The only way out of the current mess is two separate countries and a thick wall in between for a decade or so. Border controls, the works. Then you will have your peace and the Palestinians will have their country. Their state will worry about what to do with their nonexistent economy after that, I suppose, and they will have much more to worry about than popping Israelis. Support for Hamas et al will evaporate overnight.
Yeah, we've heard this line of thinking before. Trouble is, if it was correct, Arafat would have taken the deal at Taba. He was offered a country and billions of dollars and he walked away. He couldn't accept a result that would force him to give up "right of return". Such a deal would also force the 40 or 50 percent of Palestinians who say that the aim of the intifada is to destroy Israel to give up on that goal, or at least delay it. As I have mentioned before, this is not a point on which PIJ, Hamas and Hizbullah have a lot of wiggle room. They are ideologically committed. They also answer to masters who are not in the country, but in Damascus and Tehran.
You're quite right when you say that once the Palestinians had a country, they would have to worry about their non-existant economy. However, dictatorships have a ready answer to insoluble economic problems -- start a war. |
