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

To: zonder who wrote (50205)	10/8/2002 12:08:34 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

(armed with stones and homemade bombs, and a few rifles) It's not a few rifles. Arafat got a "police force" of 24,000 under Oslo, armed with M-16s. He then doubled its size in violation of the accords. This was the force that Arafat was supposed to use to put down Hamas. Needless to say, he didn't use it for that, he just put down his political opposition. Not to mention the Tanzim, Al Aqda, and the Islamists, Hamas et. al. No question that the Israelis are better armed and organized. But the Palestinians do not have some rag-tag force armed only with smuggled arms as you imply. They have an army. If it's not well organized that's due to their internal troubles. That it's generally avoided pitched battles (except a few between Hamas and the PA, one of which just happened two days ago) is due to the little sense they have left -- they know they can't match the Israelis. My point is just that it is wrong to say "Look at Kurds - they were occupied and oppressed but they never acted like the Palestinians". Again, I was not trying to compare the suffering or even the tactics. My point was that the Kurds managed at the end of the day to keep their strategic goals clear. They want independence, and if they can't swing that, they'll cut a deal for autonomy. If the Palestinians had been anything like as practical they would have had a sovereign state by now.