Solitaire
26th September 2003, 02:48 PM
Well, what's driving on the Israeli side is something very simple, something
no modern society, any society has ever really encountered, particularly one
as small as Israel -- 100 suicide bombs in three years. And suicide bombing
has made Israelis crazy.
Exactly, the smaller the uncontrolled risk the more crazy people become.
Smoking kills about seven thousand people a year in Israel - no one bats
an eye. Likewise, automobiles kill about seven hundred Israeli a year but
the IDF doesn't fire missiles into cars on the freeway. Nope.
But there's another problem with the wall, Margaret, it's not only not on
the border; when you build a wall inside the West Bank, you have another
problem, and that is that you have Jews on both sides of the wall. You have
Jews in Israel and you have Israeli settlers on the other side of the wall.
Is this a problem?
So, you see scenes like that, what happens is that you end up not just
with a wall, but you end up with a series of cages inside the West Bank.
Israel isn't deliberately trying to do that, but it's the net effect of having
a wall with Jews on both sides. And you have to protect people, therefore,
on both sides.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
And over the long run, what I think that's going to do is the most
paradoxical thing of all. You know, the iron law of Arab-Israeli history
is the law of unintended consequences. And this wall is going to be
the mother of all unintended consequences because by putting
Palestinians in these little cages what's going to happen is they're
going to be sitting there and there's going to be a Jewish settlement
over there, they're going to say, let's see now, what do the Israelis
have - they have the rule of law, they have the right to vote, they
have welfare, they have jobs. What do I have, I got nothing. I want
what the Jews have. I want to be a voter inside Israel. What it's going
to do is going to drive Palestinians to say forget the idea of a Palestinian
state, it's never going to happen.
Exactly, except you left out the big giant hampsters.
If your going to think like me, you've got to go all the way.
We're already too chopped up and the Palestinian Authority is gone so
I want one man-one vote. I want a one-state solution, not a two-state
solution, so a wall that was begun by leftist Israelis to separate Israel
from the West Bank is going to end up actually driving not a two-state
solution, but a one-state solution.
And Palestinians will gradually shift from the campaign of Arafat to the
campaign of Mandela, and that will be a real problem, I think, for Israel
over the long run.
We talked to Palestinians, intellectuals, and Halil Shakaki, a Palestinian
pollster, has done a poll that found that 28 percent of Palestinians today
are calling for a one-state solution.
It would be a nightmare because if you take all the West Bank, all of
Gaza and all of Israel together it's about 55 percent Jewish, 45 percent
Palestinian. In ten years, given the different growth rates, it's going to
be about 51 percent Palestinian, 49 percent Jewish and so, when they
demand one man, one vote, if you think it's hard for people like my kids
to defend Israel on a college campus today, imagine what they have to
argue against the principle of one man, one vote. So this is a real problem
for Israel.
Ah the madness, I know it so well.
You've left out the bit about the well funded, well armed minority
that doesn't want the two state solution or the one state solution.
So any talk of unification on the other side of fence must either very
quietly done else the bullets will fly in a rather nasty civil war.
Here's the complete article without my commentary: :eek:
Columnist Thomas Friedman Speaks on Prospects for Peace in Middle East (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec03/friedman_09-25.html)
no modern society, any society has ever really encountered, particularly one
as small as Israel -- 100 suicide bombs in three years. And suicide bombing
has made Israelis crazy.
Exactly, the smaller the uncontrolled risk the more crazy people become.
Smoking kills about seven thousand people a year in Israel - no one bats
an eye. Likewise, automobiles kill about seven hundred Israeli a year but
the IDF doesn't fire missiles into cars on the freeway. Nope.
But there's another problem with the wall, Margaret, it's not only not on
the border; when you build a wall inside the West Bank, you have another
problem, and that is that you have Jews on both sides of the wall. You have
Jews in Israel and you have Israeli settlers on the other side of the wall.
Is this a problem?
So, you see scenes like that, what happens is that you end up not just
with a wall, but you end up with a series of cages inside the West Bank.
Israel isn't deliberately trying to do that, but it's the net effect of having
a wall with Jews on both sides. And you have to protect people, therefore,
on both sides.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
And over the long run, what I think that's going to do is the most
paradoxical thing of all. You know, the iron law of Arab-Israeli history
is the law of unintended consequences. And this wall is going to be
the mother of all unintended consequences because by putting
Palestinians in these little cages what's going to happen is they're
going to be sitting there and there's going to be a Jewish settlement
over there, they're going to say, let's see now, what do the Israelis
have - they have the rule of law, they have the right to vote, they
have welfare, they have jobs. What do I have, I got nothing. I want
what the Jews have. I want to be a voter inside Israel. What it's going
to do is going to drive Palestinians to say forget the idea of a Palestinian
state, it's never going to happen.
Exactly, except you left out the big giant hampsters.
If your going to think like me, you've got to go all the way.
We're already too chopped up and the Palestinian Authority is gone so
I want one man-one vote. I want a one-state solution, not a two-state
solution, so a wall that was begun by leftist Israelis to separate Israel
from the West Bank is going to end up actually driving not a two-state
solution, but a one-state solution.
And Palestinians will gradually shift from the campaign of Arafat to the
campaign of Mandela, and that will be a real problem, I think, for Israel
over the long run.
We talked to Palestinians, intellectuals, and Halil Shakaki, a Palestinian
pollster, has done a poll that found that 28 percent of Palestinians today
are calling for a one-state solution.
It would be a nightmare because if you take all the West Bank, all of
Gaza and all of Israel together it's about 55 percent Jewish, 45 percent
Palestinian. In ten years, given the different growth rates, it's going to
be about 51 percent Palestinian, 49 percent Jewish and so, when they
demand one man, one vote, if you think it's hard for people like my kids
to defend Israel on a college campus today, imagine what they have to
argue against the principle of one man, one vote. So this is a real problem
for Israel.
Ah the madness, I know it so well.
You've left out the bit about the well funded, well armed minority
that doesn't want the two state solution or the one state solution.
So any talk of unification on the other side of fence must either very
quietly done else the bullets will fly in a rather nasty civil war.
Here's the complete article without my commentary: :eek:
Columnist Thomas Friedman Speaks on Prospects for Peace in Middle East (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec03/friedman_09-25.html)