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

To: TimF who wrote (14187)	12/20/2001 1:19:32 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

What makes those tactics even more nasty is the fact that they can continue forever. As you present them neither sides tactics is likely to cause the other side to become defeated. Hurt yes, angry yes, maybe even scared but not defeated. On the ground, yes. But this is a war fought more in the world's press than on the ground, with pictures of dead kids as the main weapon. Thus, both sides are heavily dependent on world opinion. The Palestinians need to keep portraying themselves as innocent victims of a "foreign, colonialist" oppressor despite their open embrace of terror tactics. Arafat's original hope, if he couldn't get the Israelis to fold, was to yell outraged innocence until he got the Europeans to insist on Kosovo-style monitors. The Israelis need to portray themselves as fighting against terror and need the US's permission to use some of their superior military strength despite the assymetry of forces. The stronger Israeli measures rachet the conflict up to a higher flame, which allows the Israelis to use their military strength and harms the Palestinian "shoot'n'whine" tactics. World opinion also changes. We saw the US's opinion change sharply a couple of weeks ago when the Bush administration decided to stop buying the Arafat-as-moderate pose. Even the Europeans are harsher on terrorism since September 11th. Time will tell where it goes. There is no real improvement possible imho while Yasser Arafat controls the Palestinian polity, if you can use the word "polity" for the violent chaos that he has fostered.