There are real problems and there is nonsense manufactured to keep our minds off the real problems.
A real — and immediate — problem is the fact that Iran’s wholly-owned subsidiaries Syria and Hezbollah have tens of thousands of missiles, short, medium, and long range, all aimed at Israel. Another real problem, although slightly less immediate, is that Iran is moving along on her nuclear weapons program.
In the category of nonsense, Condoleezza Rice has said that “Young Palestinians are losing hope for an agreement with Israel”.
Losing hope? Were there ever “young Palestinians” (or even old Palestinians) pining away for a deal between Israel and the US-armed, Western-financed Fatah faction that they don’t support?
Here is what Palestinians think, young ones and old ones:
A public opinion poll [March 2008] reveals that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians – 84 percent – support the shooting attack at the Marcaz HaRav yeshiva on March 6 that left eight Jewish boys dead.
The most recent Israeli and Palestinian public opinion poll conducted jointly by the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, describes Palestinians’ ‘staggering’ support of violent acts against Israel. Support for the shooting attack was greater in the Gaza Strip – at 91 percent, compared to the West Bank at 79 percent.
A further 64 percent of Palestinians polled support launching rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israeli towns, such as Sderot and Ashkelon.
The idea that Palestinians want a state in the territories is a wish-fulfillment fantasy of the Israeli Left and a useful fiction for the US State Department. The ongoing negotiations between Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction and Israel, in which Abbas continues to insist on impossible conditions (like 1967 borders and a right of return for descendants of 1948 refugees), and which Israel pretends to take seriously, are manufactured nonsense.
What almost all Palestinians, young and old, hope for is the collapse of the state of Israel, brought about by a combination of their ‘armed struggle’, regional war with Syria and Hezbollah, and diplomatic pressure from the oil-addicted and — at least in the case of the US — Saudi-subverted West.
Hopeful young Palestinians
Technorati Tags: Israel, Israeli-Arab conflict, Palestinians, Condoleezza Rice
Rice is a disappointment. Unfortunately Bush is also one.
1) The promoting of a false Palestinian peace option- instead of warring against Palestinian terror, including their hate- media.
2) The failure to see the most important things. I am still amazed at how the U.S. entered Iraq and did not understand the importance of securing and stabilizing world energy supplies. i.e. Saudi Arabia should be the tail and not the dog in its relationship with the U.S. The opposite is now the case. That of course explains the U.S. ‘generosity’ to the Palestinians.
3) The empty rhetoric against ‘nuclear Iran’ as Ahmadinejad openly proclaims he is inserting yet another six- thousand centrifuges. Iran also is involved negatively in Iraq. The U.S. and the Bush Administration seem now likely to go into history without having stopped Iran in any way.