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Pastimes : AMAT Off-Topic Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (674)	4/19/2002 12:19:04 PM
From: runes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 786

Michael - <how few suicide bombings will there be?> ...That depends on the US's next moves. We got Arafat to back down some on the Palestinian side and Sharon to commit to an easing on the Israeli side. Now everything pauses while they wait for the next shoe to drop. ...IMO - we need to 1) defuse the Bethlehem situation by using US/UN/Saudi troops to safely extract the fighters from the church. 2) Extract more concilliatory speech from Arafat in exchange for an international relief effort. 3) Get Sharon to execute a final Israeli withdrawl from Ramalah. That will buy a bit of breathing room and allow both sides to do a bit of much needed reflection. BUT - IF THE US DOES NOT ACT QUICKLY - the suicide bombings will resume again, and probably more intensely than before. Right now there is a large population that has lost everything and is in deep despair. Hand them a bomb and they will strike - a last desperate act to give some meaning to their shattered lives. And the infrastructure damage - give me a camel and a few alms in that region and I can rebuild that infrastructure in a week or two. Bomb making is very low tech. Forget the rush to an international peace conference. First - Sharon is absolutely opposed to it (he has been working from the get-go at ways to scuttle such a process). And second - it was the last peace conference that has created the current mess. There is nothing worse to do to a population than to build their hopes up and then dash them again. (Clinton's push to build himself a legacy (ok a positive legacy) was short sited and self serving.) As for Hamas - they are a secondary factor. When the PA/IS conflict was dormant, they were dormant. In fact, with the US on the scene both the suicide bombers and the Lebanese border have gone quiet - for the moment. Come on Georgie - don't blow it now. Keep your mouth shut and let Collin and Condoleza do their thing. Haven't you got an election or something to worry about.