What's so great about a Palestinian state, anyway?
I mean, why all this fuss? Wouldn't it just be another squalid dictatorship? I liked this article:

http://www.nationalreview.com/derby...shire050902.asp

Why Don’t I Care About the Palestinians?
The options, as I see them.


Why don't I care about the Palestinians? It is, of course, wrong of me not to care. It can't be much fun being a Palestinian. You, or your parents, or your grandparents, ran for their lives in the 1948 war. You — and/or they, plus a couple of generations of uncles, aunts, siblings, and cousins — have been huddled in some squalid refugee camp ever since, living off UNRWA handouts. ("UNRWA," by the way, stands for "U.S. taxpayer." But you knew that!) There is no economy worth participating in. Your leaders won a fragmented, halfway sort of autonomy for you at Oslo; but it didn't work, you're not sure why. Nothing really got any better, and now the Israelis have smashed it all up anyway. The other Arabs all hate you (a little-known factor of Middle East political life, but one attested by my colleague David Pryce-Jones, who knows the Arabs better than anyone). Things look bad, and you are sunk in despair. Shouldn't I feel sorry for you?

Sure, I personally favor Israel in this conflict. That's my right as a freethinking person. I'm a Christian, though, aren't I? Shouldn't I have some Christian compassion to spare for the poor suffering Palestinians? Ask not for whom the bell tolls, etc., etc.

Well, I suppose I should, but to be honest about it, I don't. Why not? Why don't I care about the Palestinians? The answer is NOT any of the following.

- I like taking showers with Jews.
- Palestinians have dark skin and I'm a racist.
- My name was originally Derbstein.
- My British blood is boiling with shame over the lost empire.
- I am a lackey of, or am trying to ingratiate myself with, the Jews who run the U.S. media.
- I am a cruel, hard-hearted bigot.

The answer isn't exactly compassion fatigue, either. That's pretty close, though. I am aware of a certain level of compassion fatigue in regard to the world at large, and it spills over into the Palestinian issue.

The other day I had the depressing experience of reading, one right after the other, Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully titled "Trashcanistan" in the April 15th New Republic, then Helen Epstein's "Mozambique: In Search of the Hidden Cause of AIDS" in the May 9th New York Review of Books. The first of these was a long portmanteau review of six books about the fates of various components of the old U.S.S.R. in the years since the thing fell apart. The second tries to discover why a sleepy rural area of Mozambique, populated by courteous folk practicing a traditional way of life, has high levels of AIDS.

Kotkin's account of the ex-Soviet colonies — Ukraine, Moldova, the central Asian and Caucasian republics, etc. — is hair-raising. Principal features of the landscape here are utter economic collapse, "gangland violence among state ministers," rising Islamofascism and the flight of large sectors of the population. (One-third of the able-bodied workforce of Moldova has fled. I have just been reading another report about that wretched country. Sample quote: "Experts estimate that since the fall of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution — perhaps up to 10 percent of the female population.") Kotkin writes beautifully about this appalling situation, which stretches across the entire southern and western marches of the old U.S.S.R., illuminating his account with memorable one-liners like: "Ukraine has gotten its state and is eating it, too."

Helen Epstein's piece on Mozambique tells of a state of affairs just as awful. The fundamental problem, she discovers, is that: "These people are so poor ... that sex has become part of their economy. In some cases, it's practically the only currency they have." The men go away for months on end to work in the South African mines — where, of course, they console themselves with prostitutes. The women left behind survive as best they can, often by becoming the mistresses of the few local men who can actually afford to eat. Why are they all so poor? Because Mozambique has been wrecked by corruption, tribal war and stupid economics.

What a world! You can only read a certain amount of this stuff before you start to avert your eyes. What on earth can anyone hope to do about all this? All the simple explanations for the horrors that stain a large part of our planet have been used up. We now know that it's not the fault of colonialism, or neo-colonialism, or capitalism, or socialism. It's just the way these places are. They can't handle modernity, for some cultural reason we don't understand and can't do anything about.

That's the context in which I see the Palestinians. The Palestinians are Arabs; and the Arabs, whatever their medieval achievements (as best I can understand, they were mainly achievements of transmission — "Arabic" numerals, for example, came from India) are politically hopeless. Who can dispute this? Look at the last 50-odd years, since the colonial powers left. What have the Arabs accomplished? What have they built? Where in the Arab world is there a trace or a spark of democracy? Of constitutionalism? Of laws independent of the ruler's whim? Of free inquiry? Of open public debate? Where in your house is there any article stamped "Made in Syria?" Arabs can be individually very charming and capable, and perform very well in free societies like the U.S.A. There are at least two recent Nobel prizes with Arab names attached. Collectively, though, as nations, the Arabs are no-hopers.

All of this applies to the Palestinians. I spent some of my formative years in Hong Kong, a barren piece of rock with zero natural resources, under foreign occupation, chock-full of refugees from the Mao tyranny. The people there weren't lounging in UNRWA camps or making suicide runs at the governor's mansion. They were trading, building, speculating, manufacturing, working — with the result that Hong Kong is now a glittering modern city filled with well-dressed, well-educated, well-fed people, proud of what they have accomplished together, and with a higher standard of living than Britain herself. If, following the Oslo accords — or for that matter, in the 20 years of Jordanian occupation — the Palestinians had taken that route, had set aside their fantasies of revenge and massacre, and concentrated on building up something worth having, I might have respect for them. As it is, I don't.

The only halfway sympathetic thing I can find to say about the Palestinians is that UNRWA has surely been part of the problem. If you go to the UNRWA website, you will see how proud they are of having fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and cared for the Palestinian refugees of 1948... and their children... and their grandchildren. The number of people UNRWA cares for has gone from 600,000 in 1948 to nearly four million today. Now, I understand that the prime impulse of bureaucracies, especially welfare bureaucracies, is the consolidation and expansion of their turf, and a steady increase in the number of their "clients"; but this is ridiculous. The good people of Hong Kong should go down on their knees every night and thank God that there was no UNRWA in the colony in 1949. So, come to think of it, should the German and East European refugees who flooded into Western Europe after WWII. (I have seen the number 14 million somewhere — the Sudeten Germans alone numbered three million. Where are the festering camps? Where are the suicide bombers?)

Even if their lives had not been poisoned by the ministrations of a huge welfare bureaucracy, though, I doubt the Palestinians would have got their act together. None of the other Arabs have. Everywhere you look around the Arab world you see squalor, despotism, cruelty, and hopelessness. The best they have been able to manage, politically speaking, has been the Latin-American style one-party kleptocracies of Egypt and Jordan. Those are the peaks of Arab political achievement under independence, under government by their own people. The norm is just gangsterism, with thugs like Assad, Qaddafi, or Saddam in charge. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with religion: the secular states (Iraq, Syria) are just as horrible as the religious ones like Saudi Arabia. These people are hopeless. We are all supposed to support the notion of a Palestinian state. Why? We know perfectly well what it would be like. Why should we wish for another gangster-satrapy to be added to the Arab roll of shame, busy manufacturing terrorists to come here and slaughter Americans in their offices? I don't want to see a Palestinian state. I think I'd be crazy to want that.

What, actually, are the possible futures for the Palestinians? I think the following list is exhaustive.

1. An independent state, under Arafat or someone just as thuggish.
2. Military occupation by Israel.
3. Re-incorporation into a Jordanian-Palestinian nation.
4. Some sort of U.N. trusteeship.
5. Expulsion from the West Bank and Gaza, those territories then incorporated into Israel.

Number 1 is what we are all supposed to want. As I have already indicated, I don't want it, and I can't see why anyone else would, either. Except Palestinians, I suppose: If they yearn to be ruled by amoral hoodlums (as, according to polls, they apparently do), I suppose they have some theoretical right to see their wishes fulfilled — but why should the rest of us allow it to happen, given the dangers to us? Number 2 might work for a time, but the Israelis would eventually get fed up with it, and then we'd move on to one of the other options. Number 3 would get us back to the pseudo-stability of pre-1967, but is deeply unpopular with Jordanians — and look what happened in 1967! Number 4 undoubtedly has the UNRWA bureaucrats drooling, but as with number 1, it's hard to see what's in it for the rest of us. Aren't we handing over enough of our money in welfare payments to our own people?

Which leaves us with number 5: expulsion. I am starting to think that this might be the best option. I'm not the only one, either. Here is Dick Armey, Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, talking to Chris Matthews on Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?

Rep. ARMEY: Yes.

When I say "the best option," I don't mean "best for the Palestinians". I don't think they have any good options. Being Arabs, they are incapable of constructing a rational polity, so their future is probably hopeless whatever happens. Their options are the ones I listed above: to be ruled by gangsters, or Israelis, or Jordanians, or welfare bureaucrats. Or to go live somewhere else, under the gentle rule of their brother Arabs. Would expulsion be hard on the Palestinians? I suppose it would. Would it be any harder than options 1 thru 4? I doubt it. Do I really give a flying falafel one way or the other? No, not really.

— Mr. Derbyshire is also an NR contributing editor

Wow. Utter waste of my time.


I'll just throw on my official stamp of "I disagree" and walk away. I can't waste my time on this bullshit.



Edit: In fact, I think I'll go spend a few minutes, find a site that you might disagree with, and go my happy way.

An interesting read...although I'm not sure I agree with kicking the Palestinians out completely. I really don't think there's a solution at all.

80% of Jordan was originally mandated for Palestine. Thus the Palestinian homeland should be on the East Bank of the Jordan River and not the West Bank.

Good fences do make good neighbors. Take a look at a map of the region sometime. The Jordan river makes for a natural border.

Here's an idea; if you don't care about something, don't express an opinion on it. You'll save yourself some breath and everyone else thirty seconds of their life. To suggest that Arabs are racially incapable of constructing a politically stable government is both racist and ignorant. Look at Tunisia, for instance.


This was a waste of my time.

True. Arabs can create a stable govt, as long as oil dollar$ can provide the govt with enough to maintain a strong enforcement... Is is the african states (tribes?) that cannot maintain a stable govt, or peace for that matter. Look at practically any mid-african country...

Wow, Sixgun_Symphony you are so obviously un biased and totally educated on every side of this argument!!!!

I mean it's not as if you're posting this sort of one sided propaganda all the time or anything! I'm going to read everything you say and think just the way you think from now on

Wow.. totally racist.

basically its just saying:

"Statistically arabs havent done much good for them selves or anyone else .. so lets throw em around the whole place, set them up so that they are convieniant to the western countries and just forget about em and they'll just kill each other off.. but oh yea.. i'm christian!"

Actually, oil money is horrible for a stable government. It's used as a crutch to hamper actual growth, and it puts total economical reliance of an entire country into one source, which is obviously not a good thing. The real reason we haven't sped up our research on alternatives to fossil fuels is that if we succeeded in that research, it would plunge 90% of the Middle-East into a total depression. On the other hand, the truly stable Arab countries, such as Tunisia, do not have oil money, which, while it might hamper them economically, allows them greater government freedom.

OSAMA BIN LADEN: THE BALKAN CONNECTION
by Srdja Trifkovic

So we are at war. Terrorism is the enemy, personified by Osama Bin Laden. But before America commits its treasure and risks the lives of its young men (ìand womenî) to this epic struggle, a few stables need to be cleaned and some unpleasant skeletons removed from government cupboards. Bill Gertz, writing in today's (9/18) Washington Times, proves conclusively that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network is thriving in Albania. [Read the article]

It is not enough to bewail the fact that bin Ladenís rise was facilitated by the hefty support he received from the CIA in the 1980's. At that early stage one could justify the policy--mistaken and shortsighted, as it turned out to be--by the dictates of the Cold War: your enemyís enemy is your de facto ally, if not a trusted friend. ìBlowbackî was a risk, but arguably worth taking two decades ago. But if we are to take the war on terrorism seriously today, it is also necessary:

To acknowledge that throughout the 1990s the Clinton Administration had tolerated, and effectively aided and abetted bin Ladenís operations in the Balkans, long after he was recognized as a major security threat to the United States;
To name the instigators of such policy in Washington, and to ensure that none of them remain in any positions of responsibility as President Bush plans his response to the recent outrage; and
To recognize that the Balkan policy of successive U.S. administrations--the policy that had made this scandalous connection possible and, in a way, inevitable--was fundamentally flawed, and requires urgent revision.
BIN LADEN AND BOSNIA

In the aftermath of Americaís ìBlack September,î it was confirmed in Sarajevo that the Muslim authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina had issued a passport to Osama bin Laden at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna in 1993. The intention was obviously to facilitate the movements of a man who was fast acquiring the reputation of a dangerous terrorist.

That the government in Sarajevo was sympathetic to Islamic militants is neither surprising nor remarkable, of course, but in this particular case there was an old debt to be repaid. Osama Bin Laden was an early supplier of weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. His early efforts in 1992-93 were known to the Clinton administration and quietly tolerated by it. He was given a free hand in the Balkans and eventually established a strong foothold in the heart of Europe, initially under the guise of humanitarian work.

The facts of the case were known to the media. In the summer of 1996, the Washington Post confirmed that ìthe Clinton administration knew of the activities of a so-called Relief Agency which was, in fact, funneling weapons and money into Bosnia to prop up the Izetebegovic Muslim government in Sarajevo.î

It was funneling troops, too. The mujahideen had first come to Bosnia in 1992 and numbered over 3,000 by the summer of 1995. They included volunteers from the Middle East, as well as deserters from the Turkish, Malaysian and French UNPROFOR units. They never took prisoners: wounded Serb soldiers were usually decapitated.

Under the Dayton Peace Accords, all Islamic volunteers who fought with the Muslim government army were supposed to leave the country. An undisclosed number remained, however, having been given Bosnian citizenship and permanent residence. Several hundred had taken over what was the Serbian village of Bocinja Donja, in central Bosnia, and provided instruction to local Muslim forces in terrorist activities.

They first attracted attention when on December 18, 1995--only a month after Dayton--a car bomb prematurely exploded in the central Bosnian town of Zenica. It was apparently meant for American troops stationed nearby, as revenge for the sentencing of Sheik Omah Abdel Rahman in connection with the World Trade Center bombing.

Two months later, in February 1996, SFOR units raided the training center of the Bosnian governmentís secret police (AID), located near Fojnica. Several persons were arrested for preparing terrorist actions. It transpired that instructors from the Middle East were teaching AID officers how to disguise bombs as toys and ice cream cones.

Only months later the Bosnian Connection started making an impact abroad. Reporting on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times reported on June 26, 1997, that several suspects had served with the Bosnian Muslim forces and were linked to Osama Bin Laden. From that point on the United States and its allies had complained periodically and ineffectually to the Muslim authorities in Sarajevo about the continued presence of the mujahadeen in Bosnia.

By late 1999 this connection attracted further attention when U.S. law enforcement authorities discovered that several suspects who have visited or lived in Bosnia were associated with a terrorist plot to bomb targets in the United States on New Yearís Day. Among them was Karim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings. He is a former roommate of Ahmet Ressemi, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a carload of explosives. Atmani has been a frequent visitor to Bosnia, even after Ressmiís arrest. Another Bosnian veteran, a Palestinian named Khalil Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. A third suspect, an Algerian named Abu Mali, was regarded as a ìcommunity leaderî in the Bosnian village of Bocinja. Mehrez Amdouni, yet another former resident, was arrested in September 1999 in Istanbul, where he arrived with a Bosnian passport. It has been confirmed that Ahmet Ressemi had ties with Said Atmani, another terrorist who fought in the El Mujahadeen unit in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Canadian authorities deported Atmani back to Bosnia-Herzegovina on October 18, 1998, supposedly without knowing of his alleged participation in terrorist activities through Europe. The New York Times Magazine reported on February 6, 2000 that ìlast year, sources in Jordan say, the Mukhabarat, the intelligence service, alerted the C.I.A. to at least three plots by Bosnian-based Islamic terrorists to attack U.S. targets in Europe.î

While an elaborate Islamic terror network was developing in Bosnia, Osama bin Laden was busy looking for fresh opportunities in the Balkans. The victims would remain the same; and yet again he could count on the quiet complicity of the U.S. government.

BIN LADEN AND KOSOVO: ìADMINISTRATION FULLY AWAREî

During the NATO war against Serbia, in May 1999, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe warned that if American troops go into Kosovo theyíd be fighting alongside a terrorist organization known to finance its operations with drug sales--including some to the United States. Inhofe was one of the few legislators to note and complain that by joining hands with the KLA the United States also would become partners of a sort with Osama bin Laden.

Six months before the bombing, the Jerusalem Post reported that Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic power in the former Yugoslavia, but Kosovo promised to be the second (ìKosovo seen as new Islamic bastionî by Steve Rodan, September 14, 1998). The Albanians have been provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries, the report went on, and they were bolstered by hundreds of mujahadeen infiltrated from Albania. ìUS defense officials say the support includes that of Osama Bin Ladenî and the Defense Department confirmed that bin Ladenís Al Qaíida organization supported Moslem fighters in both Bosnia and Kosovo. The report quoted sources in Washington as saying that the Clinton administration was fully aware of the Islamic militantsí activities in Bosnia and Kosovo, but had looked the other way: ìThe administration wants to keep the lid on the pot at all costs . . . Needless to say, the Europeans have been quite upset by this.î

The usually well-informed Israeli paper correctly sensed a shift in U.S. policy that facilitated bin Ladenís activities. In early 1998, the State Department had listed the KLA as an international terrorist organization that supported itself with drug profits and through loans from known terrorists like bin Laden. By the end of that year the policy was reversed, however. On November 30, 1998, the Scotsman reported that the KLA ìhad the unusual honour of being taken off a register of organisations the US defines as ëterroristsí. This is a valuable asset, not just in terms of public relations. It also makes fund-raising among ethnic Albanians abroad much easier.î

The KLAís rehabilitation in Washington went hand-in-hand with its growing links with the Islamic radicals. The Sunday Times of London reported on March 22, 1998, that Iranian Revolutionary Guards had joined forces with Osama bin Laden to support the Albanian insurgency in Kosovo, hoping ìto turn the region into their main base for Islamic armed activity in Europe.î By November the same paper confirmed that bin Ladenís terrorist network in Albania was regularly sending units to fight against the Serbs in Kosovo. The paper pointed out that bin Ladenís Albanian operation dated back to 1994, when its was established under the guise of a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency. In those early days bin Ladenís group enjoyed the support of then premier Sali Berisha--also an American ìassetî at that time--and the main KLA training base was subsequently established on Berishaís property in northern Albania.

Correctly sensing that the anti-Serb course of the Clinton administration would lead it to tolerate his activities in Albania and Kosovo, bin Laden issued a communiquÈ in August 1998 listing Serbia among ìthe worst infidel nations.î The communiquÈ, faxed to Knight Ridder from bin Ladenís supporters in London and translated from Arabic, boasted of ìgreat victoriesî in Bosnia and Kosovo. By the end of 1998, as the United States was building up its pressure on Belgrade to accept the Clinton administrationís terms on the beleaguered Serbian province, the Times of London reported (November 26, 1998) that the Islamic fighters who ìcreated havoc in the war in Bosniaî were moving on to Kosovo. The link between Osama bin Laden and the KLA were facilitated by the chaotic conditions in the neighboring Albania, the Times went on, allowing Muslim extremists to settle there, often under the guise of humanitarian workers.

ìThey were terrorists in 1998 and now, because of politics, theyíre freedom fighters,î a top U.S. drug official complained to the Washington Times in May 1999. By that time the NATO bombing was in full swing, however, and the mujahideen were once again American allies. According to the Washington Times, ìThe reports said bin Ladenís organization, known as al-Qaeda, has both trained and financially supported the KLA. Many border crossings into Kosovo by ëforeign fightersí also have been documented and include veterans of the militant group Islamic Jihad from Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Many of the crossings originated in neighboring Albania and, according to the reports, included parties of up to 50 men.î

Bin Laden has become an integral attachment to each KLA operation. It is unsurprising, therefore, that he has established a presence in Macedonia, the latest victim of the flawed U.S. policy. The Washington Times wrote on June 22 of this year that the NLA (the KLA subsidiary in Macedonia) was largely--but not exclusively--dependent on the illegal trade in narcotics: ìIn addition to drug money, the NLA also has another prominent venture capitalist: Osama bin Laden.î The sum supplied was estimated at between six and seven million dollars over six months.

In the aftermath of the tragedy in New York and Washington, it is certainly desirable, and perhaps even possible, for the United States to devise an effective anti-terrorist strategy. This cannot be done, however, unless there is a change of the policy that breeds terrorism. A decade of American covert and overt support for the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia has been a foreign policy disaster, detrimental to peace in the Balkans and to American interests. Its beneficiaries are Osama bin Laden and his co-religionists in Sarajevo, Tirana, Pristina and Tetovo. If we are to take the ìwar on terrorismî seriously, the mistakes of the past need to be recognized and rectified.

Copyright 2001, www.ChroniclesMagazine.org
928 N. Main St., Rockford, IL 61103

What does this have to do with anything?

Exactly what I was thinking.

I posted it there because I see some kind of collusion with the Islamic terrorists.

It has been the USA using its influence to stop Israel from pushing the Palestinians out of the West Bank and into Jordan. The US government had been supporting Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in the Balkans wars of the 1990's.

I think that this is somehow related. Perhaps the guys in Washington are playing some kind of international "Chess Game", I don't know. But something stinks.