Israel - The future
There will never be peace in the Middle East
until the Palestinians change,
and adopt the values of human rights, religious freedom and liberal democracy.
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.
From
pro-Israel demo, June 2007.
Israel is the front-line state of the West,
facing the enemy before we have to.
In the 2000s, we discovered to our surprise that the
disgusting suicide bombings we saw in Israel in the 1990s
were not just Israel's problem.
They were a glimpse of our future,
in the rest of the West.
They show what the future will be like, in Madrid, London
and all western cities,
which will have to live now
for the next few decades
under the constant threat of jihadi suicide bombing.
Israel's fight is our fight - the fight to preserve democracy,
freedom of religion, free speech and
human rights against our totalitarian enemies.
Israel has many bigoted, racist, Islamic enemies that want to destroy it,
and under the right circumstances they would carry out another Holocaust.
Until the Islamic world
changes, this threat of extermination
will always hang over the future of Israel.
- Attacks on Israelis
- 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.
-
Bush Destroyed a Dictator. Clinton Installed One.
Which of our last two presidents made the world safer?
- Ruth R. Wisse, 15 Jan 2009, casts a cold eye on the 1990s Clinton "Peace Process",
which vastly increased terrorism and oppression.
"Mr. Bush removed the most ruthless dictator of his day, Saddam Hussein, thereby offering Iraqi citizens the possibility of self-rule. Bill Clinton's analogous achievement in the Middle East was to help install Yasser Arafat, the greatest terrorist of his day, as head of a proto-Palestinian state.
...
This so-called peace agreement rewarded terrorist methods as fail-safe instruments of modern warfare, and accelerated terrorist attacks on other democratic countries. Though Mr. Clinton did not foresee these consequences
...
To be fair, Israel's role in this self-deception was, if anything, even greater. The Oslo Accords made Israel the first country in history ever to arm its enemy with the expectation of gaining security.
...
The Oslo "peace accord" made the world more dangerous and subjected Palestinian Arabs to a rule of violence, corruption and intimidation.".
Palestinian terror killings in Israel, 1948-2006.
Note how the killings escalate after the 1990s Clinton "Peace Process"
lets Arafat build a terrorist state.
From here.
How Arafat destroyed Palestinian prosperity:
The GDP per capita of the West Bank and Gaza over the last few decades.
Stats from Angus Maddison.
Note how the Palestinians were prospering under Israeli "occupation",
with a growing economy linked to Israel and Israeli settlements.
GDP per capita was
(1990 $) 1,790 in 1967,
and
(1990 $) 5,312 in 1999.
That is, the Israeli occupation made the "oppressed" Palestinians 3 times richer.
Then Clinton helped the thug Arafat set up a terrorist state,
Arafat launched the unprovoked intifada,
and the Palestinian economy collapsed.
And they didn't even win the intifada, but were soundly defeated.
If Palestinians are "poor" today, blame Arafat, Fatah and Hamas, not Israel.
The intifada is over, and the left was wrong.
All through 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003,
as the Palestinian intifada raged against Jewish civilians,
we heard again and again from
the western left
that Israel's response was all wrong.
That a tough Israeli response
would just encourage more hatred and violence,
and breed more terrorists.
That Sharon was a disaster.
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.
- 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:
- Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000.
Yet it was still attacked from Lebanon.
Why?
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- In summary, the conflict will never end until
the Palestinians change their entire culture.
Is there any more optimistic note I could end on?
Not really.
It is the Palestinians that must change if there
is ever to be peace.
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."
OK, here's the only attempt I can make at optimism.
For peace in Israel, the Palestinians must change.
For that to happen,
the entire Middle East must change:
-
This is what America is trying to start with
Iraq.
- Lebanon
has already changed as a result.
-
If democracy beds down in Iraq and Lebanon,
Syria
too will fall.
- And Iran will fall from within.
-
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.
-
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.
A Muslim in Kosovo
sums up the entire problem with Palestinian and Iraqi Muslims
- that in both countries majorities or large minorities preferred
tribe, religion, hatred, honour, pride, revenge and glory
to the less glamorous job of making their countries prosperous and successful:
"Kosovo is a success because we wanted a change.
We are not like Iraqis or Palestinians who don't want change and seem to enjoy living in poverty.
Here everyone is thinking about progress and the future."
Return to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.