After Likud vote, lets take another look at it.
Reader comment on item: Arafat's Failure May Offer Seeds of Hope

Submitted by Jay Bea (United States), May 14, 2002 at 20:50

I have written regarding this column before, but now that Sharon's own party has recently given him a spanking --- much like Bush was given one by Congress over its vote to support Israel --- let us see if perhaps NOW there actually is a ray of hope in all of this.

Prevailing opinions are generally that this vote complicates attaining a peace settlement. That depends. It depends on whether or not both Bush and Sharon are willing not only to face reality, but to openly support "reality" to their bases.

A "Palestinian state" was a terrible idea from the beginning. The trouble was, once it was openly discussed as a potential "solution" to the problem, it was like a genie let out of a bottle. Israel's vote was the right message at the last minute. The "acceptance" of Israel has never been a reality in any meaningful sense, so inserting a one sided option began negotiations with the initial offer coming from the wrong side of this mess. "He who first mentions a figure loses" when it comes to "negotiations. NOW there is something to negotiate. You do not NEED to negotiate the existance of something described as "inevitable". No, it is not inevitable.

The vote by Likud also sends a clear message to the Arab world and the Palestinians that there is in fact a price to be paid for not negotiating in good faith; You can lose the deal. This was important because they certainly did not negotiate in good faith. When this unpleasent fact is finally fully accepted it may be realized that the only losers are the Arabs. Israel lost nothing with this because they never did have "good faith" from Arafat.

Finally, the "Palestinian problem" is really just a great game by the Arab world who's REAL interest was to stir up enough of a distraction to delay our dealing with Iraq. The sooner it is understood that Islamic nations can NEVER be trusted in negotiations with "infidels", the sooner the west will be on the road to acting on policy as oppossed to talking about it. Religion IS important and to ignore the kind of ethic a particular religion instills in it's adherents is critical to deciding whether you can make agreements with a particular people or not. The good Muslim is morally allowed and even encouraged to act in deciet when dealing with "Kafir" -you and I-. To even entertain the prospect of solving issues of policy through neotiations with such a people is the height of stupidity. Arafat's duplicity is entirely unremarkable when one understands the cultures of Islam, "moderate" though they may be claimed to be.

The ray of hope that is left is then this: That the Bush administration come to understand that in the middle east, only a superior position from the perspective of force AND a willingness to use it will result in order. Islam has a 1,400 year history of animosity to Jews and Israel is no more meaningful than a jealosy provoking thorn in the side of Islam. The sooner the inherintly anti-semetic nature of the Beast is understood, the sooner the beast can be contained. A complete 360 is needed to truly address the middle east and the sooner Colin Powell and the unrealistic republicans in the State Department can become realists, the sooner things can return to containment and controlability. "Peace" is too much to hope for.

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