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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (2520)	10/3/2001 11:01:37 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I know the Palestinians are really suffering, and the settlers in Gaza are nutcases (if they have ex-Phalangists there, it would explain a lot). But the Palestinian story about the negotiations is a big revisionist job of history. What Arafat was offered was something like those fancy cheeses (from France?) that have a thousand holes in them, that was Barak's 95%. I guarantee you that if the cheese that was offered was even only 50% but without holes (read: NO SETTLEMENTS, NO ROAD BLOCKS, NO PRIVATE ROADS, blahblahblah) Arafat will jump on it. You accurately reflect what the Palestinians now say they were offered, but not what they said they were offered last fall. Then, they said they were very close to agreement on borders; it was the refugee issue that scuttled the talks. At Taba, Barak offered to dismantle 80% of the settlements. So far from jumping on this offer, Arafat didn't even budge an inch. It wasn't that the two proposals weren't able to meet; there never was a Palestinian proposal. Barak, whatever else you might say about him, really wanted to do a deal. He tried. Clinton tried. Arafat's behavior convinced the Israelis, and Pres. Clinton, that Arafat could not live with any negotiated settlement that left Israel existing as a Jewish state. I simply cannot believe that the negotiations failed because Barak wasn't nice enough to Arafat. Rather, they failed because accepting a deal -- any deal, in my opinion -- would have been Arafat's death sentence.

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (2520)	10/3/2001 11:01:50 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

the authoer does a pretty good job depicting the daily suffering the Palestinian people endure in the hands of the state sponsored terrorism of Israel. Hmmm... Ain't it so reassuring that this doesn't happen anywhere else in the Arab world?? Maybe we can arrange to have the Taleban send some economic and political consultants to Arafat's assistance. After all, 75% of the Palestinian people believe suicide bombings against civilians are justifiable. Besides, considering that 30% of the Palestinian people are employed by Israelis (when they aren't prevented from, it sounds to me like a case of "p**ing in one's own pool".. After all, the Israelis have spent far more on developing the west bank economically than Jordan EVER did... And the economic wealth of the Palestinians is FAR greater than had the Israelis handed the West Bank back over to Jordan. I mean.. just look at Jordan... that's all you have to do... They claimed it, and treated it like a colony until they lost it in 1967 by foolishly ignoring Israeli pleas not to attack. And it was a economic wreck that the Jews spent considerable amount of money renovating and improving, including hooking up E. Jerusalem to their own power, water, and sewage infrastructure. Heck.. on the Gaza strip, unemployment went down to 2% from high double digits, in the weeks directly following the occupation... The Israelis have done FAR more to integrate the Palestinian people into their society than any Arab nation ever did over the course of 30 years in refugee camps. And now.. because of Arafat and his tolerance of extremists, and/or unwillingness/inability to control them, the Israelis have been forced to close off access to their country, and Palestinians are suffering economically. The fact that you cannot face is that THE WEST BANK WILL NEVER BE INDEPENDENT of Israeli influence or control. It is TOO intertwined with the Israeli economy.. Their power, their water, and their sewage is treated by the Israelis, and can be cut off anytime the Israelis chose. Instead of blowing themselves up in shopping malls, or sending their children out to throw rocks at armed soldiers, they would do far better building up their economic independence and educating their children to be the engineers and doctors they require to sustain such an economy. Hawk