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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (99851)	6/2/2003 3:15:13 AM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<<But the security fence will take on a much more painful function. It will keep out illegal Palestinian workers looking for a day’s wage in Israel to feed their hungry families. Security forces have rounded up tens of thousands over the past two and a half years and shipped them back to the Palestinian areas. Nowadays they are not fined since they have no money, nor held in jail since Israel does not want to feed and look after them. And after all they did not really commit a ‘crime’. The economic pressure will become intolerable as they will not be able to cross the fence. >>> Finally, at long last, and 50 years of trying the two sides decided they can not get along. No more talk, no more changing lines on a map Something in position, visible, something ahhhhhhhhhh, concrete Palestinians wanting work in Israel can earn their Green cards by good behavior. Israelis can put a Freeway along their side, with some fancy homes, swimming pools and a few golf courses. Palestinians can sit in their homes and wonder why the money from Syria and Saddam has stopped coming and they barely have enough to eat , much less to buy more explosives for their kids. Sig@whathappenedtorichuncle.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (99851)	6/2/2003 11:12:20 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Interesting piece but if it represents the actual calculations of the Israeli government, then there is one mistake that could be a rather large problem. Cynical but true, resistance functions best when a population is one or two levels above destitution, meaning there is still enough to eat and get by. That statement is debatable, at best. The social science literature generated from the middle 60s into the middle 80s carried the notion of the infamous J curve. That is a population was most ready for mobilization into resistance when a period of rising expectations ended. That's the current state of play among the Palestinians at the moment. So, if one of the aims of the fence, is to reduce the Palestinians to further economic desparation and thus to reduce their willingness to engage in acts of resistance, that aim doesn't fit with the literature. It may or may not work but, as the saying goes, given the past, I wouldn't bet on it. Thus, I'm afraid I still see the actions of the respective leaders, including Bush, as within the Algerian metaphor. I don't like that and wish something else, more hopeful, would emerge.