Monday, July 10, 2006

The Palestinians and the Abyss

Barry Rubin, writing in the Jerusalem Post, contributes an important summary of the hopeless reality of Palestinian politics and culture. He concludes:
THIS IS A losing strategy: Destroy your infrastructure, subvert international and even Arab support through extremism - no one is now even surprised that Arab states do nothing to help the Palestinians out of their mess - throw away chances for interim gains (like getting a state) to avoid compromising the chance for total victory, repeat old mistakes, rejoice over defeats as producing martyrs, taunt the world's sole superpower, exalt anarchy, and forfeit any chance of winning sympathy on the other side.

Such a suicide strategy, like suicide bombing, can inflict losses on the enemy but cannot defeat it. Indeed, by sacrificing so many possible benefits it ensures that the gap steadily widens in favor of the other side.

Far from any sign of resistance to this disastrous approach it seems capable of providing decades more of glorious defeat and martyrdom. Maybe it will even go on long enough for those in the West who keep expecting something different to understand what's going on.
Captain's Quarters adds some further valuable comments and concludes by specifying what the West should do:
The West needs to shut down the negotiating process and allow Israel to defend itself. No one in the Palestinian political structure has any interest in peaceful co-existence with Israel. If they did suddenly endorse it, the Palestinians would realize how badly they have been led for decades and would probably rise up and kill them, and still would take another generation to figure out that their misery comes from their own bad decisions. Our interference in that process only delays the eventual epiphany.
Right, some impatience is in order here. As the Palestinians plunge into the abyss, they must be stopped from taking even one more Jew with them. MOT News and Israel Matzav point to another important piece that may express the sentiments of many Arabs.

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