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A Middle East Conflict No Longer About Land
Algemeiner ^ | August 11, 2014 | Brett Joshpe

Posted on 08/13/2014 7:06:58 AM PDT by SJackson

Along with destroying much of Hamas’ infrastructure, the fighting in Gaza has laid waste to any semblance of a foreign policy from the Obama Administration. The latest bout between Israel and the Palestinians was preceded by the Administration’s lame-duck peace push that, while predictably ineffective, publicly lent moral weight to Hamas’s tactics. Morality may be the most precious commodity in the region now – more valuable than water, oil, or land – because it is the one issue on which the Palestinians believe they can win.

For years the Middle East conflict has been defined by asymmetries. Israel has a modern-day functioning society with robust markets, industrial infrastructure, and a world-class military. It is also governed by the rule of law. In fact, one of Israel’s less flattering features is just how progressive certain aspects of its legal system are. Its military, for instance, must often seek judicial approval prior to making combat decisions, something we would find unthinkable in the U.S.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, have struggled to implement the fundamentals of a 21st century society. Yet one thing they have been shockingly successful at doing is fighting for moral currency. The Hamas leadership, which formed a unified Palestinian government with Fatah earlier this year, deliberately embeds its military operations within the civilian population, often conducting operations from schools and hospitals. When it goes to battle, it intends to kill both Israelis and Palestinians, because while dead Israelis may boost Palestinian morale, dead Palestinians equate to moral points in the eyes of the international community.

That has become the true prize for the Palestinians, whose culture is pathologically about victimhood. Their leadership’s approach, like any oppressive society’s, is designed to maximize internal suffering. Totalitarianism needs a scapegoat to survive and grow, just like a virus-carrying cell needs oxygen, and Israel, with its superior military and prosperity, is a convenient one.

And that is why the whole notion of the peace process is so utterly absurd. Even the term itself – “process” – is revealing. Process for what end and to what result? It certainly has ceased to be about statehood for the Palestinians. That could have been a reality long ago, going back to 1947, in fact, and many days since. The reason there is no Palestinian state is remarkably simple. The Palestinians refuse to recognize a Jewish State of Israel. They are less interested in their own homeland than they there are in disowning somebody else’s.

In the nearly 70 years since the United Nation’s partition plan, the Palestinians have not moved past that same basic problem. Literally zero progress.

Instead, the Palestinian leadership knows that it can exploit the sensitivities of democracies around the world to gain moral ground on the Israelis. It uses institutions like the International Criminal Court and the United Nations, which are the foolhardy product of good intentions, to wage a different kind of war, a war in which the West has failed in its responsibility to be unequivocally partial. This is a battle not about land, over which you can negotiate, but about the ethos of civilizations, which cannot be subject to negotiation and which certainly shouldn’t invite evenhandedness.

The Palestinian leadership has long ago recognized that suffering and oppression among its own people equate to power and longevity. Freedom, on the other hand, depends on choices. We choose to be prosperous; we choose to be productive; and we choose to vote from office those who fail us. The residents of Gaza should take an inventory of their burned-out landscape and their shattered dreams and ask themselves whether their leaders have succeeded or failed. The answer is obvious. Unfortunately for the Palestinians and apparently most of the international community, the question remains elusive.


TOPICS: Editorial; Israel
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 08/13/2014 7:06:58 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

2 posted on 08/13/2014 7:07:25 AM PDT by SJackson (incompetent and feckless..the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f***ing tiller, Hillary)
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To: SJackson

It is about bringing back a long-lost caliphate.


3 posted on 08/13/2014 7:07:49 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: Biggirl

AND ISIS shows what the caliphate of Satan will look like, hallmarked with slaughtering anyone who does not bow to the allah image of Satan living in Islam.


4 posted on 08/13/2014 7:08:57 AM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: MHGinTN

BINGO! We have a winner!


5 posted on 08/13/2014 7:09:52 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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Where Would You Go Without FR.......


Click The Pic To Donate

Support FR, Donate

6 posted on 08/13/2014 7:19:20 AM PDT by DJ MacWoW (The Fed Gov is not one ring to rule them all)
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To: SJackson
HAMAS wouldn't be wining on the morality front if there were not already so many people already primed with anti Semitic world views. If you see a pro Palestine you are seeing a Jew hater.
7 posted on 08/13/2014 7:20:01 AM PDT by dblshot (I am John Galt.)
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To: SJackson

>> Administration’s lame-duck peace push that, while predictably ineffective, publicly lent moral weight to Hamas’s tactics.

Hamas has no moral weight.

Besides, Hamas picks a fight and then complain when they are beaten.


8 posted on 08/13/2014 7:24:52 AM PDT by Ray76 (Nationally: Re-elect No One)
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To: SJackson

I don’ know. Was it EVER about land?


9 posted on 08/13/2014 7:38:25 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: SMARTY

No. Never about land.


10 posted on 08/13/2014 7:44:36 AM PDT by DariusBane (Liberty and Risk. Flip sides of the same coin. So how much risk will YOU accept? Vive Deco et Vives)
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To: SJackson
The reason there is no Palestinian state is remarkably simple. The Palestinians refuse to recognize a Jewish State of Israel. They are less interested in their own homeland than they there are in disowning somebody else’s.

Golda Meir said that there will be peace between the Arabs and the Jews when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews.

Clearly, we are even further from that point now than we were in her day. Denying something to someone else is far more important to these Koranimals than getting something good for themselves (like even a semi-functional society). The ultimate victim - they want everyone else to fail because they know that they cannot succeed...and anyone who points that out, by word or deed, has to die (including their children). The Paleostinians in particular, and the Koranimals in general, are a SICK society.

11 posted on 08/13/2014 8:01:26 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt)
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To: SJackson
The Palestinians, on the other hand, have struggled to implement the fundamentals of a 21st[ early 20th century] society.

the whole notion of the peace process is so utterly absurd. Even the term itself – “process” – is revealing. Process for what end and to what result? It certainly has ceased to be about statehood for the Palestinians. That could have been a reality long ago, going back to 1947, in fact, and many days since. The reason there is no Palestinian state is remarkably simple. The Palestinians refuse to recognize a Jewish State of Israel. They are less interested in their own homeland than they there are in disowning [destroying] somebody else’s.

Never, not once, ever in all of human history, has a culture or group lost three wars and insisted on enjoying the "rewards" of victory. The fact that a culture of primitive morons insist on making it happen in the 21st century is quaint, curious, culturally suicidal, and best that can happen is to allow nature to take its inevitable course.

And the equally moronic Europeans and what remains of the umma can just enjoy what they presently have and leave the rest of the world alone!

The next rout of islam like the seige of Vienna (1683) and the battle of Lepanto (1571) ONCE AND FOR ALL MUST BE THE FINAL ONE!

12 posted on 08/13/2014 8:02:52 AM PDT by publius911 ( Politicians come and go... but the (union) bureaucracy lives and grows forever.)
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To: SJackson
>>A Middle East Conflict No Longer About Land<<

Yes...yes it is.

It has always been about land and will always be about land.

God's holy land of Israel.

The A-rabs hate the Jews and hate them because of their (our) God. They hate everything about Israel, because of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God of the house of David, Father to our Messiah Jesus.

13 posted on 08/13/2014 8:13:58 AM PDT by servantboy777
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To: SJackson
That has become the true prize for the Palestinians, whose culture is pathologically about victimhood.

bump

14 posted on 08/13/2014 8:17:59 AM PDT by VRW Conspirator (The next DNC convention will be spoken in Spanish; Press 1 for English)
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