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<DIV align=left dir=ltr><SPAN class=490184323-15062008><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial size=2>Until the so-called Palestinians are interested in co-existing
with Israel, in words -- English & Arabic -- and in deeds,
the peace process is a pipe-dream. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV align=left dir=ltr><SPAN class=490184323-15062008><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial size=2>Everyone is in favor of an un-divided Jerusalem, except Bush
& Rice; the only question is under whose sovereignty. And frankly, i'm
not sure where Obama is on that question.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV align=left dir=ltr><SPAN class=490184323-15062008><FONT color=#0000ff
face=Arial size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV align=left dir=ltr><SPAN class=490184323-15062008>
<DIV align=left><SPAN class=490184323-15062008>
<DIV align=left><FONT color=#000080 face=Script size=5><SPAN
class=490184323-15062008>greenBubble</SPAN></FONT></DIV></SPAN></SPAN></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>greenBubble, I knew you would have something to say along this line, but I
waited until you did, because it is not much use to throw out what I think
someone else is going to say and answer it before a person speaks for
themselves.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I take a long term view of all this. Only fifty or sixty years or so ago,
there were people high up in American government who had no use for Jews and
didn't care about Israel. They graduated from colleges where fraternities didn't
allow Negroes or Jews to join, and many didn't allow Catholics either. The
reason that changed was cold calculation of "what's in it for us", not
unrestrained enthusiasm for Israel. Establishing Israel as a nation was done
pretty much without U.S. military aid, in the teeth of British connivance with
such open fans of Adolf Hitler as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The original
"arab" cause was the cause of feudal landlords, brutal illiterate monarchs,
against an example they didn't want their own people to see: renewed
agriculture, productive industry built from the ground up, democratic
participation of everyone in public life... </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>...a rabbi who fought in the 1967 war tells me that after Israel seized the
West Bank, he was greeted by Arab residents who looked FORWARD to becoming
Israeli citizens, if only Israel had outright annexed the whole territory. It
might have worked. There is no question that the concentration of Palestinians
into brutal, overcrowded, refugee camps, living on a kind of welfare dole from
the UN, was the work of Gamel Abdel Nasser, King Hussein's father, and whoever
was dictator du jour in Syria, precisely because they WANTED to create an excuse
for continuing war against Isreal, for the most ulterior and cynical of
motives...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>...but fast forward to today, and the real life situation is that three,
four, five generations have grown up and learned their identity in this
"Palestinian" environment. To deny that is like teaching African Americans whose
great-great-grandparents moved north to live in the city that their identity is
somehow rooted in a rural county in southern Alabama. It's not...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>..."the people" are not the voices that make political deals. Politicians
and parties and organizations that claim to represent "the people" are. But who
and what "the people" will follow makes a big difference.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>If Israel cannot offer those people who have been defined as Palestinians,
and come to think of themselves as Palestinians, a reasonable hope of some sort
of life they can accept and appreciate, suicide bombers will continue to emerge,
with a sense of self-righteousness, from among those people who see no hope for
the future. If Hamas can clear criminal gangs off the street, provide some peace
and quiet, organize medical and social services that nobody else offered, people
will support Hamas. (I don't think you would disagree that the corruption and
nepotism inside Fatah is what made Hamas popular).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So Israel can either come to terms with the fact that this population of
people exists and has to be provided for, or can try to exterminate every last
one of them, or continue a state of pertetual war. As to U.S. policy, the
survival of Israel is indeed non-negotiable, but mindless assent to whatever
policy is pursued by whatever party won the last election and whatever sentiment
dominates in the civil service of Israel is not acceptable. Sometimes we may
have to say, this is what we support, and if you want to do something different,
you are on your own until your policy is closer to what we can work with. The
same goes for the Palestinian organizations. The Palestinian Authority would
collapse without American and European funding.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't expect such bold vision from either Obama or McCain. Its not
considered a politically safe thing to do if you want to win an American
election. But it would be a great president who found a way to implement policy
along these lines.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Siarlys</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>P.S. While nobody devoted to Jerusalem, Christian, Muslim or Jewish, really
wants to hear this, the only viable way to keep Jerusalem undivided is to
organize it as a political entity to which everyone has free access. The Dome of
the Rock isn't going away, neither is the Wailing Wall, nor those silly Greek
and Armenian priests who get into brawls over who is stepping onto whose section
in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Romans kicked the Jews out and named the
city Aelia Capitolina, Jews eagerly helped both Sassanians and the original
Muslim jihad take it from the Byzantines, and ultimately, if we don't want the
place to keep changing hands like that, it needs to be accessible to all of the
above (excepts the Sassanians, who are either refugee communities in India or
converts to Shia Islam in Iran).</DIV></BODY></HTML>
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