Why cant the Palestinians figure this out?

[ravells]

Hortlund said:

If you think their attempts to play hardball via intifada and terrorism is getting them anywhere you are very far from reality.

Is it? The PLO first came to international attention when they hijacked three planes and blew them up in the desert. That was in the late sixties or the seventies. Until then, they were largely ignored by the west.

I am not condoning what they did, but it did bring world attention to their plight.

As for terrorism, if you leave someone with no option but terrorism, what option do you think they are going to choose?

As I said, before...the sooner that the Israelis and Palestinians have more in common than they do differences and start intermarrying, all this will stop eventually. But that's not likely to happen.

If you were a Palestinian, Hortland, how would you go about getting your people to be recognised as equals in their own country?

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by ravells
how would you go about getting your people to be recognised as equals in their own country?

Ask him.....

[ravells]

Well Grunz,

As I said earlier, the moment that pacifist approaches are made on both sides, they get derailed by the militants. To get a pacifistic revolution, you need a personality cult leader, good timing and a lot of luck.

Tell you what would be really good. That is if an Israeli stood up and took the reins and did a Martin Luther King or a Ghandi. I'm sure there are Jews and Palestinians who have both tried...and failed.

Ravs

[Nashwan]

Civil disobedience is not behaving 'nicely'.

Civil disobedience severly screws things up, just in a non-violent manner which brings the weight of world public opinion to change the status quo.

Civil disobedience can screw things up. It certainly did in India.

India was a country of several hundred million people, run by a very small number of British civil servants, and very small numbers of British troops, with the vast majority of all government and military positions being occupied by natives.

The Palestinians are numerically inferior to the Israelis, and the occupied territories were run by Israelis, and order was enforced by Israeli troops.

The Palestinian economy was tiny, and didn't really matter to Israel.

Israel could afford to ignore civil disobedience. Palestinians either worked for Israeli companies, in which case taxes were deducted before pay, or they starved. If they stayed away from work, Israel didn't suffer.

The Israelis didn't need the Palestinians, in fact the Palestinians are simply obstacles. The British needed the Indians to run India.

Civil disobedience had no chance for the Palestinian because the Palestinians were an irrelevent minority for Israel.

Public opinion can sway Israel policy makers as forcefully as it did Mountbatten or his predecessors, but public opinion does not get behind those who advocate killing commuters on busses or patrons in a restaurant.

Mountbatten administered handover in India. It was a process that was well under way before WW2, and became unavoidable after the war.

I'd like to point out the case of Kenya, where instead of peaceful protest they had the Mau Mau, who killed thousands of people. They got their independence regardless, it was just part of a process of pullout from Empire that had been underway from before WW2.

Public opinion has little or no effect on Israel. UN security council resolutions are always vetoed by America if they threaten any serious problems for Israel.

The entire settlement process has been condemned by almost the entire world as a violation of the Geneva conventions, yet it has never paused. Deportation is another clear violation of the Geneva convention, again roundly condemned by almost every country in the world, including America, yet Israel deported thousands of Palestinians, as and when it chose.

If you think their attempts to play hardball via intifada and terrorism is getting them anywhere you are very far from reality.

I'd really, really like to think you are right, because giving in to terrorism is not a good precedent. But Israel clearly does give in to terrorism.

Consider the Palestinian prisoners. Abu Mazen got Hamas and Islamic Jihad to agree to a temporary truce shortly after he was appointed. He sought concessions from Sharon, including a prisoner release. Sharon gave him almost nothing (even Moshe Yaalon, IDF chief of staff, said Israel had been too stingy with Abu Mazen)

Some months later, Israel released 430 mostly Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Hezbollah releasing 1 Israeli drug dealer and the bodies of 3 Israeli soldiers Hezbollah had kidnapped and murdered.

Look at Gaza. Sharon pioneered the settlements there. Israel held on to the settlements, and increased them throughout the Oslo years. Israel would not pull out of them as a gesture to the Palestinians in the 90s, now after 3 years of terrorism, which Sharon has consistently promised to defeat, Israel is pulling out unilaterally.

The same is true of the south Lebanon security zone Israel established.  Israel fought for years, only to pullout unilaterally after years of attacks from Hezbollah.

It would be much better for everyone if Israel negotiated a pullout from Gaza. If, when Abu Mazen took over. Israel had offered him a Gaza pullout, he would have something to show for a peaceful approach, and Israel could have got concessions in return. Instead they offered Abu Mazen nothing, waited until there were more terrorist attacks, and then announced a pullout.

They couldn't do more to encourage terrorism if they tried.

[GRUNHERZ]

An Israeli Gandhi would be useless.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by ravells
That is if an Israeli stood up and took the reins and did a Martin Luther King or a Ghandi.

Civil disobedience is a weapon of the disenfranchised.  Israelis already have mechanisms to change Israeli policy, called the ballot and the Kinesset. (sp)

The Palestinians already have a Nobel Peace Prize winner in Arafat  to lead them, so there is your cult of personality.  Of course this would assume that the Peace Prize is a prize of merit and not just politics.

[ravells]

An Israeli Gandhi would be useless.

I'm thinking of a new spin. What if the enfranchised people dropped tools for peace? Think how much more effective that would be. The problem about the ballot box is that you are effectively electing a dictator for a set period of time.

Holden...the nobel peace prize means jack in practical terms. As you've already pointed out. Arafat is old and increasingly irrelevant.

Here's a solution: Mutual hostages. Palestinian doctors treat Israeli patients and vice versa. Palestinian mothers run Isaerli creches and vice versa. Start small in controlled circumstances and if it works let it grow.

Ravs

[Holden McGroin]

The Palestinians are numerically inferior to the Israelis, and the occupied territories were run by Israelis, and order was enforced by Israeli troops.
....
Civil disobedience had no chance for the Palestinian because the Palestinians were an irrelevent minority for Israel.
...
Public opinion has little or no effect on Israel. UN security council resolutions are always vetoed by America if they threaten any serious problems for Israel.
...
 [/B]

The Black population of America is only about 10%, yet MLK was sucessful in changing minds.

If Israel was perceived in America as jack booted thugs stepping on puppies, do you think we would still veto?  I perceive Israelis as people in a difficult situation trying to defend themselves against folks who choose to kill children.  The Palestinians I perceive as desperate people clinging to failed and corrupt leadership; leadership which can't see beyond their hatred and self intrest to the use of better methods.  

The modern aspect that should increase the effectiveness of civil disobedience is live 24 hour news.  Ghandi walked to the sea and folks read it in the Times.  King walked to Selma and Cronkite spent 5 minutes an evening talking about it.  

With CNN, Fox, MSNBC, you have a virtual million walking with you and seeing the injustice before their eyes, live.

[ravells]

In the India/Britain or Black Americans/White Americans there was a clear view about who was being oppressed.

I'm not so sure about how clear that is with the Palestinian / Israeli problem. Using a kid to blow up more kids was something that never happened previously.

I hate this escalation of brutality, but there it is. It's the world we live in today. Only bad news gets reported. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we got more news reports about Palestinians and Israelies who are working together to make some sort of peace?

Ravs

[GRUNHERZ]

It's pretty clear to me that Isreal occupies the position of the powerful party, the "opressor," if you will.

[ravells]

Yes, but the Indians and Blacks did not start their struggle by a sustained campaign against the civilian populace of the 'oppressors'...although the Indian Mutiny did result in some English civilian deaths, I think there was such an overwhelming feeling in Britain that they were amongst a 'great culture' that it was almost to be expected.

In these conflicts, it's all in the details and the timing. And when both work out (for example, I think that the whole 'summer of love' thing, Vietnam and the rise of MLK worked together to make the black situation better in America) then the results can be spectacular.

I live for the day when that time can come in the Middle East.  It just takes the right idea at the right time and the right person to see it through.

God knows, people must get sick and tired of not being able to live normal lives.

Ravs

[Nashwan]

The Black population of America is only about 10%, yet MLK was sucessful in changing minds.

If Palestinians were 10% of the population of Israel, they would already have equal rights, and there wouldn't be an issue.

Palestinians formed about 18% of the population of Israel (ie excluding the West Bank and Gaza) just after the formation of the state. In theory they had the same rights, although not in practice until the 60s.

Those Palestinian Arabs make up about 20% of the state of Israel now, they are Israeli citizens, have equal rights (although still suffer discrimination) and except in a few isolated cases, have nothing to do with Palestinian terrorism.

The problem is, when you take the population of the West Bank and Gaza into account, there are now roughly the same number of Palestinians as Jews.

That means if Israel were to grant them equal status, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state. Because of the relative birth rates, within a few years it would be an Arab state with a Jewish minority.

Israel cannot grant the Palestinians full rights.

The only alternative for the Palestinians to have full rights is in their own state, or in a third state. No third party state wants to take them in, and to have their own state the Israelis have to leave the West Bank, which takes us back to the quotes I posted earlier. Israelis feel they have a superior right to the West Bank, and it's only the political realities that can force them to forgo that right.

Protest marches, sit ins and demonstrations by the Palestinians are not going to make Israelis forgo that superior right.

If you want to talk about peaceful protest, I'd point to the Dalai Lama. The Tibetans have run a very successful propoganda campaign against Chinese occupation, and after decades they have got precisely nowhere.

[culero]

Originally posted by Nashwan
snip
If you want to talk about peaceful protest, I'd point to the Dalai Lama. The Tibetans have run a very successful propoganda campaign against Chinese occupation, and after decades they have got precisely nowhere.

Thanks for some great points.

As to the quoted one, however, IMO its apples and oranges. China is a behemoth that stands on its own. Israel does need the support of the US and others, no matter how competent Israel is in its own right. I believe its very arguable that if the Palestinians would wise up and drop terror as a tactic, they would experience better success at achieving fair treatment by the Israelis due in part to pressure being brought to bear from external sources.

culero

[NUKE]

Palestinians are Arabs for one thing, they have more than their fair share of land in the middle east.

Calling the Arabs in the area Palestinians, as though they are a different race or somehow a minority, is a joke.

I believe Arafat was born in Egypt, then he and his thugs were expelled from Jordan anfter they tried to overthrow the government. So really, people need to put things in a little perspective.

The people that lived in the area where Israel was created where basically a mixture of Jews and Arabs, hence they are both "Palestinians"

Sorry, but that term "Pakestinian" just pisses me off the more I hear it.

[ravells]

And how many of the jews who currently live in Israel were born there or had recent ancestors who were born there?

cuts both ways, Nuke.

Ravs