To: Gottfried who wrote (64478 ) 6/20/2002 8:40:54 AM From: michael97123 Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 70976 Hi G, "OT" I haven't been paying much attention to the market recently. I am back to my post-september 11 numbness concerning the market but feel we are on the verge of a major interim rally here. I have been very bearish but i think most of the bad economic news is now behind us in most industries. I have been watching the political situation intently and want to report what i consider to be a very bullish occurrence in the middle east in the middle of one of the worst terror weeks in Israel. I will just list some news and let you folks draw your own conclusions. 1. 50 prominent palestinians have publicly condemned terrorism in writing in arabic 2. Arafat appear to be on the way to becoming irrelevent as titular head of a new state. All parties--arabs nations, USA, Europe, Russia, Israel and many, many palestinians want it this way. 3. Palestinians have apparently given up on right of return which was the only stumbling block to the Camp David agreement All of this is happening because it is obvious that although the Israelis are taking brutal terror hits, the real loser in all this are the Palestinians. It now should be clear to them that the Jews arent going anywhere nnd that Sharon has adopted a new "land for war" strategy which, if terror continues now, will logically lead to Israeli takeover of the west bank and ultimately population relocation. That toughness has forced palestinian moderates to step forward along with moderate arab states to push for a conclusion to this horror sooner rather than later. Controlling the terrorist wont be easy and controlling the israeli extremists perhaps might be even more difficult. If a path to peace does come about, this would remove the most potent terrorist argument against the US. Add to this Iraqi overthrow and the beginning of reforms in the arab states, assuming that the popularity of islamic radicalism lessens, we could wind up with a victory here in shorter order than cw indicates. mike