Home - Israel - Israeli-Palestinian conflict - The future

Israel - The future

In the absence of that, Israel addressing their supposed grievances (ending the "occupation", allowing a "right to return") will lead to more violence, not less (as the "Peace Process Intifada" has shown). The only thing that will bring long-term peace is the gradual adoption of democracy and human rights by the Palestinians.

Pessimism

Until the Islamic world changes, this threat of extermination will always hang over the future of Israel.

• Islamist nightmare scenarios:
  • The Destruction of Israel

The recent past

The "Peace Process" caused more, not less killing

• Attacks on Israelis
  • Fatalities in Palestinian Terror Attacks, 1967-2003
• Summary of Terrorist Attacks in Israel
• Note how the killing by Palestinians massively escalates after Israel tries to do a deal with them. Unlike in Northern Ireland - where the peace process led to a vast reduction in deaths - here, the peace process has made the conflict far worse. To reduce deaths, it seems unavoidable that Israel should abandon the peace process and give war a chance again. Until the Palestinians change, it seems there is nothing else the Israelis can do.

The intifada is over, and Israel has won

But the left was wrong. Israel's response - military incursions, building the wall, and targeted assassination - ended the violence. Israel elected Sharon to stop the Palestinian violence - and he did. The western left was wrong about everything.

• Israel is winning the war:
  • Israel attacking its enemies has made them weaker, not stronger.
  • The Fear Factor by Bret Stephens - "In 2003, the number of Israeli terrorist fatalities declined by more than 50% from the previous year, to 213 from 451. The overall number of attacks also declined, to 3823 in 2003 from 5301 in 2002, a drop of 30%." Why is this? How on earth could Israel attacking its enemies have made them weaker?
  • As Barry Rubin says, "it is strange to read everywhere in the West that Israel's policies, including the killing of Hamas leaders, have failed. Since figures show that the number of Israeli casualties in 2003 were half those in 2002 and that those so far in 2004 .. are half those in 2003, everyone should be discussing the success of Israel's counterterrorism effort. But, unfortunately, we live in an age where political agendas often determine the analysis of events rather than the other way around."
  • The failure of Arafat's intifada by Charles Krauthammer, June 21, 2004 - "While no one was looking, something historic has happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost. ... The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent. How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense."
  • The west is winning - Attacking your enemy may not make him stronger. It may make him weaker.
  • Further big drop in terror in 2004 - "In 2004 .. 117 Israeli civilians and soldiers and a handful of foreigners were killed and 589 were wounded in Palestinian terror attacks. That compares with 214 killed and 1,004 wounded in 2003 ... The ISA credited the controversial security fence as a key tool in thwarting terror attacks."

• Israel's unexpected victory over terrorism by Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren, Sept 20, 2004 - Much to everyone's surprise (including the Israelis), it turned out that a military solution was the answer to the Palestinian intifada. Against howls of protest around the world, Sharon implemented a military solution. And it worked. The intifada stopped. And, oddly enough, the world has stopped complaining.

• The killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Mar 2004
• The killing of Abdul Aziz Rantissi, Apr 2004

The Security Fence has stopped the violence

• Israel's Security Fence - Everyone in the world should support this since it is saving lives.
• Victor Davis Hanson points out that the Israeli wall at least brings a moral clarity to the situation, and, like the Berlin Wall or the North Korean border, shows exactly who is threatening who. Israel, which only wants to live in peace, has been forced to build a wall to stop suicide bombers getting in.
• Israel's Fence, New Tactics Seen Behind a Decline in Bombings by Ofer Shelah - "the tally of terrorist activity for the first half of 2004 showed a sharp decline - estimated to be 75% - in the number of successful suicide attacks."
• IDF blog - "As I leave the Tulkarm area we can see here .. the fence part of the security barrier changes into a wall at one point because it is bordering an Israeli highway, without the wall part, the civilians driving on this highway would be shot at with impunity. Indeed if I was Jihadist, from here I could easily start shooting at the cars driving by if that pesky wall wasn't in the way. Leftists call this an apartheid wall since this wall is segregating bullets from some Jewish baby's head."

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From BlueStarPR.

The absurd analogy with the Berlin Wall

• Many peacenik hypocrites denounce the Israeli wall (to keep people out) as like the Berlin Wall (to keep people in).
• Yet I imagine that when the Berlin Wall actually existed, these hypocrites were not to be found among the cold warriors denouncing communist East Germany for enslaving its people. I imagine rather that they were among the sneering intellectuals who mocked Ronald Reagan for demanding that the unelected communist dictator Gorbachev "tear down this wall".
• I imagine that anyone who was strongly anti-communist, and actually opposed the Berlin Wall when it existed, like Reagan did, would have no problem with the Israeli wall. All the strong anti-communists are now anti-Islamist. So what I want to know is: Is there any major figure who actually condemned the Berlin Wall when it existed, and who now condemns the Israeli wall? Tell me here.
• For example, the anti-Israel Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Mar 2007, says: "the fence reminded him of the Berlin Wall and that in his lifetime he did not believe he would see such a thing again. As the Berlin Wall was brought down so will this wall be brought down, he said, adding that the fence served no purpose." Did Meisner, who is from communist East Germany, ever condemn the communist East German regime when it existed? Did he ever demand the Berlin Wall come down when it existed? Tell me here.

Gaza pull-out

• Gaza pull-out, 2005. I find it hard to put a positive spin on this. Yes, maybe Gaza was untenable, and pull-out was inevitable. But it looks like a victory for Islamism. And, I believe, it has created an Islamist terror state, increasing the threat to Israel.

• David Frum tries to guess what Sharon is up to:
  • "The world wants a Palestinian state? Very well - let them have it. And the result, as we are seeing, is something close to panic ... The Egyptians do not want a Hamas state on their borders. They had expected Ariel Sharon to place a cordon between Egypt and Gaza. He has said he will not do so - that he is leaving the job up to the Egyptians. ... Is this Egyptian role on the border a precursor to a larger Egyptian role within Gaza? Egypt after all remains far more vulnerable to Islamic extremist ideology than Israel. The Egyptian authorities have crushed the extremist movement within their borders. Do they wish to see a jihadist state emerge on their borders? It seems unlikely. Could it be that Sharon is calling the bluff of Western governments and the Arab states? By creating the very Palestinian state that those governments and those states pretend to want but actually dread ..."
  • The truth is that "The Palestinian leadership is incapable of creating a state that can live at peace with anyone ... Somebody else must govern the restless and violent Arab-majority territories west of the Jordan River. Israel has suffered four decades of condemnation for doing the job. Sharon is now resigning the task to anybody else who would like to step in and take over the job. Nobody wants to. But Egypt and Jordan may soon realize that they have no choice. If there is a secret behind Sharon's plan - that is it."

• Why Gaza? Why now?, Mark Steyn, The Irish Times, 22 August 2005: "This then is the audacious gamble of the Gaza withdrawal: the best way to demonstrate that the Palestinians are undeserving of a state is to force one upon them. It's a dangerous move, but in a tough neighborhood there aren't any other kinds."
• I'm not sure I buy it. I still think the Gaza pull-out will increase violence and terror.

The Gaza pull-out achieves nothing - The war continues

• The destruction and looting of synagogues and greenhouses after withdrawal.

• My instincts were right. After the Gaza pull-out, the Palestinians in Gaza have carried on the war, with their rocket attacks on civilians in Israel.
• Qassam rockets
• List of Qassam rocket attacks on Israel

• Palestinian terrorists in Gaza were setting up yet another rocket attack against Israeli civilians when the Gaza Beach Incident occurred, June 2006, in which a Palestinian family was killed.
• 2006 Gaza conflict

• Israel supplies fuel, water and electricity to Gaza:
  • Incredibly, even after pullout, as rockets are fired at Israel from a Gaza cleansed of Jews, Israel continues to supply both the water and electricity in Gaza. How tolerant, how civilized, Israel is. What a contrast to its enemies.
  • Palestinians attack the Israeli fuel terminal that supplies Gaza with most of its fuel supply, Apr 2008, killing two employees of the Nahal Oz fuel terminal. Israel must supply fuel, water and electricity to Gaza, even as Palestinian terrorists try to kill the workers that are doing so!
  • 3 IDF soldiers killed supplying Gaza with fuel, 16 Apr 2008.
  • Palestinians fire at trucks transporting fuel to Gaza, 17 Apr 2008.

• Gaza pullout gained Israel more criticism, not less, 3 Jan 2008. Doing what the Israel-hating world demanded led to more international criticism, not less. "Hebrew University researchers found that Israel was represented in a more negative light in both the United States and Britain media after the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, compared to the period that preceded it".
• Appeasement of tyranny tends to lead to more demands, not less: "We also found that the demands from Israel for territorial concessions in the territories not only were not lessened following the disengagement, but actually became stronger."

Going nowhere - The Palestinians vote for Hamas, Jan 2006

• The Islamic fascists Hamas win the first post-Arafat "election", Jan 2006. (*)

• Does this make much difference?
  • I'm not sure this makes much difference. The previous crowd supported terror too. They funded it, carried it out, praised it, and supported it in the schools and the media. They taught the entire population to support terror from infancy.
  • And they carried it out themselves. Fatah, through for example the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, are Islamist terrorists who attack civilians through suicide bombings, no different to Hamas. It was merely a fiction, by Israelis desperate to have some partner for peace, that the PA were any different to Hamas.
  • Joint PLO - Hamas operations
  • Many people have pointed out that if Hamas attacks Israel now, now that they are the government, it would be an "Act Of War" between two states, and Israel could respond as such. But this is no different to the past. The PA, through the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and others, repeatedly attacked Israel, and Israel chose to fight only a partial war. Israel always had the option of waging all-out war on the PA. It chose not to use it. I'm not sure much has really changed. The situation has just been clarified.

• (*) Was this a real election?
  • Not really. Democracy works not because it is a majority vote but rather because having regular free elections demands a free society - free press, free speech, freedom to question the government and religious authorities. It's not clear at all that Palestine has any of these. If you take a society with no habits of democracy or freedom, and just give them a free vote, the result may be:
    1. In a society like Palestine, Algeria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, they vote for fascists (who then end democracy). The Palestinians support terror and fascism.
    2. In a society like Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran or China, they vote for democrats. The Afghans support democracy.
  • Regime change needs to start in the latter societies, where the people have already tried and hate Islamism and pan-Arab dictatorship and communism, and are disillusioned with non-democratic utopias. All China or Iran need, for example, to be free is a single free election. Palestine needs a new mindset in the population, and that will take decades.
  • What Democracy Is - Majority-rule alone is not democracy. Democracy means a free society.
  • More discussion on this.

• Until the Palestinians change, and reject Hamas and Fatah and embrace liberal democracy and human rights, there is no future for them.

• Palestinian suicide strategy by Barry Rubin, July 9, 2006 - The Western left fail to understand the irrationality of the Palestinians. Some hard truths:
  1. "There are hardly any moderate Palestinians in public life"
  2. Palestinian strategy "rests on the belief that defeat is staved off as long as you keep fighting. Their only true victory is to continue the struggle. ... This is why the "cycle of violence" concept is useless. Palestinians don't attack Israel because Israel attacks them, but because that is their sole program."
  3. "Democracy, living standards, women's rights and so on have no value outside contributing to the battle against Israel."
  4. "The movement's social policy is remarkably reactionary. ... Fatah has no economic or social policy; Hamas seeks to turn Palestine into Iran or Afghanistan. They have more in common with the world view of the Middle Ages than with Chinese or Cuban visions of guerrilla war."
  5. "Not only is infrastructure unimportant, it interferes with waging all-out struggle. If Palestinians become obsessed with job creation, educational or health systems or a successful economy this makes them satisfied with their lot and less willing to fight and die for the cause."

The Gaza Beach Incident, June 2006

• The Gaza Beach Incident, June 2006
• Who Is to Blame for Grief on a Beach? by Charles Krauthammer, asks some brutally hard questions of those who think the Gaza Beach Incident is just another unjustified Israeli massacre:
  1. "The sensational coverage and sensational charges raise the obvious question: Why would Israel deliberately shell a peaceful family on a beach?"
  2. No answer. The answer is: If Israel did it, it was an error - a stray shell in response to a rocket attack. And so: "the obvious question not being asked is this: Who is to blame if Palestinians are setting up rocket launchers to attack Israel - and placing them 400 yards from a beach crowded with Palestinian families?"
  3. And in fact it looks like the Palestinians killed the family, not Israel. And: "there is an even larger question not asked. ... why are the Gazans launching any rockets at Israel in the first place - about 1,000 in the past year? To get Israel to remove its settlers, end the occupation and let the Palestinians achieve dignity and independence? But Israel did exactly that in Gaza last year. It completely evacuated Gaza, dismantled all its military installations, removed its soldiers, destroyed all Israeli settlements and expelled all 7,000 Israeli settlers. ... Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory ever. And what have the Palestinians done with this independence, this judenrein territory under the Palestinians' control? They have used their freedom to launch rockets at civilians in nearby Israeli towns."

• Human Rights Watch, after initially blaming Israel, are impressed by the IDF inquiry: "Garlasco" [HRW] "told Klifi" [IDF] ".. that he was impressed with the IDF's system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians. "We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians." Garlasco said. "We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians." Lucy Mair" [HRW] ".. said Klifi's team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made "a good assessment" when ruling out the possibility that an errant IDF shell had killed the seven Palestinians on the Gaza beach."
• HRW are normally blinded by anti-Israel prejudice. It is nice to see the clouds lift and them get a glimpse of reality, if only briefly.

Palestinian civil war

• Palestinian civil war (and timeline), 2006 to date.
• It would be absurd to expect the terrorist gangs of Fatah and Hamas to compete peacefully for power in a Palestinian state. Terrorists will always war against each other - it is their nature. See the Sunni and Shia Islamist death squads in Iraq, killing each other even though they have identical fascist beliefs. Or the Soviets and Hitler. Or Iran and Saddam. Non-democracies will always war against other non-democracies. And terrorists will always war against other terrorists. It is their nature.
• As terror gangs shoot each other in hospital, lynch each other in the street, kill each other's families, and throw each other off rooftops, Melanie Phillips on the savage killings, June 13, 2007: "The fact is that what is happening in Gaza is the savage retort to all those who believe that a Palestinian state is the answer. When handed the reins of self-government, this is how the Palestinians behave. Hundreds of rockets fired upon Israel, and their own people thrown off the top of tall buildings and murdered in hospital."

• As Gaza becomes a terrorist state, with Hamas and Fatah shooting each other for control, even killing each others' families (also here), there are many ironies: "The irony here is vicious. Fatah, which has long waged war against Israeli children, suddenly finds the killing of children abhorent. An old Palestinian game has been to throw stones at Israeli soldiers and whine that they are exempt from retaliation. Now they are discovering the joys of having that argument turned on themselves."

• Welcome to Palestine, Jan. 29, 2007 - Caroline Glick on the hellhole of Gaza without Israel. What did we expect? The Palestinians to set up a parliamentary democracy?
  • "For the past 13 years, since the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994, the contours of the State of Palestine have taken form in front of our eyes. ... Palestine exists already. ... Palestine is a terror state and an economic basket case fully funded by the international community. ... official Western aid to the Palestinians .. increased by 10 percent in 2006 over 2005, and stood at $1.2 billion. The Palestinians, who receive more aid per capita than any people on earth, are needy not because they lack funds. They are poor because they prefer poverty, violence and war to prosperity, peace and moderation. So it is that 57 percent of Palestinians support terror attacks against Israel. The multitude of protesters worldwide who demand an end to the so-called "occupation" and the establishment of Palestine should be made aware of the fact that Palestine already exists. ... This is Palestine. Enter at your own risk."

• Taliban hell:
  • After Israeli pullout, Islamists stamp their boot on Gaza. They bomb Internet cafes, music shops, and even barber shops. Welcome to Taliban hell. You asked for it.
  • Palestinian Islamist gunmen attack primary school sports day in Gaza with grenades and gunfire, May 2007. Several terrified children were shot. A guard was shot dead. Why? Because boys and girls were "intermingled".
  • Fatah are killing men with beards because they associate it with Hamas support.
  • Hamas will probably now start killing men without beards.
  • Gaza economy, never very strong, collapses after Hamas takes over. "The World Bank estimates that 75 percent of Gaza's factories have closed and more than 68,000 Palestinian workers have been laid off". As Charles Johnson says, the moron Palestinian voters voted for this: "The Palestinians in Gaza voted overwhelmingly for Hamas, and got exactly what they wanted - a radical Islamic government that could not care less about their welfare."

• Already cleansed of Jews, the Islamists are now cleansing Gaza of Christians:
  • "Christians must accept Islamic rule" in Gaza: "Christians can only continue living safely in the Gaza Strip if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings"
  • Hamas Destroys Christian School and Church in Gaza, June 2007 (and here): "masked gunmen torched and looted the Rosary Sisters School and the Latin Church. "The masked gunmen used rocket-propelled grenades to storm the main entrances of the school and church," he said. "Then they destroyed almost everything inside, including the Cross, the Holy Book, computers and other equipment." Musalam expressed outrage over the burning of copies of the Bible, noting that the gunmen destroyed all the Crosses inside the church and school."
  • Islamists desecrate churches, synagogues and mosques all the time, all over the world.
  • The only Christian shop in Gaza was firebombed in Apr 2007 and the Palestinian Christian owner was executed in Oct 2007.

• News report, May 2007, of the suffering Palestinians as the rival terrorist scum of Fatah and Hamas fight each other for control of Gaza after Israel's withdrawal. One man says: "We pray that Israel will come back and rule us again."
• This is your future, Palestine. If you raise your people to hate and kill from birth, you shouldn't be surprised if this civil war and Taliban hell is your future.

• Hamas mob loots Arafat's home and steals his Nobel Peace Prize, June 2007.
  • OK I've been trying not to laugh at some of the incidents of this civil war (those where the terrorists attack each other with no innocents involved). Sure it is blackly amusing when Hamas attack Fatah terrorists, execute them without trial, and then Fatah complain about such savagery. Such hypocrites.
  • I nearly laughed watching Hamas blow up the Fatah police station. But this - this is brilliant. It made me finally laugh out loud. "They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal. Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat's documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits." "Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that dozens of Palestinians participated in the raid, which took place late Friday. "Most of the looters were just ordinary citizens," they said. "They stole almost everything, including furniture, tiles, water pipes, closets and beds.""
  • Many other Fatah terror leaders' houses were also looted by the crazed mobs.
  • Fatah terrorist pleads with the Hamas terrorists shortly before he is dragged into the street and shot dead: "They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews!" Vile hypocrite.
  • Quote Of The Day: "What's this you say? Hamas and Fatah senselessly murdering each other willy nilly? Why, I haven't been this upset since the last time I got a blow job."

• It's sad when terrorists fight: Hamas portray Fatah as rats in a cartoon.
• The Palestinian civil war to the theme of The Benny Hill Show:

Synagogues Used as Bases To Fire on Israel, Aaron Klein, February 27, 2007, illustrates better than anything that the Palestinians do not deserve a state, and trying to give them one in Gaza and the West Bank is pointless:

"The ruins of two large synagogues in evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip have been transformed into military bases used by Palestinian Arab groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities ... When Israel withdrew from the Gaza in August, 2005, it left intact 20 synagogues of the Gush Katif Jewish communities ... Immediately after the Israeli evacuation was completed, Palestinian Arabs destroyed most of the Gaza synagogues. ... a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, Abu Abir, said the area in which the synagogues once stood is now used to fire rockets at Israel. "We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Mr. Abir said. Mr. Abir blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy. Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said."

You know, he could be right about that.

Israel ending the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank won't bring peace

• Some people believe that if Israel ends the occupation of the West Bank, and ethnically cleanses all the Jews there, then finally there will be peace, and the Palestinians and Arabs and Iranians will finally stop trying to destroy it.
• But it is as clear as it could possibly be (short of actually doing the experiment) that this will not happen. Withdrawing from the West Bank will simply make the enemy stronger, and the war will carry on.
• This war is not about the 1967 occupations. It has been going on since 1947. This war is about the existence of a dhimmi state.

• Consider this:
  1. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Yet it was still attacked from Lebanon. Why?
  2. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Yet it was still attacked from Gaza. Why?

• Given this record, it is clear that Israel withdrawing from the West Bank will not bring peace. So it might as well keep some of the West Bank, and any other territory it thinks it needs as a buffer zone.
• This is not a solution. I am saying that nothing Israel does can bring a solution. It just needs to hunker down and wait for the Palestinians (and the Islamic world) to change.

• To my Arab brothers: The War with Israel Is Over - and they won. Now let's finally move forward, Youssef M. Ibrahim, July 12, 2006
  • "Dear Palestinian Arab brethren: The war with Israel is over. You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children."
  • "you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. ... At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn't going to get better."
  • "You fire ridiculously inept Kassam rockets that cause little destruction and delude yourselves into thinking this is a war of liberation. Your government, your social institutions, your schools, and your economy are all in ruins. Your young people are growing up illiterate, ill, and bent on rites of death and suicide, while you, in effect, are living on the kindness of foreigners, including America and the United Nations."
  • "The war is over. Why not let a new future begin?"

• Victor Davis Hanson nails the solution to the Palestinians' problems: "I was in Palestine 2 years ago, and nothing I saw on the West Bank changed my previous opinion nor the Palestinians I talked to: had they simply ignored Israelis, crafted a civil democratic society and engaged in nonviolent peaceful protest, they would have their state and the world's support."

• Summary of the distorted discourse of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by Richard Landes:
  1. The Israelis, like normal westerners who live in a society of constant criticism, tend to blame themselves, and think logically and ask what they can do to solve it (give money to the Palestinians, withdraw from Gaza). They are in danger of not realising there is nothing they can do to solve it.
  2. The Palestinians, like normal members of a traditional honour-shame culture, tend to blame others. There is no room in their society's discourse for people who suggest the Palestinians may have to change. Their society is largely uninterested in compromise and debate. They do not really want to build a modern, free and rich Palestinian country, or they would have done so long ago. Rather, they are driven by honour, shame, pride and revenge. And Palestine can fall into ruins and poverty and chaos for all they care - so long as honour is avenged.
  3. In summary, the conflict will never end until the Palestinians change their entire culture.

Optimism

The Palestinians must abandon Islamofascism and adopt the values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and human rights. If they ever do so, with Israel next door, there will be peace and prosperity beyond their dreams.

In the meantime, while we wait for the Palestinians to change, it seems that a military/security solution is the way forward.

New Palestinians

• Peace? No chance by Benny Morris - argues that nothing can be done with the current generation of Palestinians.
• Khaled Abu Toameh
  • Khaled Abu Toameh, a rare example of a different kind of Palestinian. Until there are more like him, there is no hope for the Palestinians.
  • Telling the Truth about the Palestinians by Khaled Abu Toameh. He says there is no free speech under Arafat and "Palestinian journalists .. were freer to write what they wanted under Israeli occupation before the PLO returned from exile."

• Palestinians Do Not Need Another Tyrant by Natan Sharansky - Peace will never come until the Palestinians adopt democracy. "It was Andrei Sakharov, the foremost dissident in the Soviet Union, who taught me that regimes that do not respect the rights of their own people will not respect the rights of their neighbors."
• Natan Sharansky, 23 Nov 2007, on the pointlessness of the Annapolis peace conference, because nothing has changed in Palestinian society: "Annapolis is doomed to failure not because we or the Palestinians have not made enough concessions - it is doomed to failure because it is built on distorted reasoning to the effect that it is possible to move ahead and make a deal with some leader and totally ignore what is really happening in Palestinian society."

The plan

1. This is what America is trying to start with Iraq.
2. Lebanon has already changed as a result.
3. If democracy beds down in Iraq and Lebanon, Syria too will fall.
4. And Iran will fall from within.
5. If these all become democracies, the wave of change may finally arrive at the Palestinians.

This is not utopian. This could happen in the next couple of decades (look at how the Soviet world has totally changed since 1985). In a very real sense, the road to peace in Israel runs through Baghdad and Tehran.

• The War on Islamic Fascism

• The problem - What is wrong with the Islamic world?

• The solution - America and the West must assert themselves. The Islamic world must change.
  • The plan

• Michael Scott Doran, January/February 2003: "Now, as in 1991, if a road to a calmer situation in Palestine does in fact exist, it runs through Baghdad."
• Jack Kelly, June 4, 2003: "the road to peace between Israelis and Palestinians goes through Baghdad and Riyadh."

In summary, there will be no peace in the Middle East until the Islamic mind changes, and embraces the Enlightenment and the modern world. This will take decades, but it could happen.