Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: LLLefty who wrote (20347)	3/1/2002 1:46:54 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

The WSJ journal ran a nice summation of why you must be ignorant of history to get excited about this Saudi "peace plan". It starts with some illuminating quotes: A Princely Proposal? Hardly. The Saudi "peace plan" is nothing new. BY BRET STEPHENS Friday, March 1, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST "Our plan recognizes the right of Israel to exist only after acceptance of a Palestinian state, the return to the 1967 borders and an end to the state of belligerency." --Prince Abdullah, November 1981 "Saudi Arabia believes the time has come to end the Arab-Israeli conflict and achieve a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian question." --Prince Saud Faisal, April 1991 "This is exactly the idea I had in mind--full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations." --Crown Prince Abdullah, February 2002 full op-ed at opinionjournal.com One interesting twist, though, is that King Abdullah of Jordan is President of the Arab League this time around -- i.e., the one Arab leader who really wants a settlement. But the Hashemites always get dragged along with the lowest common denominator of Arab politics in the end, so not much hope there. My own view--and ME prophets have a G-awful batting average--is that we will see Sharon and his people in negotiations toward a settlement in a year or so. Why? Because the intifada has turned into a War of Attrition (caps, W,A) which is what the Israelis cannot accept and sustain indefinitely at this level. Who knows what the whole Middle East will look like in a year or so? But the IDF's policy is changing already, with the incursions into the refugee camps in the West Bank. An editorial in yesterday's Jerusalem Post had the headline, "Conquer or Capitulate", which sums up the mood of the majority, I would guess. For all the noise the Israeli Left makes in Haaretz and the NY Times, I would not lay money on the capitulate side just at the moment.

To: LLLefty who wrote (20347)	3/1/2002 9:29:27 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi LLLefty; Re: "Because the intifada has turned into a War of Attrition (caps, W,A) which is what the Israelis cannot accept and sustain indefinitely at this level." So far, the intifada is not at all a war. It's more along the line of "mild domestic unrest". Israel can sustain that level of violence forever, as can the Palestinians. A truly unsustainable war of attrition (like WW2) kills at least 0.5% of the population per year, and is only sustainable for a short time. (Germany held out for 7 long years.) That works out to something like 600 per week out of a population of around 6.5 million Israelis. The current level of violence is a tiny, tiny fraction of that. -- Carl P.S. I hate it when people exaggerate levels of violence. To put this into perspective, the Holocaust took the lives of considerably more than 20,000 Jews per week and it went on for years and years. This is serious stuff we're talking about.