1) that the palestinian leadership is concerned with the welare of Palestinian Arabs. 2) that they want peace with Israel.

Since both my interlocutors believe I haven’t answered Amir’s comment let me try again. First, one could easily say that the Palestinian leadership is about as concerned with the welfare of Palestinians as the Israeli leadership is concerned w. the welfare of Israelis. If Olmert were truly concerned w. the welfare of northern Israel would he have gotten the nation into the Lebanon disaster? Would the government have allowed so many of its children to die in the futile first Lebanon war?

Further, making a blanket statement that the “Palestinian leadership” isn’t concerned w. the welfare of their own society is not reasonable. They just interpret the issue differently than you or I because they face potential annihilation as a people while neither you nor I do. Yes, I know Israel does face the issue of annihiliation in a particular sense given terror attacks & a general sense given those extremists who wish to destroy Israel. But this issue is nowhere near as immediate & broadly deadly as it is for Gazans living day to day in their hellhole existence. When you face what they face, defining what is in someone’s welfare may look diff. to them than to you or I.

In addition, I don’t make any claim to defend every action taken by the Palestinian leadership. There is much I would do differently & I have said so here loudly & clearly. In some cases (such as the Hamas coup in Gaza) I would agree w. you that their actions are not in the welfare of Gaza’s inhabitants.

Second, Palestinians are just as justified in believing that Israel does not want peace with them. Placing blame solely on one side as you do is not only counter-productive it does violence to the truth & reality.

————————————————————-
Amir:
two utterly false assumption. 1) that the palestinian leadership is concerned with the welare of Palestinian Arabs. 2) that they want peace with Israel. Fortunately, most Israelis understand this already (but not enough). Unfortunately many non-Israelis still don’t.

Richard’s reply:
This is utterly false. It represents yr own & right wing Israelis views of the matter (with a goodly smattering of centrists thrown in). But a majority of Israelis support withdrawal fr. W. Bank settlements, creation of a Palestinian state. Hell, till a few days ago a majority even favored negotiating directly w. Hamas. I’ve covered poll after Israeli poll here that confirm these numbers.

————————————————————————–

Your reply to Amir didn’t really address his comments. Both Palestinian groups that have power, FATAH and HAMAS are run along lines typical of all the Arab states, i.e. along hamullah lines (i.e. clan and family relationships-top positions are given to members of your clan regardless of competence) also the leaders have the right to take as much as they can for themselves, and that once in power, you never give it up voluntarily (i.e. no room for real democracy) You didn’t refute that. This , of course, is a big reason why the Arab world is falling further and further behind the rest of the world .

Regarding your claim that “majority of Israelis” support creating a Palestinian state…well that may or may not be true, but those who do would put a lot of caveats like insisting on ending terror, recognition of Israel, etc. Few Israelis would now support simply pullling back to the pre-67 lines and handing Abbas or whoever the keys.

Egypt needs to take some of the responsibility for the Gaza mess. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, Egypt insisted that Israel evaculate the Philpadephia crossing at Rafah. After the Israeli withdrawal, Egypt pumped in tons of arms into Gaza in order to wage a proxy war of attrition against Israel, much the way Iran has been doing it in Lebanon.- Herbert

Yes and no.

Egypt did pump arms in, but it’s ridiculous to think that Egypts’ target in doing so was Israel – clearly it was Hamas.

That is why Hamas struck at Fatah. They could see the writing on the wall, and it read – Coming soon: Egypts’ proxy war on the Muslim Brotherhood in the GS.

Barak is planning a nice little war in Gaza , officially-to restore Israel’s “deterrence”, but, of course, in reality, to establish his credentials as a “tough bitchonist

Yes, this is the utter cynicism of Israeli politics. War substitutes for diplomacy or political strategy. When you want to prove yr bona fides you stir up a nice little war. Unfortunately though, the sons of Israelis suffer the consequences in death just to prove the mettle of cynical pols like Barak.

I don’t know about the corollary of yr argument regarding Barak. He had a chance to make peace at Camp David & didn’t make much of it imho. So whether he’s prepared to do what he didn’t or couldn’t do then is doubtful in my mind.

No, I’m not prepared to say that waging a war is a proper way to negotiate a peace. But to be candid this is precisely what Sadat did in ‘73 & it worked. But it would be much less likley to work today since the ME is a tinderbox that could explode in a regional or even nuclear conflict well before Barak ever got to negotiate a peace.

There’s been an ongoing attempt to topple Hamas by Fatah, Israel and the US ever since they were elected. Hamas finally put an end to it in Gaza.

Yes, of course you are right & all of these entities are partially responsible for the current mess. But Hamas made a calculated choice in eliminating Fatah’s presence in Gaza. It didn’t have to do what it did. And whatever they intended to gain fr. this (I’m not even sure they thought this through very carefully because I can’t see any way they can gain) will very likely not come to pass. In fact, it could make the entire situation, including for them & Gazans as a whole much worse.

Egypt needs to take some of the responsibility for the Gaza mess

In theory, yes. But if you think Egypt wants to get mired in a Palestinian civil war you’ve got another thing coming. Egypt sees the example of Israel’s utter failure in Gaza to influence events positively. The only thing Egypt wants is to isolate the Islamist movement in Gaza & ensure it doesn’t ooze back into Egypt proper. The only way it would intervene in Gaza is if Hamas decides to export its militancy to Egypt. Hamas would be fools if they they tried to do so.

they are is focused on their self interest, rather than national interest.

my statement about Oslo was about the import of the thug culture. In theory, it could have been reformed, but that would have required those funding to actual monitor and, most importantly, respond, to provide the proper signals. That didn’t happen

Yes, I fully agree. The world community deserves much blame for letting Arafat develop his own little gangster state & doing little to monitor his use of their money.