I've got no time for Arafat. I don't think I've a lot for Sharon either. The following article starts:
With the sudden upswing in bloodshed, it is hard not to wonder where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is headed. First, forget about Yasser Arafat, his future is largely irrelevant. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knows this. Instead, check the current Israeli bombing list. It offers the most accurate prediction of the direction of this crisis.
The list is noteworthy for its utter banality: sewage plants, power facilities, hospitals, radio towers. Even the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics had its computers ransacked, its files destroyed. Why? Surely these librarians are not militants and data are not suddenly an instrument of terrorism. With bombs blowing up on every corner, why worry about a warehouse of spreadsheets?
Israeli forces also bulldozed the runways of the Palestinian airport, out of which there had been virtually no traffic in months. Last month, a number of Palestinian orchards were leveled and irrigation systems were uprooted. In Gaza, there are only two main roads for Palestinian use. Both have been bombed or bulldozed.
I always believe what people do, not what they say. This doesn't look like a program to destroy Hamas or Arafat. This looks like a program for moving Palestinians out.
If I can see it like that, then its likely some people living there see it that way, also.
So where are they going to go? Or more to the point, who's going to take them? Jordan? Egypt? Lebanon? They've already got lots of problems without this one.
Two horrible, murderous old men. They both should be cut down.
Anyway here's the whole article:
Sharon's fatal mistake
By IAN URBINA
With the sudden upswing in bloodshed, it is hard not to wonder where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is headed. First, forget about Yasser Arafat, his future is largely irrelevant. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon knows this. Instead, check the current Israeli bombing list. It offers the most accurate prediction of the direction of this crisis.
The list is noteworthy for its utter banality: sewage plants, power facilities, hospitals, radio towers. Even the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics had its computers ransacked, its files destroyed. Why? Surely these librarians are not militants and data are not suddenly an instrument of terrorism. With bombs blowing up on every corner, why worry about a warehouse of spreadsheets?
Israeli forces also bulldozed the runways of the Palestinian airport, out of which there had been virtually no traffic in months. Last month, a number of Palestinian orchards were leveled and irrigation systems were uprooted. In Gaza, there are only two main roads for Palestinian use. Both have been bombed or bulldozed.
Ultimately, it is not whether Mr. Arafat is knocked off that matters. As Mr. Sharon runs out of methods for squelching the uprising, he is shifting from repressing Palestinian civil society to dismembering it. This is a dreadful mistake.
Since the start of the uprising, the closure of the territories exerted the strongest strangleholds. Israeli checkpoints cut off all circulation. Those who had worked in Israel were denied employment, those who imported goods did without. Groceries rotted at market in one part of the territories while more than one-third of Palestinians went hungry for lack of access. It got worse when septic trucks were forbidden clearance, leaving sewage tanks to overflow in the streets. But as bad as that was, it has become worse now as these same markets and storage tanks are no longer being blocked but destroyed.
It is not unreasonable that Israelis are outraged over the loss of innocent lives at the hands of suicide bombers and guerrillas. But Mr. Sharon may want to take heed before tearing apart the fabric of Palestinian civil society. Stateless Palestinians with nothing left to lose are the last thing he should hope for.
There is an inverse relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the militant Islamic movement Hamas. Undermining the institutions of one, increases that of the other. Beneath the ever-fraying social safety net provided by the Palestinian Authority, is a stronger and tighter one offered by Hamas to which more Palestinians are turning. It is Hamas that oversees many of the Islamic charities doling out rice, sugar and lentils to 30,000 people each month. It is Hamas that runs the free sports teams, summer camps and kindergartens for the children of so many parents out of work. Indeed, Hamas is also the purveyor of suicide bombers. Yet, more Palestinians view such attacks as a military tactic of last resort rather than as a barbaric targeting of innocent civilians.
Only a year ago, negotiators were discussing the direction of Palestinian "state-building." Administrators debated over what image would go on the national postage stamp. There are now almost no Palestinian post offices in operation. Only a month ago, President George W. Bush publicly reaffirmed the right of Palestinian nationhood. He has since given Israel the nod to strike however it sees fit.
As the material preconditions for Palestinian statehood disappear, so, too, will any prospects for peace. If Mr. Sharon wants to protect Israeli security he needs to take Israeli settlers -- not Palestinian infrastructure -- out of the occupied territories.
Ian Urbina is a research scholar at the Middle East Research and Information Project, an independent foreign-policy think tank in Washington.
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