At 16:03 10-06-2002 -0500, John Horn wrote: >I don't know if it is safe to bring up this subject or not but I'm going to >try anyway...
Should be fairly safe, with me being away for the next two weeks... <grin> >In the news, the various Arab states are pushing the United States to push >Israel to set a deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel is >a bit reluctant to do that, to say the least. At least, until the >Palestinian authority can show they can stop the suicide bombing and other >attacks on Israeli civilians. To me this is fairly reasonable. But here's >my suggestion, the rest of you can tell me where I'm wrong and/or crazy: > >Set a date for the creation of a Palestinian state: say, 2 years from >tomorrow. For every suicide bombing or attack upon Israeli civilians, the >date is pushed back by 6 months. For every civilian killed, the date is >pushed back 1 year. > >Obviously, this gives organizations like Hamas an incentive to step up their >attacks. But they have plenty of incentive anyway. But if there are people >within the Palestinian leadership who *really* want peace with Israel and >*really* want a Palestinian state that doesn't include all of Israel, it >would give them great incentive to put an immediate stop to the attacks. > >So, what do you think? Very bad idea. It would mean that as long as there are Palestinians willing to blow themselves up and take a few Israelis with them, there will never be a Palestinian state. At the rate Hamas has been going lately, the deadline will be a few centuries from now quite soon. It will not work, not even when everyone in the Palestinian leadership would want peace and a state that does not include all of Israel. It is by definition impossible to control everyone in a population to such an extent that you can guarantee none of them will ever kill anyone else. The Israeli regime might like the idea, though... :-( Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
