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Politics : Middle East Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: rrufff who wrote (6120)	4/20/2004 9:46:34 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6945

"We wasted three years for nothing, this uprising didn't accomplish anything," The violence that the Palestinian leaders and foreign "anti-zionists" have fostered has been disastrous for Palestinians and they know it: Recent P.A. figures show that 84% of the Palestinian population lives in poverty, as defined by the World Bank, four times the number that did so before the Palestinians stepped up the violence in late 2000. P.A. residents number 3.5 million and their economy produces $2.5 billion a year, meaning the average per capita income is $700 a year. A World Bank study in 2003 found that investment in the P.A. declined to $140 million in 2002 from about $1.5 billion in 1999. The United Nations found in 2003 that Palestinians have turned to subsistence agriculture — growing their own food — in place of the more sophisticated work they had previously been doing. Commenting on the situation, the U.N. special envoy to the region, Terje Roed-Larsen, describes the Palestinian economy as "devastated." This has led some analysts deeply hostile to Israel to recognize that the "second intifada" was a grievous error. Violence "just went haywire," says Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University. An "unmitigated disaster," journalist Graham Usher calls it a "crime against the Palestinian people," adds an Arab diplomat. After the execution of Hamas's other leader, Ahmed Yassin, last month, 60 prominent Palestinians urged restraint in a newspaper ad, arguing that violence would provoke strong Israeli responses that would obstruct aspirations to build an independent "Palestine." Instead, the signatories called for "a peaceful, wise intifada." Ordinary Palestinians, too, are drawing the salutary conclusion that murdering Israelis brings them no benefits. "We wasted three years for nothing, this uprising didn't accomplish anything," says Mahar Tarhir, 25, an aluminum-store owner." Anger and disillusionment have replaced the fighting spirit that once propelled the Palestinian movement," finds Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a reporter for Knight Ridder. As for Israelis, as early as July 2003 the military brass reached the conclusion that Israel was achieving victory. More sharply, Israeli analyst Asher Susser concluded in the Middle East Quarterly back then that the Palestinian effort to break the Israeli spirit through terror "has failed" and resorting to force "was a catastrophic mistake, the worst the Palestinians have made since 1948." In this context, rapidly eliminating two Hamas chieftains in a row deepens Palestinian perceptions that Israel's will to defend itself is strong, its military arm long, and that terrorism is tactically wrong. Perhaps more Palestinians will realize the time has come to accept the existence of the Jewish state.