Keith, for the life of me I can't remember the name of the agreement, or letter of intent, or whatever. I think it began with H - the name of a politician. Know what my feeble mind is searching for?)
Balfour Declaration???? -----Original Message----- From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 5:25 PM To: Karen Watters Cole; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: William B Ward; Keith Hudson Subject: RE: Eyes Wide Open (was Failing to make distinctions) Karen, As always good commentary. We should identify some players. "The Official Palestinians" - led by Arafat. "Hamas "- I've called them the Mafia, implacably hostile to Israel, a state within a state, the bestower of goodies on the population - goodies that are almost certainly provided by the US. You'll recall that the Mafia in the US was where poor people in the urban ghettos would go for help - along with the church. There are other terrorist groups (or freedom fighters) - the Islamic Jihad and suchlike, but Hamas seems to be the instigator of suicide bombing. They appear to be unaffected by what Arafat does. (I would not be surprised if Arafat is more terrified by Hamas than by the Israelis. "The Arab Nations" - have been quite open in the past about their intention of driving the Israelis into the sea, though now they are a teensy little bit more circumspect. However, their maps don't show Israel and they have never recognized Palestine as an individual state (and won't until Israel is gone). However, the Arab nations give very little to help the Palestinians - about 2% of the subsidy that keeps the state on welfare. The Saudis give about $1.8 million - which shows how little the rest give. (The US gives $84 million.) "Jordan" - there is always someone off-stage ready to take front and center. "The Israelis" The immovable object - the solid mass - is Israel. The Jews are not going to leave. They have always been in Palestine that for centuries (millennia ?) was composed of Jews and Arabs. The Jews always wanted a homeland. The British promised them one back in WWI. (Keith, for the life of me I can't remember the name of the agreement, or letter of intent, or whatever. I think it began with H - the name of a politician. Know what my feeble mind is searching for?) The Brits didn't want to offend the Arabs, so nothing much happened until after WWII. Then, we will recall the Brits were unwilling to establish a Jewish homeland. The official attitude, which might have been true, was that they feared the Arabs by the millions would kill all the Jews and the Brits would be blamed. But, bombings and shootings, plus shiploads of immigrants, eventually changed their minds. Red faces accompanied the pictures of the Royal Navy turning back ships full of women and children. This led to the spectacle of five Arab armies launching the attack that would destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. It failed. Another five armies attacked later, again failing. The Jews will not go quietly into the good night. Yet, apparently they must or, at the very least, hide behind a wall These are the major characters in the play. I would suggest that the point of attack in this scenario is the money. Just as the Saudis are welfare cases, so are the Palestinians. Internal welfare for the Saudis is comparable to external welfare for the Palestinians. The money from UNRWA should perhaps be directed to the official Palestinian state - Jordan (itself a manufactured entity like Israel). Let the Jordanians be the manager of the money. Or, it would be interesting if every time a suicide bomb went off in Israel $5 million was deducted from the UNRWA stipend. It should be noted that since the beginning '90's the Palestinians are a kind of official state. Almost 98% of Palestinians have been part of this. The Jews can hardly be blamed for what is happening there. They have the go ahead to make themselves a state. They get the money from outside. They could become prosperous with a little attention directed to their welfare rather than Israel. Arafat was given the green light to form a 40,000 strong police force. Can it not be used to break up Hamas? Well, Arafat has done a little, but not much. So, the money (or its withdrawal) might be an incentive to move things forward. If that were attempted, I can hear "All Things Considered", and suchlike, waxing apoplectic with rage at this attack on women, and children, and the poor, and the helpless. But, if it works, it might reduce the attacks on women, and children, and the poor, and the helpless. If anything can. Oops! I've just got Lawry's post. Whenever I am called ignorant, I smell propaganda. I'll read it more carefully in a while, but note how "the mass of the Palestinians" is melded into the antics of the leaders. That may be a universal problem - thinking that national policies are the same as the wishes of the people. Meantime we will both hope the brick wall is crumbling. Harry ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Karen wrote: >HP wrote asking BW: >Are you suggesting the suicide bombers are a war against Sharon? >These are people whose open intent is to sweep Israel into the sea. People >to whom the Arabs have never given a homeland because Israel is where they >will be when the Jews are all killed. >We are in error to personalize things. Sharon isn't the problem, no matter >the convenience it provides newsmen and politicians to emphasize >individuals. > >Harry, I will not challenge your statement at length, that we are in error >to personalize things, but it sounds very much like history being understood >by science: here is a solid mass that will not budge and over here is a >single entity that has no affect on it and cannot possibly make the solid >mass move, dissolve or change in any way. > >This comes back to the old question of do men as individuals affect history, >or is history such a solid mass that individuals are pulled along by it but >never able to drive history a certain way? > >Of course, we all agree that individuals matter in their local, regional and >now global histories. Sharon is certainly part of the problem. He gives >the wall or solid mass of desperate Islamic hate a target on the world event >stage, just as Arafat is a target for the global defenders of Israel. >Identifying the I - P problem as an unmovable, impenetrable object (open >intent to sweep Israel out to the sea) only contributes to the problem, it >makes it seem impossible to change, just as Tom Walker wrote re: Emery Roe's >Analytical Tip opinion that environmentalists and economists can make doing >anything about global warming or global poverty seem too large a problem to >deal with by individuals or individual states. > >When we condense historical events down to a formula to understand it, we >often miss the mythos that is involved. Your statement is practical, using >logos, and reflects (what I think is) your intellectual training/preference, >but both mythos and logos are involved in life and the unfolding drama of >mankind. > >If the right CEO can make or break a corporation, if one professor and not >another can attract more students to a department, if a single talented >researcher can make the difference in a breakthrough in medical science, if >one lawyer can make a jury see the evidence in a different way, then why >should we not blame Sharon and Arafat for contributing to this political >problem? I see the I - P issue as a crumbling brick wall, not a solid one, >and I am focused on the crack in my line of sight that I can do something >about. - Karen ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
