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

To: D. Long who wrote (33130)	6/26/2002 3:25:44 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Unfortunately for him, Bashar is not his father... He'll make the wrong choice, I'm positive. From all reports, Bashar Assad is quite stupid and is being led by the nose by Sheik Nasrin of Hizbullah, so I have no argument there. David Warren cheers Bush's speech as finally burying the corpse of Oslo. He makes a good point that the Arabs are not likely to go for the offer of a two-state solution until they really see they have something irrevocable to lose by not going for it; mere poverty and war doesn't seem to move them much. Though perhaps Bush will allow Arik Sharon to deliver the message via re-occupation and fence-building. Warren also makes the point (which I would think would be generally obvious by now, but doesn't seem to be) that while Islamism is in the ascendancy and Palestinian leaders are working hand-in-glove with the Islamists, then the struggle over Israel is an existential struggle and not a mere border dispute. It doesn't matter how many guns and tanks Israel has; the only relevant question is 'what are the strategic goals of the Palestinians?' The situation inherited by Mr. Bush, and the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, was far, far worse than that of the sticks-and-stones "Intifada" of ten years ago, before "Oslo". The PA and the associated terror organizations it has imported into the West Bank and Gaza -- Hamas, Hezbollah, Islami Jihad -- have hugely enlarged the Palestinian struggle. They have made their connexions to the international Islamist terror movement, importing weapons and expertise from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon; illicit money and fanatic religious counsel from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Even Al Qaeda is now involved; has according to some reports set up camps in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, and smuggled agents into Gaza by sea. The prospect of battle on several fronts has been before the Israelis continuously for the last six months, as they have watched a build-up of forces including missile batteries under Hezbollah command and Syrian protection on land the last Israeli administration (that of Ehud Barak) abandoned, supposedly to win peace in southern Lebanon. There can be no doubt that a permanent withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank would invite a similar build-up there. While Mr. Bush's Rose Garden speech made clear that the U.S. has abandoned Yasser Arafat as a "peace partner", and made the complete reform of the Palestinian Administration a pre-condition for the creation of any future Palestinian state, it still fell short of grabbing the ostrich by the toe-claws. There were, as ever before, carrots, but no sticks. This was not, of course, how the speech sounded to Palestinian and other Arab ears. Even a moderately favourable reviewer in the Egyptian media said it was a speech that would make the Arabs "lose sleep". It offers the Palestinians a reward for good behaviour -- the same that has been offered for three generations. If they will renounce terrorism, and promise to live in peace with an Israel whose permanent existence they recognize, they will get land, a state, and massive foreign aid. That's what they've always been promised. But what if they don't accept this? What if, as all indications remain, the great majority of Palestinians continue to support and indeed freely elect leaders committed to continuing the terrorist struggle until the Jews finally decamp from the last spit of sand on which they can still live within the vast Muslim world? What will the Palestinians then have to lose? Only what they have lost already: any expectation of a peaceful life. While it ill-suits a mere newspaper writer to suggest what the actual penalties should be, I must say that I really don't think the Palestinians or the Arabs at large will go for a reward that has long been on offer. They have proved willing to accept the status quo, and all the misery that goes with it, so long as they may keep their hope alive that some day, some how, Israel finally may be annihilated. There is no prospect of an "equal and opposite" loss.