Harry, in this thread you played point guard very well, deflecting the ball elsewhere without abandoning your position. However, we need to reassign this away from always being The Other's problem. You said, and I have ALL CAPPED the points I contest: 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. I agree with your assessment that money is part of the problem, although it is by no means the entire problem, otherwise it could have been solved earlier, or should have, when it was cheaper and simpler to do so. However, one can argue that financially, the state of Israel is already the 51st state of the United States, and has been heavily subsidized for many years. The current numbers are not at hand, but official US aid to Israel far exceeds all other foreign aid, and in fact, some argue that without official US aid and the unofficial aid from American Jews, the struggling Israeli economy would already be kaput. Maybe the Knesset should be thinking about how much money Israel will miss when we are short of cash soon after an invasion and occupation elsewhere in the neighborhood. I'm not calling Israel a welfare state just yet, but can it survive on its own? If all things are equal in love and war, how about imposing a fine for every time that Ben Gurion, Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin and the other early settler-warriors instigated gunfire by provoking Palestinians in disputed territories so that they could retaliate? We can play eye-for-an-eye in war retributions and all go broke. Money will not solve this, but returning money owed to Palestinians, making reparations for homes and land seized illegally, those are the first steps. Since you are so good at sharing a story to illustrate a point, let me share one: I am the eldest of three daughters, with a baby brother. When we were growing up, my father used a conflict resolution policy that we hated. " It takes two to argue", he'd say, so if my second sister and I, closest in age, were fighting enough to get noticed and into trouble, we were both punished, regardless of who "started it". When we were small, that was spankings, but it evolved into time outs and denial of privileges. You can imagine that my sister and I learned to patch things up pretty quickly as we got older and smarter, learning to choose our battles carefully. It is past time for Israelis to look into the mirror and judge themselves instead of using the well-established religious annihilation card as a crutch. If it weren't for this long-held defensive position of victimization, what else would Israel be? Today, much of the world sees the Palestinians as the victims and Israel the Goliath. This is very sad, indeed.. It is also terrible marketing that much of the world views Israel as not much else than guns, settlements and retribution. I am amazed every time I log onto Ha'aretz to see artwork advertised for sale. Do you see the New York Times or Times of London pushing art as a primary interest to its citizens on the front page every day? What about Israeli dot coms and the famous Jewish resourcefulness? What good does it do to survive if the nation must all wear camouflage and gas masks? Is that what the descendants of those little yellow stars deserve? Money is not going to break up Hamas, nor will a strong police force. It won't disappear completely, but the only way to get rid of Hamas is to take away its power and its original purpose, hatred. This will not be accomplished by force, no matter how skilled and armed the military (or its Big Brother, so the USA and GWB should heed this point). It still has to be said, yet again: there is no military solution to the Israeli - Palestinian question. It requires a diplomatic agreement by BOTH parties to recognize their own MAD Mutual Assured Destruction otherwise. When they decide they don't want to annihilate each other any longer, when both sides quit bearing new babies to continue the battle, perpetuating the problem to another generation instead of solving it now, then we will see some wisdom and maturity from these two biological cousins and great cultural heritages. We absolutely must stop identifying this problem as too big to be solved. You're right, I have not lived under the gun, and I didn't survive the pogroms and holocaust. My ancestors were Scottish and Irish, no strangers to battle, but no one hates me for my birthright or religion (though there are family members who drive me crazy). I have survived personal sacrifice and learned to accommodate myself to my new realities, accepting different expectations, giving up some goals, developing new skills, relearning to enjoy old interests, combining all my past lives into a significantly different one than I could have imagined earlier. I am a better and stronger person, and though it has required painful compromise on my part, I cannot go back. I must go forward. So must they. By the way, the sister that I fought most with and learned to patch things up with, she and I practice those lessons now in middle age. We can argue and be mad at each other, but we know not to go too far. The youngest sister, the one who kept her distance, who didn't stand up on her own for a direct challenge and instead ran to mommy for help, she pushes conflicts too far, her patching up skills are non-existent and she cannot accept responsibility for her own mistakes, having not learned a childhood lesson well. I think there is a lesson here. We live with the good and the bad, not all or nothing. Shalom. - Karen Watters Cole
