Jerome-- A good book, largely in agreement with you, is Amos Oz's "The Israeli's" It acknowledges Palestinian nationalism, which I do. However, and this is a big however, when Israel wanted peace and a return to prewar borders after the "67 war, the Arabs wanted the destruction of Israel. Abba Ebin put it succinctly when he said to the UN that "This is the only war in history where the victors are suing for peace and the vanquished for surrender."
You are missing the many aid programs of both Israel and the US to the Palestinians, because of the awareness that economic success of Palestine is vital. In fact, the US put pressure on Israel to continue payment of a great part of the Palestinian budget after the intifada began. Lord Acton once characterized some, I believe Baltic group, as "...being too weak to be wise." Unfortunately, weakness is what characterizes almost every Arab government. They then have to create an illusion of strength to maintain control. Where, except Egypt, are democratically elected leaders who have some popular support?
Arafat needs an enemy to maintain power and Israel is a natural. Therefore, when Barak made unprecedented concessions, they were turned down. The concessions were geographic and economic and included what you and I want, economic aid. Arafat is too weak to be wise.
We must be careful not to have revenge as our motive, but safety and security. I also think that you have missed the obvious---that the act of killing innocent civilians is barbaric and cannot under any circumstances be rationalized. We should not gratuitously kill. I basically agree with both you and Brian, but my points were specifically to get security. Maybe I can understand their motives, but I would hate to tell that to the widows and children that will be left behind.
Any person who perceives us as the enemy--whether rational or not--will be more inclined to attack if retaliation were not assurred. Inevitably, there will those who perceive the most successful and powerful country on the planet as being the enemy. We should be sensitive to this, but make it clear that some arenas of dispute are allowed and crimes of war will not be tolerated.
fred |
