Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 04:07:00 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Political Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Elspeth Kovar wrote:

> The other is that the Palestinians say that they just want a Palestinian
> state.  When Israel was formed land was also set aside for just such a
> state but was absorbed by the surrounding Arab countries -- countries
> that are now in full support of Israel giving up land to create a
> Palestinian state.

For reference, the "Palestinian homeland" is called "Jordan".  The
"historical boundaries" of Israel are simply where the shin kicking in
1948 stopped.  They have no more "legitimacy" than the German "zones"
after WWII or the "cease fire" line between North and South Korea[1].
Egypt and Jordan have refused to allow any resettlement of refugees from
the territory claimed by Israel, and "aid to the refugees" has
historically been in the form of weapons and explosives instead of food
and housing.  Basically, Egypt and Jordan have created "janissaries",
whose only purpose in life is to kill their designated enemies.

Up until the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Israelis had everybody's
sympathy.  They were quite obviously the injured party.  After this,
they have become more and more arrogant, to the current point where they
are shooting rockets into residential neighborhoods.

The Israelis have as many crazies as the Palestinians -- the most
promising round of peace talks were derailed when an Israeli shot up a
mosque.  Israel's many- party political system means that the balance of
power usually lies with the ultra- right- wing splinter parties.  Makes
compromise difficult.

Peace in this situation is, ahem, difficult.  It can always get worse:

  Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have,
  and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and
  suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
    -- 1 Samuel 15:3

[1] The US State Department has an almost religious reverence for
"legitimate" boundaries and "legitimate" governments.  We seem to regard
any line on a map as a "legitimate boundary" and any thug who can take
over a "capital" as a "legitimate government".  For an analysis of this
policy, see "Stability, America's Enemy", by Ralph Peters, in the US
Army War College Quarterly, Winter 2001-02, Vol. XXXI, No. 4:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/01winter/peters.htm

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."