Monday, August 02, 2010

You Effed Up

I've long felt that the Palestinians were the stupidest and most self-destructive people on the planet. They keep kicking away deals that come up short from the maximalist goals of ejecting the Jews from the territory they call Palestine. They've been egged on for years by the Arab world that has given lip service to the priority of satisfying Palestinian goals. That may be changing:

IT has long been conventional wisdom that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a prerequisite to peace and stability in the Middle East. Since Arabs and Muslims are so passionate about the Palestine problem, this argument runs, the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate feeds regional anger and despair, gives a larger rationale to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and to the insurgency in Iraq and obstructs the formation of a regional coalition that will help block Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons.

What, then, are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71 percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? “This is an alarming indicator,” lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. “The Arabs, people and regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were committed to the Palestinian cause itself.”

But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the “Palestine question” has long been central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their own interests.


If the hope of being rescued by the entire Arab world riding to their aid is finally shown to be the falsity it has long been, perhaps the Palestinians will show more interest in progress to a better life over the mere chance at killing Jews.



Yes, indeed, the Palestinians effed up. They trusted the rest of the Arab and Moslem world would really stomp on Israel for the sake of the Palestinians' maximalist goals.