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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (49526)	4/4/2002 2:53:45 PM
From: RR	Respond to of 65232

Wait, wait, I get to "edit" it! RR (eom)

To: Sully- who wrote (49526)	4/4/2002 2:57:37 PM
From: RR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

I won't mind it staying red awhile longer. My orders have not all filled yet. Are u making any moooooney, OOF Man? Buy some puts and play that low 1700 support on the Naz. RR

To: Sully- who wrote (49526)	4/4/2002 6:29:52 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 65232

Gun Smoke and Mirrors Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 4, 2002 By Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger [Here is some outstanding commentary on the Israel-Arab conflict by the most influential German daily newspaper.] Israel does not have many friends around the world right now, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon fewer still. He is the one being blamed for dragging the Middle East into an endless spiral of violence and suffering, which seems to be turning into full-scale war. Mr. Sharon, for his part, views Israel not as an aggressor whose actions are making Palestinians' lives more unbearable by the day, but as a victim of terrorism that is entitled to defend itself against suicide bombers and to eliminate terror. He compares Israel to post-Sept. 11 America, claiming that Israel's military offensive is no less justified than what U.S. President George W. Bush has done in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Mr. Sharon's reliance on military force and oppression has not brought the security he promised, but has exacerbated the despondency and bitterness felt throughout Israeli society. Still, a majority of Israelis -- and many Americans, too -- would still agree with Mr. Sharon that there are indeed parallels between international terrorism and the terrorism of Palestinian Islamists and radical nationalists. They may even share the same principles. The mass murder committed on Sept. 11 was not an expression of rage or disappointment at Washington's failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and to give Palestinians their own state. Judging by what we know of Osama bin Laden, his aim is not, or was not, to impose a Mideast settlement by punishing the United States for siding with Israel and to force it to change its policies. Islamist terrorism has a much higher, geopolitical goal, and that is the elimination of Israel. Those who express outrage at the way innocent Palestinians are humiliated and regard the suicide bombings as acts of despair are not only underestimating the cynicism of those who mastermind such attacks -- whether they belong to Hamas, Jihad or any other group -- but they are also misinterpreting the underlying strategy of such attacks, which is not to produce peace, but to destroy Israel. There is a worrying subtext to the tragic events of the past few months. Whenever Mr. bin Laden has excoriated Israel as a Western implant that has no business in the Middle East, he could be sure of enthusiastic applause, for it is a popular position and one that many Arab rulers make use of -- no matter the risks -- whenever they need to boost their political standing. Nor is it any mystery why Israel is such a thorn in the side of so many Arab rulers. It is not, or at least not only, because Israel still occupies Palestinian territory, but because it holds up a mirror to its neighbors' failures -- not only as states, but as societies and economies, too. The Arab world has yet to permit a broad, far-reaching process of modernization linking its traditions to the present and the future. Pan-Arabism has ground to a halt, and democracy has also proved to be a non-starter. The political geography of the entire region is made up of despotic states, thinly disguised dictatorships, autocracies and bigoted monarchies. Some countries are ruled better than others, while some know the meaning of prosperity and the stuff that dreams are made of only from television. It is this fundamental discrepancy that turns into an illusion Jordanian Prince Hassan's thought that Israel one day may be able to take its place in a booming Middle East and perhaps even become an economic powerhouse for its neighbors as well. The political and cultural incompatibility of the parties to the current conflict is proving an insuperable barrier for even the most well-meaning efforts to intervene. Many in the United States now take the view that outside involvement is pointless as long as the violence, fanaticism and terrorism are not exhausted. Yet the thought that it will take one huge cathartic event to bring the two protagonists to their senses is worrying indeed. To stand by and watch that happen would mean to disregard both the lives of innocent victims as well as those for whom the search for a just settlement was always more than a breathing space before the next round of fighting. We have a duty to help tame the Arab-Israeli conflict. The best that can be achieved right now is for us to prevent the entire region from being engulfed in a wave of anti-Israeli outrage and anti-U.S. hysteria. The more moderate, pro-Western regimes would find it hard to survive such a mass uprising, especially as their usual tactical maneuvering would soon prove to be a blunt sword. The U.S. war against terror, especially any military campaign against Iraq, would also find itself under an impossible burden in such a situation. The Palestinians have a right to a state of their own -- and not just at some distant point in the future either. In the long run, however, it is the Arab states that will have to develop. Only by modernizing will they eventually be able to live at peace with Israel, whose legitimacy they would then no longer have to acknowledge from a position of helplessness. Then, they would also no longer feel the need for a cult of martyrdom and victimization. faz.com{B1311FCC-FBFB-11D2-B228-00105A9CAF88}&doc={060AC9EE-5FD0-4642-9D41-2CC41B2409B1}