July 25, 2004, The Chain Gang
There are those (including on occasion myself) who mistakenly believe that Israeli public opinion by and large would favor a pull-back to the '48 borders if it brought about permanent peace. I have come to realize this is a romantic myth. Today's largeish demonstration in Israel, a human chain 50-miles and 150,000 people long, to protest Sharon's disengagement "plans" (there are no real, actual disengagement plans, of course-- they are all rhetorical), tells us that the settlements continue to merrily expand because they are popular among Israelis.
As I have pointed out (as long noted by Diana Moon), Israelis are far less upset about getting children and other civilians blown up inside of Israel "proper", as opposed to getting soldiers in uniform blown up anywhere. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that they are willing to publicly (and dramatically) back the thing that is getting them blown up: settlements.
Its not like the Palestinians make it any easier, of course. Suicide bombings aside, by embracing the criminal Arafat, and by holding on to their own irridentist dreams of "Palestine" from the Jordan to the Med don't give the Israelis any more reason to feel comfortable with them having their own formal country. But I would guess that, when not confronted by Arafat's criminal gangs (and hence required to spout the party line) more Palestinians would probably be realistic enough to note that their political aspirations would be a viable, sovereign state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip than Israelis who would be willing to give up "Greater Eretz Yisrael" based on some 4,000 year old Biblical model (as opposed to recognizing 21st Century political reality and international law) .
In short, I am now officially willing to give you 150,000 Israelis in a human link (nearly 3% of the Jewish population, and a number representing around 50% of the settlements population) as Exhibit A of my new thesis: the situation over there is hopeless. The Talking Dog's once tongue-in-cheek plan of making both Israel and Palestine American states (like New Jersey and Michigan) may be the best answer for everyone. The Israeli and Palestinian people will not work this out on their own. Its official.
Comments
If you can guarantee me that the money flow from Washington to the two new states will be less than it currently is to the two entities...besides, isn't it more like Vermont and New Hampshire, geographically speaking?
Posted by Linkmeister at July 25, 2004 01:13 PM
"John Edwards Revealed To Be Former Family Feud Host"
Unconfirmed rumors state that Vice Presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards is actually former Family Feud host Ray Combs, who supposedly died in 1996. With both Bush and Kerry distantly related, this item could not be more appropriate.
Posted by Fatt Nudge at July 25, 2004 02:53 PM
Linkmeister Steve:
That was one of my main reasons for suggesting it-- money. Instead of money permanently flowing out of the Treasury, we'd finally have money flowing IN to the Treasury from that particular region. AND the Israelis would get a tax reduction! AND we would have our permanent regional military bases in the Middle East once and for all-- we wouldn't need as many damned air craft carriers and could get the hell out of places like Saudi and Iraq and the Gulf States... AND the Palestinians could have American style rule of law (ditto the Israelis)-- which, if nothing else, is far better than what they have. PLUS-- they could have the absolute religious freedom each group craves-- albeit in the context of a fundamentalist Christian Protestant country... but with a decent-sounding Constitution! (Israel doesn't even HAVE one of those.) I picked New Jersey because its the same size as Israel geographically, and has lots of Jews; I picked Michigan because it (Dearborn, anyway) has lots of Arabs.
F.N.: Right idea, wrong guy. Edwards is actually Three's Company star John Ritter, alleged to have died earler this year.
Posted by the talking dog at July 25, 2004 03:02 PM
Gosh and there's me thinking Americans always go for simplistic solutions to world problems. How could I have got
that idea?
Posted by Ron Wells at July 25, 2004 03:38 PM
[and the day will come when Isreal will be as a stone around the world throat, and all the nations of the world will gather against her](paraphrased for that book that starts with a "Z"... it's been along time since bible-school)
Posted by Thomas Ware at July 25, 2004 07:24 PM
I dunno about statehood, TD--couldn't we get away with Territorial status? The tourism brochures write themselves: "Palestine--It's the new Guam!"
Posted by mamayo at July 26, 2004 12:25 PM
Whoa, whoa, there...
RW--
Americans are a simple-minded people. Make the ideas hard, and they'll just change the channel!
TW--
No apocalyptic forebodings in comments, please (those are reserved for the main text). Also-- when making references to books that start with "Z." (if its what I'm thinking of, Z commences the LAST word in the title, actually), please be sure to spell Israel correctly... a before e...
MAM--
Guam is ostensibly a military base with some beaches (very popular among Koreans, for some reason, and Japanese, of course). No-- the problem with the West Bank and Gaza is that they are ALREADY "territories"-- as in the "Occupied Territories". No, we MUST have a Palestinian state (possibly two-- Gaza could be a separate state... license-plates might say "You've got a friend in Hamas"; Israel's would be "the Jewish State"; West Bank or West Bank plus Gaza might be "the Palestinian State".)
In all seriousness, my friend Michael Jaliman (he publicly and formally announced his run for Congress today, so I'll use his real name; he ALSO came up with "Club Med for Dictators", btw) proposed literally "re-mandating" Palestine... more or less, the entire Gaza and West Bank should be handed to an international supervisory group consisting of the United States and the two former "mandate" states (Britain and Turkey), with a period of self-government under international mandate... probably 5 or 10 years or however long it takes for Arafat to die... followed by actual independent status. Its as good an idea as any.
Although my idea is less preposterous than you might think. Right now, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have just told us that they think the status quo-- including millions of desperate Arabs living under a rather heavy-handed Israeli thumb, while Israeli Jews slowly but surely usurp the decent land-- is just peachy keen with them-- even if the occasional school-bus or restaurant gets massacred. The sad thing is, I have no doubt whatsoever that Americans would make exactly the same (insane) choice.
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