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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (1719)	6/8/2001 12:41:19 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 23908

the Palestinian could be well on their way to not just full autonomy, but eventual statehood and full cooperation with Israel. Bingo Zeev!! This has been the case since Israel occupied the West Bank and hooked up East Jerusalem to the Israeli power and water instructure, and expanded business activity throughout the territories (Gaza unemployment reportedly fell to 2% in the year after Israel occupied it). Palestinians never had it better economically than they have under the Israelis. Jordan merely sought to exploit the West Bank to prop up their own languishing economy (the WB once accounted for 40% of Jordanian GDP). But they extracted value and did not have either the resources, or the motivation, to better the lives of the residents of that territory. That's why this political autonomy is phyrric victory because it only comes as a result of the self-destruction of the West Bank economy. Over 30% of the Palestinian population is directly employed in Israel proper. And one can conservatively estimate that fully 1/2 of the West Bank economy is fully dependent upon trade with, or through, Israel. But it seems Arafat is bent upon some form of Miltonian agenda... "It's better to rule in hell, than to serve in heaven".. And he's created his own economic hell for the people he claims to represent. But it's far easier for him to rule from a position of conflict, than it will be when he has no one to blame but himself and his corrupt underlings who have no desire, or motivation, to create a strong economy and a better way of life for the average Palestinian. This is why I believe Arafat has to expand the violence, and seek to undermine nations like Jordan (however surreptitiously), in order to maintain the conflict, and even expand it... He needs conflict to insure his political survival. Hawk