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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69400)	9/11/2004 10:40:03 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793957

If you start the story in 1970, maybe. They had precious few choices before that, and since the ones they had after that were largely created by terror, it’s no real surprise that some of them thought more and better terror might get them more and better choices How about if I start the story in 1920 with the rise of the Mufti? There were plenty of compromises open to the Palestinians then. But they had a leadership that consolidated its power by assassination, and not only intimidated the moderates who would have at least tried negotiations, it effectively prevented Palestinian Arab society from organizing itself. The strategy was terror and banditry by the Mufti's village fighters. It's certainly true that the Mufti's successes only convinced him he was on a winning track. Ideology provides the leaders. Desperation provides the footsoldiers, and in most cases an antagonist: desperation is usually fairly easy to attribute, honestly or not, to an outside agent You're saying that conditions that foment revolutionary movements are necessary to provide a recruiting base for the ideology. But "desperation" is still the wrong word. Places of real desperation do not foment revolutions. People are too busy trying to get enough to eat to have time for ideology in those places. No, the conditions you really want are of rising expectations which have been frustrated. 18th century France fit the bill. So does the Arab world today.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (69400)	9/12/2004 1:57:28 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793957

A good quote from from Uri Elitzur’s column in the weekend edition of Yediot Aharonot, as translated by Israeli blogger Imshin. I know you won't believe it. But it explains so much about Palestinian and Islamist decision making: No. The occupation is not the cause of terrorism, and the end of the occupation is not the goal of terrorism. This is all in our heads, but the mindset of terrorism is completely different. Palestinian terrorism isn’t interested in winning so as to create a state. It wants to create a state so as to win. Ehud Barak offered them a state without winning, and they turned it down in panic. They don’t want to create a state; they want to destroy a state. If a Palestinian state is necessary in order to destroy the State of Israel, so be it. But don’t confuse the means with the end. It is the same with Chechen terrorism, and of course the Muslim terrorism in America. Its purpose is not to end any occupation, or to create any state. Its purpose is to destroy and terrorize so as to destroy and terrorize. This goal is so arousing and exciting, and seems so attainable, that young educated people are prepared to die for it. Fanatic Islam is not a new invention. It is a dormant volcano that has erupted in the past, but has been sleeping now for hundreds of years, till something in this time, in this decade, caused it to awaken and again spurt fire and smoke. What is it? This question brings us back to Russia. The fall of the Soviet Union left a void that someone is going to fill. At the moment, temporarily, the United States is the sole world power. The slot of the second world power is empty, and this is an unnatural situation. Someone has to fill the part, and Islam is contending for it. This is an arousing and exciting goal, one worth dying for: the growth of the Islamic World Power, as an equal adversary of the American World Power. Not every youth that puts on a bomb belt is aware of this definition of his goal, but even subconsciously he senses that something huge is happening, and he is its servant. This is a deep, primitive gut feeling, rolling like the echo of tam-tam drums between the countries of Islam and the various focal points of terrorism. You have to be a bit primitive to pick this up and understand what is happening. This is why George Bush and Vladimir Putin understand. This is why most of the decision makers in Israel do not grasp it at all. imshin.blogspot.com