrastructure and authority, that everyone be nice and build confidence in each other's good intentions, and that people then *negotiate* over exactly where the border is going to be, and exactly what the security arrangements for Israel will be? The whole purpose of the Oslo Agreement, after all was that both parties pledged "... an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, [to] recognize their mutual legitimate and political rights, and strive to live in peaceful coexistence and mutual dignity and security to achieve a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement and historic reconciliation through the agreed political process..." The "agreed political process" does not include having the head of the Palestinian Authority personally finance suicide bombers, does it? It seems to me that anyone who writes about the Israeli-Palestinian screw up without acknowledging that is indeed an "apologist." And it seems to me that anyone who writes of the dispossession of Palestinians exiled from Jaffa needs to also write of the dispossession of the Sephardim--more than half the population of Israel--who are no longer welcome in their ancestral homes in the old Jewish quarters of Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, et cetera, and who were fortunate enough to be able to emigrate to Israel before they suffered the fate of, say, the Jews of the Low Countries during World War II at the hands of the Nazis and those Belgians and Netherlanders who collaborated with them. Remember that only 30% of Dutch Jews survived World War II--a lower proportion than in any other country in Europe save Germany itself and Poland. And anyone who writes about the Israeli-Palestinian screw up without acknowledging that the current Prime Minister of Israel hopes that someday, somehow, the Palestinian population will simply vanish and there will be only Israel from the river to the sea is an "apologist" of a different sort. We are drifting toward a regional war using weapons of mass destruction that will leave between three and thirty million dead. Apologists--either for Sharon's policy of creeping annexation of the West Bank, or for Arafat's policy of fitting adolescent girls with dynamite belts--who use language implying that these policies are justifiable and necessary elements of some "freedom struggle" are profoundly unhelpful. Metaphors that carry the message that we should think of the blowing of human beings at a passover seder into tiny bits the same way we think of the small scratches inflicted by a cat that fears being eaten by you are also profoundly unhelpful. Brad DeLong
