-Caveat Lector-
What a fool!!!
This idiot is proposing a solution which is THE CAUSE OF
THE CURRENT PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE...
WHO SHOULD DECIDE?
Almost everybody from outside the region
who pays close attention for any period of
time comes away with a deep sense of
sadness about the Middle East. To see so
many people with so much potential locked in
resentment, hatred and struggle induces
frustration. Why can't they get beyond these
animosities and develop, for starters, a
free-trade region -- which wouldn�t
necessarily require people to like one another,
merely be willing to make money from them
� from which everybody would benefit?
This " peace plan " was started to create a free trade region in
the Mid-East. This is precisely why it failed. It never satisfied
the real issues.
There ARE people who don't think that money is the most important
thing in the world. Stupid capitalist moron. Libertarians are total
idiots.
Joshua2
==================
October 4, 2000
Sad Triumph of Reality
Nobody wants to acknowledge the
possibility that the current violence in
Jerusalem is not so much an anomaly as
something like the release of pent-up
hostilities on both sides that have been
papered over � that there are simply too
many unresolved hostilities between
Palestinians and Israelis to make talks of a
"peace process" anything other than
something of a sad delusion. Yet the
possibility, however unpleasant, should be
considered. A peace process based on wishful
thinking is hardly likely to yield a peace that
will last beyond the next provocation, real or
imagined.
The desire for peace, even when flavored by
something less noble, like a desire for a
legacy, is generally commendable. But while I
bow to few in my insistence that violence and
hostility are no solution to almost any given
problem, it also seems to be the case that a
peaceful solution to a given problem, like a
fine wine, cannot be rushed. To most of us
who have paid attention from time the
Israeli-Palestinian situation is particularly
frustrating.
On any number of issues, almost anybody can
see from the outside that insistence on a
particular negotiating position by one side or
the other is a non-starter. And you just know
that, for example, in the old days when Israeli
governments refused to negotiate with Yassar
Arafat and his minions because the Palestine
Liberation Organization was viewed as a
"terrorist organization," the stance was taken
in part from at least a semiconscious
resolution not to go too far down the
negotiating path because most Israelis simply
weren�t ready yet.
To see the leaders of the two sides dutifully
trekking to Paris to visit with the Ambassador
Extraordinaire of the imperial power in
Washington is particularly disturbing and
most unlikely to hasten the day when
differences in the area are resolved or at least
put to one side for a while.
LOCKED IN HOSTILITY
Over the years the two sides locked in
hostile embrace came to know one another�s
buttons well enough that they could push
them at will while maintaining to the U.S. and
other well-meaning busybodies that they
were trying � really, really trying � to find a
basis for a just and lasting peaceful
settlement. I still believe that the potential of
the people of the Middle East is so great that
peace will ensue eventually as the
multifarious costs of war and hatred make
themselves more apparent. But conversations
with partisans of both sides have made me
believe that the time is not this year and
probably not next year or the year after.
I would love to be wrong about this. But
events of the last week suggest that those
who thought peace was at hand, needing only
the right combination of nudges and promises
to come to fruition, preferably before January
when Bill Clinton leaves office, were less
realistic.
It is possible, of course, that the current
violence will prove so shocking to people in
Israel and in the area controlled by the
Palestinian Authority, so horrific a reminder of
what the alternative to peace entails, that
they will redouble the peace efforts and find a
way to get to an agreement. Death and
violence are often part of the process of
inducing enough war-weariness to begin the
search for peace in earnest.
WHO SHOULD DECIDE?
Almost everybody from outside the region
who pays close attention for any period of
time comes away with a deep sense of
sadness about the Middle East. To see so
many people with so much potential locked in
resentment, hatred and struggle induces
frustration. Why can�t they get beyond these
animosities and develop, for starters, a
free-trade region -- which wouldn�t
necessarily require people to like one another,
merely be willing to make money from them
� from which everybody would benefit?
The recent violence suggests that both
Israelis and Palestinians have become tired of
posturing for the "international community"
that floating craps game of professional
diplomats and meddlers and (sadly) are
taking out resentments on one another.
Unfortunately for those who look from
outside, the animosities seem real enough �
and while political leaders, especially Arafat in
my view, no doubt stir them up from time to
time, they wouldn�t be able to do so if there
weren�t some genuine resentments there.
It might even be the case � although
cause-and-effect are difficult to sort out �
that recent pushes from the vaunted
international community are as much to
blame for the recent violence as any other
factor. President Clinton and various European
leaders pushed Israeli prime minister Ehud
Barak beyond where public opinion was
willing to go (across a rather wide ideological
spectrum) on the matter of the final
disposition of Jerusalem and may have
created an opening for the more conservative
Likud Party. And it might just be that some of
the violence was a way of letting various
leaders, foreign and domestic, know that
resolution will not be as easy as making nice
in conferences and taking money from Uncle
Sam.
It�s no surprise, then, that most international
commentators want to pin the blame on Ariel
Sharon�s visit to Temple Mount, or Al Haram
As-Sharif, last week. But while Sharon no
doubt knew his visit might be provocative,
the animosities go deeper and have not been
helped by outside pushing to get an
evanescent "peace process" moving on a
Western timetable rather than in response to
facts on the ground.
It might be too late now to try a different
approach, but it�s certainly not beyond
imagining to wonder whether benign neglect
might have brought resolution in the Middle
East more quickly than lectures and promises
and prodding from Western � mostly US �
diplomats and leaders in search of a legacy,
from Kissinger through Madame Albright.
What if the US had said to both sides,
perhaps 20 or even five years ago something
like this?
Listen, it�s your problem and you�re the ones
who are going to have to resolve it or live
with the consequences. We�re cutting off aid
to both sides, and promise not to interfere or
to try to impose our own preferences. If
you�re getting very close and need a neutral
place to meet or a neutral ear to listen to both
sides and offer constructive advice as to how
to get over the last couple of hurdles, fine.
We�ll be around. But we�re not interested in
anything more intrusive than tying up the last
few loose ends on a deal both sides have
indicated through consensus, public opinion
or whatever guides your politics that they�re
ready for.
Is it possible that the situation would have
resolved into at least a livable truce more
quickly?
THE CLASH OF SYMBOLS
Given the likelihood that a better
agreement is more likely to flow from the
bottom up rather than being imposed from
the top down or from an outside power, then,
the decision of Mr. Barak and Mr. Arafat to fly
to Paris for a little negotiating fling with US
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is
hardly encouraging. It sends the message to
all sides that they should look to Big Brother
� or is that Little Sister?
for succor in their time of tragedy. It
reinforces many of the most
destructive impulses in the region �
to blame others for every ill, to
expect outside help whenever the
going gets tough, to look anywhere
but inward when problems are
stubborn.
The symbolism of the Israeli and the
Palestinian leader leaving their countries at a
time of maximum crisis and stress to consult
with the keeper of the real power in the world
in a European capital is also questionable.
To be sure, personal leadership in time of crisis is more than a
little overrated � Israel and the Palestinian Authority could no
doubt get along just as well (perhaps better) if their top leaders
retired to the Riviera. Even so, the symbolism of trekking off to
Paris to listen to a lecture from Mama Albright (who is believed
to control or at least have some influence over the purse strings
of aid) is more than a bit unseemly. It reinforces the image of
the Israelis and the Palestinians as a couple of unruly
international brats who need a stern talking-to when they get out
of line and embarrass all those wise authority figures who have
been trying to straighten them out.
Unfortunately, if it is too soon to hope that leaders like Madeleine
Albright will forbear from meddling and tinkering, it is probably
also too soon to hope that a resolution � growing from
war-weariness and some dim understanding that there are better
ways to conduct human relations than at the point of a rifle
rather than from threats and bribery from the self-proclaimed
indispensable nation � is likely in the near future.
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
