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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (52231)	10/15/2002 3:50:41 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hawk, Still got your finger on the caps lock, huh. You and I are talking at cross purposes. I've seen the history you offered both in that version and in countless other ones. I'm not interested in redoing it. I'm rather interested in where we go from here. My position in all this is not that Arafat is a noble guy and Sharon is not; it's that there are at least two possible scenarios going forward from here, at least on the Palestinian side, assuming that Arafat is gone (and I can see no reason to think otherwise). The first is that Arafat's leaving puts in place a secular leadership in the PA, that retains its grip on power, that will negotiate with the Sharon govt, and that the same govt is willing to negotiate with. A second scenario is that Hamas, plus other Islamist groups, grab power, that ratchets up the violence and drives Israeli politics even further to the right, such that zealots are in control on both sides. Disaster. I have no serious idea which is likely to eventuate. But I do think the Sharon govt's present policies of going after Arafat (a) strengthen Arafat, which is definitely not a Sharon goal and (b) increase the anger in the general Palestinian population such that it is more willing to support the Islamists. That, at least is my fear. See, I typed all that without once hitting the caps lock key. I bet you could do the same, if you tried.