Now that Hamas has seized control of the Palestinian Authority...

[roo_ster]

Some folks just do not understand the concept of "no good options."  Their idealism and coddling has given them the impression that all problems can be solved if we just sit down & talk or someone tosses money at the problem.

At times, you just gotta choose which shiitty option from a list of shiitty options. 

[De Selby]

Actually, I agree as well that this may be the end of the PA and consequently the beginning of the end for statehood claims on the part of Palestinians.

Unfortunately, that also means a long term end to Israel.  Now that Palestinian authority structures are collapsing under the pressure, Israel may just move back in and continue to assert sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza.  But that leaves Israel with about a 50 percent Arab population. 

This is a really perverse example of the hard liners winning the battle and losing the war.  Right wing Israeli factions have been aiming for this for decades now on the theory that the Palestinians will, as rabbi put it, either be paid to leave or be shot.  That is fantasy-what is likely to happen is that Palestinians will end up with no viable statehood claims, living in and accepting an Israeli sphere of sovereignty. 

So what then? Keep half your population with no citizenship and no voting rights? Yeah right...

Destroying Hamas has made Israel less safe in the long run, not more safe, because now it faces the prospect of being stuck with choosing either apartheid or non-Jewish governance.

[K Frame]

Now that Hamas is out of control, I suspect that things will get a LOT better for the Palestinian Authority.

The US is already in the process of releasing the sanctions that were put in place when Hamas took control.

[De Selby]

Now that Hamas is out of control, I suspect that things will get a LOT better for the Palestinian Authority.

The US is already in the process of releasing the sanctions that were put in place when Hamas took control.

The problem is that most of what happens in Fath territory is aid and money go into a very few pockets, which is why Hamas won the election in the first place.

Even if some of the money makes it to the average joe, there's still no real authority there.  Abbas clearly doesn't have any-without Israeli presence, he'd probably be run out of the West Bank just like his cronies in Gaza. 

So in the end, what this means is a much lower chance of any viable Palestinian leadership.  Not good for either side, if you ask me.

[The Rabbi]

I think SS hit it right.  For the Israelis it is lose-lose.  If they take over the territory they still have 1.3M angry people they have to keep in check.  If they give it to the Palestinians, they have a corrupt gov't with little to no control over militias.  Their hope is that Jordan will take the W.Bank and Egypt the Gaza.  Dream on.  Those countries dont want millions of unruly Palestinians any more than anyone else.
Israel has utterly screwed this one up, leaving themselves no good options.  They should have gotten out front early for Palestinian statehood in a demilitarized state.  But hindsight is 20-20.

[De Selby]

They should have gotten out front early for Palestinian statehood in a demilitarized state.  But hindsight is 20-20.

Could not agree with you more there-A regional DMZ that included Syria, Jordan, and Egypt could probably have been negotiated to boot.

[Paddy]

So what then? Keep half your population with no citizenship and no voting rights? Yeah right...

The solution is to expel them.

If they take over the territory they still have 1.3M angry people they have to keep in check.  If they give it to the Palestinians, they have a corrupt gov't with little to no control over militias.  Their hope is that Jordan will take the W.Bank and Egypt the Gaza.  Dream on.  Those countries dont want millions of unruly Palestinians any more than anyone else.
Israel has utterly screwed this one up, leaving themselves no good options.  They should have gotten out front early for Palestinian statehood in a demilitarized state.  But hindsight is 20-20.

Well, ya know, Rabbi, at some point one comes to the conclusion that survival trumps political expediency.  Does Israel have the balls to avoid another Holocaust?  I say they do, and on that day it will truly suck to be Arab.

[The Rabbi]

Pictures of Israeli troops rounding up and/or shooting unarmed Arabs will probably trigger a regional war, with some nuclear possibilities.
Won't happen.
Israelis dont have the will or desire to do that.  Even Sharon didnt advocate that even before he became PM.

[roo_ster]

I am reminded of something written by George Orwell:

"You cannot be objective about an aerial torpedo. And the horror we feel of these things has led to this conclusion: if someone drops a bomb on your mother, go and drop two bombs on his mother. The only apparent alternatives are to smash dwelling houses to powder, blow out human entrails and burn holes in children with thermite, or to be enslaved by people who are more ready to do these things than you are yourself; as yet no one has suggested a practicable way out."
----George Orwell, reviewing Arthur Koestler's Spanish Testament for the magazine Time and Tide, Feb. 5, 1938

The arabs/Palestinians/whatever have had several real, on the up-in-up offers from the Israelis, some of which included no-bull concessions (land, money, authority, etc.) by the state of Israel.  The Palestinian response has been variations of, "Eat sh*t and die, mother******."  IOW, the Plais have demonstrated they can not live in peace with Israel.

This problem is not an exercise in market economics, where it is possible for both to win or benefit.  Someone will control the land & someone will end up wandering elsewhere or dead.  The Israelis have the power to decide if they will remain a Jewish state or not.  If they do not muster the will, they will end up dead (genocide) or wandering, again (diaspora*). 

As to arab/muslim reaction to a possible Palestinian diaspora, only Jordan or Egypt would likely exercise real aggression.  The other countries just don't care enough about them to risk an existential confrontation with Israel.  If they cared, the Palis would have been settled decades ago or provided assistance orders of magnitude greater then they have received.  Other.  Arabs.  Just.  Don't.  Care.  Enough.

There are no good options, where all can live in peace.  In reality, there never were any, but Israel had to try.  So much for all those efforts.



* This prospective diaspora would be even nastier than the Roman-instigated one 2000 years ago.  The slow movement of news and undeveloped nature of much of the world worked in the Jews favor.  After a century and a half of concerted effort to undermine Western Civ and the liberal, modern, accommodationist Christianity by Ashkenazi and secularist/anti-Western gentiles, the moral hollowing out/degradation of Western, liberal civilization is nearly complete.  The West's elites are as hostile toward Israel & Jews as they were against the Afrikaners.  I would not expect the West (outside of a still partially idealistic USA) to accommodate any such mass of Israeli refugees.  Russia, China, and India would also pass.  About the best option would be a takeover of some lunatic sub-Saharan country or mass settlement in South America.

[De Selby]

The arabs/Palestinians/whatever have had several real, on the up-in-up offers from the Israelis,

Which offers would those have been? I don't think there's ever been a remotely realistic one.  The plan has for at least 20 years now been "pay them to leave or shoot them" by all appearances.

As to arab/muslim reaction to a possible Palestinian diaspora, only Jordan or Egypt would likely exercise real aggression.  The other countries just don't care enough about them to risk an existential confrontation with Israel.  If they cared, the Palis would have been settled decades ago or provided assistance orders of magnitude greater then they have received.  Other.  Arabs.  Just.  Don't.  Care.  Enough.

This would be a grave miscalculation on Israel's part.  In fact, other arabs do care-but there are effective enough secret police forces to keep a lid on them.  There is absolutely no imaginable scenario in which Israel starts a new holocaust against the Palestinians, and the Asads, Abdullahs, and Mubaraks survive.  The next step will likely be rapid nuclearization in the Arab states (already happening in Iran)...and that my friend is the beginning of the end.

It's entirely possible that some in Israel are thinking this though, and I sure hope they don't give it a try.

[roo_ster]

Who is going to depose the Arab (1) leaders who shrug off (2) the dispersion of the Palis?  The "Arab Street?"  Please.  The "Arab Street" exists to be manipulated.  It has no power and nobody other than Western journalists and their gullible viewers care what the "Arab Street" is doing.  The fate of the "Arab Street" is intertwined with Bread, Circuses, and Two Minutes Hate for Western journos to capture.

I did, however mention Egypt & Jordan as possibly responding with a furor.  They will take it in the face when hundreds of thousands of Gaza/Hamastan death-cultists pour into their lands.  Lebanon will get a bunch, too, but will not/can not react with anything more effective than harsh language. 

Face it: no one really gives a rat's ass about the Palis (3).  They have shown themselves thoroughly despicable and unworthy of sympathy.  The other Arab leaders use them as a pawn and a foil in the Evil Israeli/Good Pali drama play they feed their population.  Fellow non-arab muslims do about the same, but at lesser intensity.  There is some sympathy in the Western hippy-dippy enclaves, but most are as effective in pushng the Pali cause as they are of finding gainful employment.  Saint Pancake is the best they could do.

As for concrete acts by the Israeli gov't:
1. Oslo
2. (Clinton's) Camp David
3. Withdrawal from S Lebanon
4. Withdrawal from Gaza

A receptive group might have seized on those opportunities and made something of them.  The Palis, however, chose otherwise.

(1) Nobody outside the Arab world will do much of anything outside of economic sanctions, not even other muslim countries.  There will be lots of aggressive & empty talk.

(2) After the requisite display of bluster and frenzied denunciations.

(3) Other than a good portion of the Israelis and the State of Israel, who have performed the only substantive acts in order to solve the problem in a civlized, decent manner. 

[De Selby]

Well, there are certainly some in Israel who agree with your analysis.

It's a frightening prospect, to say the least.  Those arab "leaders" are on shakey ground as it is-so yeah, the "Arab street" would likely destroy them in your scenario.  And then there's the whole nuclear element-the Saudis in particular are quite capable of developing nuclear weapons should they so choose.

They have shown themselves thoroughly despicable and unworthy of sympathy.

Maybe to you, but most of the world does not see it that way.  This includes a large portion of the Israeli population.

As for concrete acts by the Israeli gov't:
1. Oslo
2. (Clinton's) Camp David
3. Withdrawal from S Lebanon
4. Withdrawal from Gaza

I don't see a "concrete offer" to the Palestinians of anything there.  Oslo did not offer anything except the possibiltiy of talks with Yasser Arafat.  It was followed by a huge boom in settlement building.

Camp David was just like Oslo-no offer except the offer to talk later.

The withdrawl from South Lebanon had zero to do with offering something to the Palestinians.  It didn't even involve Palestinians.

The withdrawl from Gaza was a security operation.  They did not leave Gaza sovereign

[Paddy]

shootinstudent, you must be a student of Arab apologetics. If you paid for your 'education' I think you should ask for a refund. 

Israel has repeatedly and continually offered the so-called 'Palestinians' everything they've asked for.  It's either been refused or the agreement broken by the terrorist loving Palis.  All they (and the rest of the Arab world) is interested in doing is 'driving the Jews into the sea'.   I think the world is getting a little tired of the Arab rabble.

[jselvy]

I still don't think its any of our business what Israel and Palestine get up to. Its their war let them settle it without our interference.

Jefferson

[The Rabbi]

The arabs/Palestinians/whatever have had several real, on the up-in-up offers from the Israelis,

Which offers would those have been? I don't think there's ever been a remotely realistic one.  The plan has for at least 20 years now been "pay them to leave or shoot them" by all appearances.

Clinton engineered a deal where Barak offered Arafat a Palestinian state with E.Jerusalem as its capital, along with Israeli withdrawl from most of the WB maybe as far as the Green Line.
It was astounding.  I suggested Barak offered it knowing that Arafat would not accept even that.  Others thought Barak had just given in to Clinton's blandishments.  Whatever it was, it provoked outrage in Zionist circles that Israel would concede that much to sworn enemies.
On cue, Arafat turned it down and started up the intifada again.
No, the Palestinians could have had virtually everything they wanted as long as they gave up trying to destroy Israel.  They have turned down every offer.  Given the violence and corruption among PA entities they will do everything they can to deflect attention from themselves and on to Israel.

[De Selby]

Rabbi,

While I agree with you that Arafat was not genuine at all peace accords he attended (and how could he be-he had no real authority to deliver), I don't think it's fair to characterize camp david as a big offer.  Jerusalem, for example, was definitely not on the table.  In fact, Barak's offer was to annex more settlements into Jerusalem as part of the deal:

PM BARAK: We have considered, and some ideas were raised, that in order to make Jerusalem wider and stronger than at any time, in any previous time in the history of the city, we should consider annexing to Jerusalem cities within the West Bank beyond the '67 border, like Maale Adumin and Givat Ze'ev and Gush Etzion, and in exchange for this to give to the Palestinians the sovereignty over certain villages or small cities that had been annexed to Jerusalem just after '67. These ideas were raised, they were contemplated. But as the whole summit was run under the rules of "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," even those ideas are now null and void.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches%20by%20Israeli%20leaders/2000/Statement%20by%20PM%20Barak%20on%20Conclusion%20of%20the%20Camp%20Da

There are some more statements to that effect:

I embarked to try and strengthen Jerusalem, our capital, to enlarge and buttress it for generations to come with a firm Jewish majoriy.

I embarked to try and ensure that a majority of the settlers in Judea and Samaria would for the first time live under Israeli sovereignty.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches%20by%20Israeli%20leaders/2000/Statement%20by%20PM%20Barak%20on%20his%20return%20from%20Camp%20Davi

Unfortunately, both sides of this conflict are married to the extremists, settlers on the Israeli side and the no-Israel-no-deals bombers on the Palestinian side.

Both sides need leadership changes-more accountable and honest leaders in Israel as well as in the PA to solve this problem.  It's surely not realistic in the PA, and doubtful in Israel.

[The Rabbi]

No, I am sorry.  Your attempts at showing both sides to be equal will not wash.  Israel is not enthralled to the settlers, as witnessed by the abandonment of the Gaza and Gush Katif.  This move was opposed in the strongest terms by the settlers and supported by the majority of Israelis.
Arafat had the best offer he was going to get.   E.Jerusalem was definitely on the table.  He turned it down.  Flat.  The Palestinians have no interest in a peace that does not involve the destruction of Israel.