Posted on 08/03/2004 5:46:20 PM PDT by SJackson
Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank argue that Israel can build a wall as high as it wants so long as it runs within the boundary line, and not one inch on the land they call Palestine.
Well, that's what they say. Had Prime Minister Ariel Sharon restricted the barrier to the Green Line, what are the chances that the Arabs would have been satisfied?
They would have probably found some excuse to oppose it and perhaps petition the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, to order it dismantled. Sharon gave Yasser Arafat and his friends a ready excuse to fight the barrier when he extended it into the West Bank. The court gave Arabs what they wanted thereafter.
It does not make sense for the Arabs to obediently abide by the barrier no matter where it is built. It threatens them in two ways.
For terrorists, it leaves them with far fewer targets. They could only make their way from Jenin and other West Bank towns to murder Jews and others in Haifa, Netanya, etc., by crossing an unimpeded border into sovereign Israel.
However, they are now blocked by a barrier - mostly a fence, but some of it a wall. That barrier stops them cold, usually. How can they possibly kill innocent people if they cannot travel to Israel proper?
This is frustrating. They cannot very well fight the Israelis if Israel cuts them off and refuses to fight. After all, a sure way to frustrate an enemy is to just decline to fight by keeping a safe distance from the would-be assailant.
All Gaza and West Bank Arabs - no matter how extreme or moderate - should worry about construction of the barrier if Israel should decide to separate altogether from them. That's the direction in which Israel is moving, and they know it.
The West Bank shares the longest border on dry land with Israel. How would a Palestinian state build a viable economy if the Arabs cannot do business with Israel? Separation could mean that Arabs will not be able to commute to Israel for jobs and that Arab businesses could not use Israeli roads to reach coastal ports.
Such a move would starve Arabs on the West Bank unless Jordan was willing to work with them, and that seems unlikely. If their lives are miserable now, that's only a preview of things to come if they are completely cut off from Israel.
The Arab leadership and their extremist followers essentially got what they asked for, anyway, when Sharon routed the barrier to include West Bank settlements. It is a public relations bonanza for them, and that is always more important than bettering the lives of their own people. Letting their people continue to suffer is well worth the price if they can harm Israel, even in terms of perception.
No matter where anyone stands on the route of the barrier, Arab extremists have been begging for it ever since they started this senseless war in September 2000. When Sharon ran for election as prime minister, Israeli voters had to choose between an incumbent Ehud Barak, whom they deemed ineffective, and Sharon, who many feared would be too heavy-handed.
Sharon must count the Arabs as his strongest campaigners. Without their ongoing terror war, Arab extremists could not have helped him more had they cast the votes themselves. Now, their people are suffering even more with the barrier route, and they expect worldwide sympathy.
The Arabs, as a people, brought this on themselves and now they want Israel to pay for it.
Jordan should start building a wall of its own and pen up those animals.
They don't have the technical know how to build airplanes?
On grounds similar, at the very least, to how Israel was willing to work with them? Or less...?
"They don't have the technical know how to build airplanes?"
No... And besides, where would they get the coal for fuel?<
At any time, they can go to Israel and offer to start serious negotiations. Every meter more of the Wall weakens the Palestinians' position in that negotiation. This is a classic situation in which one side cannot do the rational thing (make peace) because it is locked into a strategy that evolved to meet a different situation. The important question is: what does the Arab world do when the Wall is complete? Will they attack Israel? And if they do attack--what would a President Kerry do? We know what President Bush would do.
I believe Sharon's plan is to build the wall. Tell the anit-semite governments of the world to bug off. Declare the West Bank and Gaza Strip non-Israeli territory, and recognize any half-legitimate Palestinian leader as the leader of a sovereign state (as long as its not Arafat), and request recognition by the UN and other major world players.
Of course the anti-semites in the UN will not waste a moment in showing their hypocrisy and anti-semitism by shedding wolf tears and crying that "this is an agression against the Palestinian people!". All the while forgetting the Oslo accords, which are generally accepted as a fair shake, were based on providing the Palestinians their right to govern themselves?
It won't be good enough at the UN or for the Arabs or Muslims in general. A sovereign state is not their wish....it is Jewish blood they lust for. There is no sincere sympathy by the Arab countries, Israel is a thorn in their collective side.
Sharon is building a fortress. He is a millitary man and is in moving Israel into a defensive posture. Not only is this a millitary move, it is a phillisophical and religous move. Once Israel has walled itself off, given the Palestinians a sovereign state with self-determination, and a fig leaf, it will be morally and regiously justified to defend itself with wrath. People forget Israel has nuclear weapons, and are the only country in this world surrounded by aggressors who openly pray for her destruction.
Any territory that hosts artillery attacks will be punished as if war had been declared by a sovereign state. This includes Syria or their proxy state of Lebanon. A mix of rabid fanatacism and brink of extinction mindset could lead to a frightening scenario.
Never in history has there ever been a situation where a nuclear state has truly faced the fear of being overrun completely. The Israelis have nuclear weapons, and will certainly use them if it means that or extinction for the jews. What would you do?
The world has two choices, reign in their irrational anti-semitism for the sake of millions of lives, or run the risk of creating a nuclear nightmare that will result in 10s of millions of dead arabs and jews and environmental impact around the world.
It's only a matter of time before the PLO factions have only each other to murder... oh, wait... that's what they've been doing for a generation... of course, it's gonna be a bloodbath now...
Lawless in Gaza
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1176477/posts
Palestinians 'made millions' selling cheap cement for barrier they bitterly oppose
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1179577/posts
Self-Defense Fence
Clifford D. May
January 8, 2004
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/May20040108.shtml
I don't see the armageddon scenarioo you present as a likely one. Arab leaders aren't suicidal. Israel's nuclear deterrent has prevented them from launching a full scale war for three decades.
An individual nation could be insane enough to start something serious, which is why Iran's nuclear program must be checked. Given the chance they'd threaten the entire Western world and not just Israel. Some Iranian Imams have already said that "Anglo-Saxon civilization" (meaning the U.S. and Great Britain) must be destroyed and replaced with Muslim states.
In any case, I think the article is well written and very much a window on the future. Israel will finish the fence, the world will protest and wueo to their own misguded militant leadership and the disdain of their fellow Arabs.
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