Who Killed Palestine?

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS

Who Killed Palestine?
June 26, 2007; Page A14

(snip)

No matter how much diplomatic, military and financial oxygen is pumped into Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, it's oxygen flowing to a corpse. Palestine has always been a notional place, a field of dreams belonging only to those who know how to keep it. Israelis have held on to their state because they were able to develop the political, military and economic institutions that a state requires to survive, beginning with its monopoly on the use of legitimate force. In its nearly 14 years as an autonomous entity, the PA has succeeded in none of that, despite being on the receiving end of unprecedented international good will and largesse.


Hamas's seizure of the Gaza Strip this month -- and the consequent division of the PA into two hostile, geographically distinct camps -- is only the latest in a chain of events set in motion when Israel agreed, in September 1993, to accept Arafat and the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. An early indicator of what lay ahead took place on July 1, 1994, when Arafat made his triumphal entry into Gaza while carrying, in the trunk of his Mercedes, four of the Palestinian cause's most violent partisans. Among them were the organizers of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the 1974 Ma'alot school massacre. If ever there was an apt metaphor for what Arafat's rule would bring, this was it.

Arafat was determined to use Gaza and the West Bank as a staging ground for attacks against Israel, and he said so publicly and repeatedly: "O Haifa, O Jerusalem, you are returning, you are returning" (1995); "We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion" (1996); "With blood and spirit we will redeem you, Palestine" (1997). With equal determination, the Clinton administration and the Israeli governments of Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak treated Arafat's remarks as only so much rhetorical bluster.

(snip)

As with individuals, nations generally benefit from self-criticism, and sometimes from the criticism of others. No people in modern history have been so immune from both as the Palestinians. In 1999, Abdel Sattar Kassem, a professor of political science in the Palestinian city of Nablus, put his name to the "petition of the 20," written to "stand against tyranny and corruption." Arafat imprisoned him; the rest of the world barely took notice. Arafat's global popularity reached its apogee in the spring of 2002, exactly at the same time the civilian Israeli death toll from terrorism reached its height.

(snip)

Above all, Arafat equated territory with power. But what the experience of an unoccupied Gaza Strip has shown is the Palestinians' unfitness for political sovereignty. There are no Jewish settlers to blame for Gaza's plight anymore, no Israeli soldiers to be filmed demolishing Palestinian homes.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118282085756547922.html (subscription)

[razzleberry]

1. non-contiguous Islamic country, not going to work

United Arab Republic
East and West Pakistan

there will always be some hothead in the
lesser 'country' who wants to be president.

........................
is there any reason for Gaza and W.B. not to
split up? I assume there is some strongman
in charge of Gaza. Do you think
he wants to give that job up?
I don't think so.
To get rid of him,
you have to kill him.

[question everything]

4. Like Hong Kong

Many years ago, before the extremists took over Gaza, I was thinking that it could be like Hong Kong. A center of duty free products and a center of commerce and finance.

But there ought to be a desire for people to better their lives while engaging in productive activity.

But as long as there are flaming groups convincing the rest of them - by force, bribe or some kind of warped reason - that fighting and dying and suicide bombing is better than the oh so boring settling down and making a living, nothing will be achieved.

I think that this is something that the other Arab countries, as well as Israel, Egypt and the US can work on - if they will put their mind to it.

This means that Egypt and the oil rich countries will have to stop flaming the hatred and the revenge against Israel - as means to deflect any domestic unrest.

[Scurrilous]

2. There Is No Such Thing as Palestinians

<snip>

"In today's Wall Street Journal, editorial page editor, Brett Stephens celebrates the end of Palestine.

"Palestine," as we know it today, will revert to what it was--shadowland between Israel and its neighbors--and Palestinians, as we know them today, will revert to who they were: Arabs.

"Whether there might have been a better outcome is anyone's guess. But the dream that was Palestine is finally dead."

Marty Peretz, the Harvard TA who destroyed the New Republic, says the same thing. He is dancing the hora over the end of the two-state solution.

Pretty soon the entire neocon crowd will be publishing the same talking points.

Of course, it is BS. Four million people are not disappearing nor is their dream of full self-rule.

Ignored, they will simply find a way to burst back into our consciousness and even neocons will have no choice but to notice."

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jun/26/there_is_no_such_thing_as_palestinians

[pelsar]

3. self identity..

doesnt disappear.....that fantasy is similar to the "one state solution" both wish for the self identity of the societies to suddenly disappear-aint gonna happen

[question everything]

5. But keeping self identiy by means of killing and hatred

and constant flaming can only lead to self destruction - as the Irish finally realized and, as perhaps, someday, the Iraqis will. On the other hand, many think that the solution for Iraq is to undo the arbitrary borders drawing done by the British and to divide the country into three. And perhaps this is what is happening, will happen, with the West Bank and Gaza.

But, they have to determine what they mean by self identity. Hatred and revenge alone cannot do.

[pelsar]

9. the irish havent stop identifying as "irish"

and if iraq is divided into 3 it just means their own identities as shiite, kurd, etc are far more stronger than the "national identity" of iraq.....which is fine. Those lines drawn in the sand in iraq or in the "jungles" of africa so ignored identities that the resulting wars were probably inevitable.

and gaza and the westbank?....probably best kept separated, (perhaps as some kind of federation). The two cultures are in fact different and they were "put together" by outsiders (in this case the arabs nationalists).

there is nothing wrong with them being separate..which is in fact what they are now.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tom Joad]

6. what is this *snip* shit?? Why can't we read the whole article in order to evaluate it?

If we can't read the whole thing, it shouldn't be here.
Haven't we got loads of anti-Palestinian hate sites to glean all sorts of material without resorting to articles that are only available to a few participants?
Or can the posters of these articles share their access information?

[Lithos]

7. Here

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010259

[pelsar]

8. its not "anti palestenain"...

its a realistic view of the legacy of arafat, the "backfiring" of the use of suicide bombers"....and the result of ignoring what a societies responsabilities are to its own people......



http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010259

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. Bret Stephens is an extremist Neocon nut

I urge anyone to look up the other stuff he has written and they will very quickly see what I mean.

[Tom Joad]

11. MJ Rosenberg rips him apart. See this....

Post Here

that he is seen here as a voice of reason is a bit disturbing, if not unexpected.