The right prescription for Palestine

Washington Times ^ | 6/26/02 | William Murchison

[kattracks]

Whether the Palestinians know it or not, President Bush has paid them a high compliment. He has judged them, in his Monday Rose Garden remarks, capable of moving beyond Yasser Arafat, onto the higher slopes of participatory democracy and free elections.

[marron]

I am on record as doubting the feasibility of an "independent" Palestinian state. Such an enclave, separate from Israel and Jordan, has no viability whatever. It has no chance as an independent economy; it must be integrated, economically, into either Israel or Jordan.

As a political entity, separate from its neighbors, it is destined to be the lawless enclave it is. And it is the nature of a lawless enclave that normal people cannot function there; they depart for safer, more orderly places, where they can work and raise their families. And, really, that is just exactly what the Palestinians have done. They have scattered to the four winds, and live and work in Jordan, and the Gulf Emirates, and even in the US. The people left behind are those content to be ruled by corrupt killers, and to see their children recruited by psychotics.

I doubt very much the likelihood of forming a viable country with this material.

But Bush has decided to give it a go, just like every other President in the last several decades. So I guess we're all along for the ride. But he has placed a crucial condition; they must reject Arafat. Since Arafat is determined to see himself democratically "re-elected" (and, truth be told, he could probably win an election handily in that debased and radicalized electorate), this experiment may not last long.

When he is re-elected by a landslide, I will re-submit my "middle east peace plan"; Israel must unilaterally choose a defensible border, and seal it. Any Palestinians on the Israeli side of that line must either consent to live in peace, or must be expelled; with compensation if they go peacefully, without if not. Any Palestinians on the other side of the line, wherever the line may be, must fall under Jordanian rule (or Egyptian rule in Gaza). If Jordan and Egypt refuse to take control, then Israel must do so, again expelling anyone unwilling to live in peace.

[ThePythonicCow]

they must reject Arafat

They must do more than that. They must elect leaders uncompromised by terrorism, and build new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics, and its leaders must engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure ... amongst other things.

If they did that, then they would be worthy of nationhood.

The risk in Bush's plan is not that the bar is too low and we will end up with a lawless enclave and a non-viable country being granted a bogus nationhood. The risk is that the bar is too high, and that they cannot meed the reasonable, necessary but quite out of reach requirements.