There was a question in there, Nadine. What's the end game strategy? Full reoccupation? "Transfer" aka ethnic cleansing?
Neither. As one Palestinian official put it a few-months ago, "it's a finger-biting game", i.e. a test of wills. It continues until someone cries uncle, or exterior conditions change, such as a US attack on Iraq.
Forgive me, but after Lebanon in '82, and Sharon's nifty little end game piece there with Sabra and Chatila, the 'pure hands' thing rings a little hollow.
In one sense, it's the poster boy for the 'pure hands' thing. Those massacres were done by Phalangist troops commanded by Elie Hobeicka, and were part of an ongoing series of massacres and counter-massacres between the PLO and the Phalangists that started long before and continued well after. Which is not to excuse the Israeli part in permitting them, but has anyone even bothered to indict Elie Hobeicka for this terrible war crime? No? Why do you suppose that is?
And there hasn't been any sign lately that 100 million Arabs are going to come to the aid of the Palestinians when Sharon decides the time has come.
Of course not. The other Arabs despise the Palestinians, unless they see them on Al Jazeera suffering at Israeli hands. It's an identity thing, you understand. |
