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

To: goldsnow who wrote (113)	7/7/2002 3:58:16 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3959

Certainly and gladly Goldsnow. Sorry I didn't and thanks for asking. A people's movement is certainly more powerful than a movement which is restricted to a narrow band of a troika and a group of followers. The Al Qaeda movement does not have broad support (where are the women in that movement). The Al Qaeda folks, since they did not have mass following were restricted to living in the caves and conducting their campaign from there with support from the one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar and his Taliban folks. The Palestenian movement, on the other hand, does not center around one man such as Arafat. Arafat, instead is a personification and symbol of the Palestenian mass movement. He indeed has the power to cast himself in the role of Gandhi. Gandhi led a mass movement which was non-violent in nature unlike Arafat's lead of violence. The Indian people put Gandhi there. Similarly, the Palestenian people put Arafat there and possibly they will keep him there. There are reports that even though he fired the security chief Rajoub, Rajoub who was initially angry at Arafat for his sacking has since rallied behind him. That to me is the sign of a mass movement. Hence to solve the Middle East crisis, we need to solve both the need for a Israeli homeland whose existence is recognized by its neighbors as well as the needs of the Palestenians for their own country. Bush's proposal does not address those two needs. Instead all the world got from his message is remove Arafat which stated differently means "I don't care about your mass movement" In order to solve the problem, he could have set a timeline too for what next for the Palestenians if they decide to move Arafat aside. Since Arafat symbolizes what they want, he should have mentioned that removing Arafat would not be the end of their movement but instead the beginning of this, this and this by this time, and this time etc. And that is the problem he needs to address. Palestine is not Afghanistan, PLO is not Taliban and Hamas is not Al Qaeda. PLO takes part in elections, Hamas folks do not live in the caves. End of my sermon and thanks for having the patience to read it through thus far.