"The Palestinians would take over Israeli greenhouses and export cherry tomatoes to the European Union. They would pump gas from lucrative off-shore gas fields being developed by British Gas to bring in huge revenues to the Palestinian people."
is pure fantasy. Do you think that if this miraculously happened that Israel would simply UNOCCUPY the WB?!?
Of course it's pure fantasy, that's precisely the point. Yet it was propounded to us by people in your camp, bobby, that if the Pals got control of Gaza we would see them make positive changes to run their own affairs. The well-meaning types who coughed up 14 million dollars to deliver the greenhouses intact to the PA did so thinking they would be used, not destroyed, did they not?
So you agree that if Israel simply withdraws from the West Bank, the same thing will happen there as happened in Gaza? It sounds like you do.
[Resolution 242] Looks like a demand for complete Israeli pullback to me? Am I missing something here?
Yes, according to the author of Resolution 242, you are. There was a big tussle at the UN between the USSR and the US over the wording of the resolution, with the USSR wanting to write in a complete withdrawal, and the US wanting to leave it open to negotiation. The final wording said "withdrawal from territories" not "withdrawal from the territories" and also mentioned Israel's right to secure boundaries to be settled by negotiations. That was the compromise.
Israel has always understood this according to the US intent: secure boundaries settled by negotiations, meaning not all the way back to the Green Line, which leaves Israel 9 miles wide at places (not very secure), with final status to be negotiated. The Arabs always interpreted it by the USSR intent: meaning as a complete do-over on the Six Day War, put everything back the way it was on June 4, 1967. The Euro-left accepts the Arab interpretation.
BTW, Resolution 242 does not mention "Palestine" at all. It purely addresses Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Nothing short of seeing the demise of the west will satisfy al Qaeda......no startling revelation there. Why heck, lets just never try any negotiating if that's the case! Radical groups will always exist.
With a well structured, heavily financed and closely monitored fully agreed transition process, a much greater possibility exists for success.
There seems to be a big missing step between a) and b) here bobby. We are told over and over that an Israeli/Pal solution will molify Muslim grievances. Yet you acknowledge that it won't begin to molify the radicals. I think your mistake is in thinking that there are just a few radicals way off to the side, but the main course of Muslim grievance is entirely different. It's not so different. It's all one continuous political spectrum of Islamist grievance. Many believe it sincerely, others whip it up cynically to maintain themselves in power. Al Qaeda's message resonates nonetheless.
What Dore Gold is trying to point out is that if you just concentrate on the less radical end whom you might be able to negotiate with, you won't notice that you are inflaming the more radical end even more, giving them the feeling of victory, and encouraging them to claim all the credit and recruit more followers. Did Hamas moderate when Israel pulled out of Gaza? Did it strengthen the moderates, or the radicals?
You have to notice the actual political dynamic at work here. |
