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

To: kumar who wrote (101839)	6/17/2003 4:43:18 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 281500

An observation from the time I spent living in the ME : The arab people dont give 2 hoots about the Palestinians. Once in a while, there is a fundraising to "support our Palestinian brothers". The john doe there says "I've done my bit until the next fund raising effort - no longer my problem". It's no doubt about like what goes on in Cuba has no real effect on the lives of Americans, notably those of Latin American descent. At bottom the Israeli Palestinian territorial dispute is nobody's business but the occupants of the region itself, and without everyone cynically sticking their damn noses in the affair it would have been settled peacefully long ago instead of being the longest running diplomatic and journalistic soap opera in existence.

To: kumar who wrote (101839)	6/17/2003 5:36:04 PM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

The arab people dont give 2 hoots about the Palestinians. Once in a while, there is a fundraising to "support our Palestinian brothers". The john doe there says "I've done my bit until the next fund raising effort - no longer my problem" Yup. It has always been a political problem. Ordinary folk outside Palestine have their own serious problems mostly having to do with their (kleptocratic) governments. How can they lead sensible lives when the government takes up so much social and economic space? An awful lot of the "pro-Palestinian" rhetoric and action by ME governments is a response to the "pro-Palestinian" rhetoric from inside their countries which is coded criticism of their regimes by oppositions (which are mostly theocratic because religion is the only area government has left any head room). I think the most interesting thing about Iraq and Iran is that they show in their different ways final results of totally diminished political headroom. My suspicion is that the mullahs in Iraq who are pushing an extreme agenda will find their political influence diminishing as people see alternatives they can choose and I expect the Mullahs will attack the alternatives. The Palestinian-Israeli struggle would be much diminished in intensity if the Saudis, Syrians, Iranians and Egyptians were cut off from funding Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. The US can certainly get the Israelis to concentrate on diminishing the P-I intensity but it's very difficult to get the same sort of result on the Palestinian side when the unreasonable 20% of the population there is getting enormous support from outside, to such a degree they control most of the weapons, governmental structure and commerce there (a structure like those of most ME governments). I can't imagine that now they will be willing to give up their power and ideology on the basis of a negotiated settlement anymore than Saddam Hussein did. Be interesting to see what Bush can get out of the players the next while because it's in the interests of no one except the majority of Palestinian-Israelis that there be any peace. If there is no longer a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, then coded criticism of regimes and their response couched in "pro-Palestinian" rhetoric will no longer be available and the much tougher, direct approaches between citizens and regimes will remain with all the risks they entail.