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

To: Lou Weed who wrote (227727)	4/18/2007 5:56:41 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Ireland had developed a business-friendly economy and was becoming prosperous. If the major Arab countries ever made a similar decision, peace could come to the Mideast very quickly.>> The Saudis benefit from the political fallout that the conflict provides. They are more than happy to let it fester and do nothing to resolve it. The Saudis are a massive part of the problem.....that is where our influence can help. I can only optimistically hope that will happen when we have a President who doesn't walk around his home hand-in-hand with Saudi royalty! For once, we are in agreement. To be fair, the Saudi alliance was one that GW Bush inherited. It has been the lynchpin of the Arabist State departments ME policy for 50 years: treat the ME as a gas station, prop up and protect the existing regimes no matter how corrupt or autocratic, so long as the oil flows. It occurred to some people around 9/11/01 that there were some serious problems with this policy. Even before that, it should have been clear that any policy that did not give us any leverage with the Saudis or other Arabs to support a real peace process was not going to work. George Bush came to office having seen Clinton's failure, and he was well aware that the Mideast conflict was a fire that the Arabs simultaneously poured gasoline onto while demanding that the Americans put it out. The prosperous development of Ireland was possible due to the non-involvment of Britain in the Republic's affairs and the massive influx of American corporate $$$$. Sigh. So close to the truth, so far from the correct conclusion. The massive influx of American corporate $$$ followed the implementation of investment-friendly taxes and government systems in Ireland, the sort of right-wing policies you hate, Michael. They resulted from a conscious decision in Dublin about what sort of country Ireland wanted to become. The potential of a comparable Palestinian economic growth would be impossible because of Israeli involvement, incredible poverty and basic geography. It never ceases to amaze me why people are so surprised that Hamas was elected as their leadership. They are the only organisation that are making any social improvements for them.....what an unfortunate situation No, Michael. Go look up Palestinian GDP figures from 1967 on, and you will see that the absolute high-water mark for the territories was in 1993 when Israel handed over control of all the towns to Arafat and his gangs, who promptly tanked the economy by half even before the 2nd intifada in 2000, where it nearly collapsed. Jordan invested nothing in the territories, Israel invested a lot, putting in water, electricity, allowing universities and banks and businesses to open, etc. From 1967 to 1993, Palestinian GDP in the territories grew by 9% or 10% per year. The Palestinian leadership, like other Arab leaderships, only knows how to operate in an economy of scarcity, where all the goodies are handed out by patronage. So that's what they put in. Fatah and Hamas are the same in this, only Hamas gave a little more to social services and was a little less corrupt than Fatah. Now that Hamas is in power, I'm sure that's changing. Nobody can kickstart the Palestinian economy, don't you get it? Nobody in the Palestinian leadership wants the engine to run! It's got nothing to do with geography. Gaza has beautiful beaches, you could turn the place into a second Phuket resort if the will was there - but you would have to give up the eternal jihad against the Jews and accept the existence of Israel to do it. Hamas isn't willing. Fatah isn't willing. After a generation of indoctrination and lack of contact with civilian Israelis, most young Palestinians aren't willing either. If you handed Hamas ten billion dollars in cash tomorrow, you wouldn't kick start their economy. You would just vastly improve their stock of armaments. Heaven help us all, how many times does this have to be demonstrated before you can understand the obvious? All those state-of-the-art greenhouses in Gaza that were bought out by well-meaning Americans and so carefully turned over to the Palestinians when the Israelis left, what happened to them? They were trashed, that's what happened. The Palestinians can have a prosperous economy, or they can have The Cause. They have chose The Cause. There is one constructive thing the world could do now, but it's just the opposite of what you want. They could stop the immense flow of welfare that enables the Palestinians to pursue jihad without having an economy. When you add up what the Pals get from the UN, from the NGOs, from Europe, from the US, from Israel (who even though they have held up tax payments, still provides Gaza and the WB with water and electricty), and let's not even discuss what they get from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and Iran, the Pals are the highest per-capita consumers of foreign aid on the planet. It just goes for subsistence, patronage, propaganada, arms and jihad. Economic development is not in the budget. But no. The people of Darfur can die by the million, but Palestinian suffering must be attended to. Ad secula seculorum, amen.