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

To: SirRealist who wrote (40664)	8/28/2002 9:46:49 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi SirRealist; Re: "A better outcome would be a change from within each of those societies, which could sew democratic seeds in more fertile grounds." In order to make ground fertile we all know (or at least after these many thousand years we should in our genes know) that the way to do this is to plow the ground. --Carl@theearthwormfearstheharrow.com

To: SirRealist who wrote (40664)	8/28/2002 10:00:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As a followup, a few notes on the current Israeli/Pal situation, gleaned from various papers and articles. The 'Gaza-Bethlehem first' withdrawal and cease-fire seems to be holding, tenuously. Of course we must define what we mean by 'cease-fire' in the present state of affairs. It means that the Pals are making fewer attacks, and the Israelis have agreed not to assassinate anybody higher-up right now, just 'ticking bombs'. This is all unofficial, of course. Fatah and Hamas and Al Aqsa have NOT agreed, but apparently the new PA finance minister, Yahiyeh, whom everybody thought was a cipher when he was first appointed, is getting some cooperation. Meantime, the various Pal groups, who were meeting last week to define what the goals of the intifada are now, disbanded without arriving at a definition. The unwritten subtext of this is that they know that their present efforts are failing. The Americans won't talk to them, the Israeli government and people are holding together (and have moved sharply to the right), and now the eyes of America and the whole Arab world are on Iraq, not Palestine at all. The corollary to this observation is that if there is a big attack now, the chances that it will be answered by a real clobbering, such as a full scale IDF invasion of Gaza, have risen significantly. On that note, the new Israeli Chief of Staff, Ya'alon, made a speech, the gist of which was, this is not some interregnum of violence before we get back to the real business of diplomacy; this is a war, and job one is to win it. This was widely noted in Israeli papers because neither PM Sharon nor DM Ben Eliezer have been talking this way to date. So for want of anything else significant to report, reporters are describing each side's judicial pecadilloes, reserving as usual more outrage for Israel's. There were two incidents this week, one Israeli, one Palestinian. On the Israeli side, there is discussion in the Knesset over a proposal to strip Israeli Arabs of their citizenship if they are convicted of taking part in terrorism, with some members calling to demolish their houses as is done in the territories. The BBC let Ahmed Tibi (an Arab MK) vent over that one. On the Palestinian side, the PA tortured a teen-age boy into implicating his own mother as a collaborator. The PA then videotaped her "confession" and summarily executed her. The BBC didn't bother to report that one, but NPR actually did, though Linda Gradstein as usual gave the Palestinians the last word (they decried Israel's recruitment of collaborators. No mention of the PA's recruitment of suicide bombers, natch.) Just two sides, each with their little pecadilloes.