The solution to the mideast problem?

Aug 27 06:23 UTC 2003

                    Raise your hand if
                    you were shocked at
                    the breakdown of
                    the so-called Middle
             East "road map." If you are
             raising your hand, give
             yourself a nice, hard slap
             across the chops. Maybe that
             will wake you up from your
             reverie of self-delusion.

             The "road map" was doomed
             from the start. The Arab
             enmity for Jews and the state
             of Israel allows for no peace
             process.

             The time for half measures
             has passed. Bulldozing
             houses of homicide bombers
             is useless. Instituting ongoing
             curfews in Arab-populated
             cities is useless. Roadblocks,
             touch fences, midnight
             negotiations and cease-fires
             are useless. 

             Some have rightly suggested
             that Israel be allowed to
             decapitate the terrorist
             leadership of the Palestinian
             Authority. But this too is only
             a half measure. The ideology
             of the Palestinian population
             is indistinguishable from that
             of the terrorist leadership. 

             Half measures merely
             postpone our realization that
             the Arabs dream of Israel's
             destruction. Without drastic
             measures, the Arab dream will
             come true. In the short term,
             the establishment of a
             "Palestinian state" based in
             Judea, Samaria and Gaza
             cuts Israel to the bone. In
             some places, Israel would be
             an unthinkable 9 miles wide.
             In the long term, the growth of
             the hostile Israeli-Arab
             population within pre-1967
             Israel bodes ill for the future
             of the Jewish state. As
             University of Haifa professor
             Arnon Soffer says, "The
             trends and indicators all point
             to an economic and ecological
             catastrophe waiting to happen
             and of the death knell of the
             ideological dream of a Jewish
             state."

             Here is the bottom line: If you
             believe that the Jewish state
             has a right to exist, then you
             must allow Israel to transfer
             the Palestinians and the
             Israeli-Arabs from Judea,
             Samaria, Gaza and Israel
             proper. It's an ugly solution,
             but it is the only solution. And
             it is far less ugly than the
             prospect of bloody conflict ad
             infinitum. When two populations are constantly
             enmeshed in conflict, it is insane to suggest that
             somehow deep-seated ideological change will
             miraculously occur, allowing the two sides to live
             together. 

             Unfortunately, this insanity is generally accepted as
             "the only way forward." President Bush accepts it
             because it is politically palatable. The Arabs accept
             it because for them, it is a Trojan horse. The Israelis
             accept it because they are afraid that if they expel
             the Arabs, they will be called Nazis.

             For anyone who lived through the Holocaust, or who
             has relatives who died in it, being called a Nazi is
             unspeakably terrible. That is the secret weapon of
             the Arabs. Any time the Jews get wise and threaten
             mass expulsion of Arabs, the Arabs pull out their
             big stick, equating Nazism with Zionism. Their
             cartoons merge swastikas with stars of David. Their
             newspapers call Ariel Sharon another Adolf Hitler.
             Their spokespeople cry "Genocide!" And the Jews
             cower in fear that they could be equated with their
             parents' murderers. 

             The Jews don't realize that expelling a hostile
             population is a commonly used and generally
             effective way of preventing violent entanglements.
             There are no gas chambers here. It's not genocide;
             it's transfer. It's not Hitler; it's Churchill.

             After World War II, Poland was recreated by the
             Allied Powers. In doing so, the Allies sliced off a
             chunk of Germany and extended Poland west to the
             Oder-Neisse line. Anywhere from 3.5 million to 9
             million Germans were forcibly expelled from the
             new Polish territory and relocated in Germany. 

             British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was
             pleased with the result. In 1944, he had explained to
             the House of Commons that "expulsion is the
             method which, so far as we have been able to see,
             will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will
             be no mixture of populations to cause endless
             trouble ... a clean sweep will be made. I am not
             alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of
             populations, nor even by these large transferences,
             which are more possible in modern conditions than
             they ever were before." Churchill was right. The
             Germans accepted the new border, and decades of
             conflict between Poles and Germans ended.

             Arab-Jewish conflict is exponentially more volatile
             than German-Polish conflict ever was. And the
             solution is far easier. If there was "room in Germany
             for the German populations of East Prussia and of
             the other territories," as Churchill stated, there is
             certainly room in the spacious Muslim states of the
             Middle East for 5 million Palestinians and Israeli
             Arabs. If Germans, who had a centuries-old
             connection to the newly created Polish territory,
             could be expelled, then surely Palestinians, whose
             claim to Judea, Samaria and Gaza is dubious at
             best, can be expelled. 

             It's time to stop being squeamish. Jews are not
             Nazis. Transfer is not genocide. And anything else
             isn't a solution.

response 2 of 50:

Aug 27 08:08 UTC 2003

  What's a little ethnic cleansing when G_d is on your side?
  Ick.

response 4 of 50:

Aug 27 13:11 UTC 2003

Could you wrap these things to a reasonable column width?  None of us
are using VIC-20s anymore, we can read more than 22 characters on a line.

It'll be interesting to see lk's comments about this.  I disagree with
it but I've certainly heard the sentiment expressed fairly often, and I
suspect there's a substantial minority in Israel that would like to see
it happen.

response 8 of 50:

Aug 27 20:25 UTC 2003

Yes, it was Muslim league that demanded a separate state for Muslims 
under the leadership of Jinnah. 

Whether it was Jinnah's or Nehru's ego that forced the creation of 
Pakistan is something, I guess, we'll never know.

I think, for Pakistani politicians, today, India and Kashmir have 
become indispensible politically. That is because if you take these two 
out of the political scene in Pakistan, the politcians would have to 
face much tougher questions like economic development. Compared to that 
Kashmir rhetoric is much easier to churn out and sway people towards 
them. The more a politician promises on Kashmir (its separation from 
India and accession by Pakistan), more is the attention he gets from 
the population.

We joke that if the Kashmir issue was solved, what would Pakistanis get 
up and do/think about the next morning??

response 12 of 50:

Aug 28 11:17 UTC 2003

Again, several books, research papers etc have been written on the 
partition of India. And the arguement is almost never ending. 

At best, "But the root is that if Nehru had backed down and agreed, in 
1947, that a temporary oversight committee under the auspicies of the 
UN would be given access to India in 1957, Jinnah would have backed 
down and what is modern day Pakistan would still be part of India." is 
only speculation.

response 14 of 50:

Aug 28 16:11 UTC 2003

Jinnah was demanding it, of course he would be willing to go along 
with it. Personally, I agree with SJ2, I don't think any soveriegn 
nation would want someone sitting over them watching their every move. 

When India was to get it's independence, she was supposed to be 
secular nation. I can see why Nehru wouldn't want one sect to be given 
special preferances over another. What comes next? The christians 
demand protection, then the Sikhs, then someone raises a stink about 
inequality and decides to come up with a separate state?

I haven't really heard about these demands. What exactly were they? 
Without knowing what the exact terms of protection were, it is hard to 
say whether Nehru was justified or not. 

The part about Mountbatten I've heard before. And it's quite 
interesting to hear his view that he would have waited for Jinnah to 
kick the bucket to transfer power and not have to deal with his 
demands? Could it be because he felt they were unreasonable too? If he 
thought they were reasonable, I don't think he would have made such a 
comment. 

I haven't really read much on the subject, and most of my comment are 
based on what I've read here. cross/sj2, could you point me to more 
reading on this matter?

response 16 of 50:

Aug 29 21:14 UTC 2003

Re #13, Cross read what I wrote.
"Why did the British accept Jinnah as the representative of the 
Muslims? The opposite was proved when the majortiy of muslims chose to 
stay in India after the partition."

I didn't say "Muslim league", I said "Muslims".

The above might've been drawn from Jinnah's personal papers but how do 
you know that Jinnah might not have raised some other demand/objection 
had Nehru agreed to the oversight committee demand?

Then we would have oversight committees for Sikhs, Christians, Jains, 
Buddhists, Jews, Parsis, native tribes etc etc. Sorry, but Jinnah's 
demand for an oversight committee to protect the interests of the 
Muslims was lame. It might've made sense if India aimed to be a Hindu 
nation but not when it was committed to being a secular nation.

Mynxcat - I just google for keywords like "partition of India", "Jinnah 
partition", "Muslim league demands" etc. The only books I have read 
related to India's freedom struggle are "Freedom at Midnight" and "My 
experiments with Truth".

Re #15, The only way to achieve peace is if the people took over the 
control from the politicians and get going with a meaningful dialogue 
with a set timeframe for peace. It also needs well-meaning negotiaters 
on both sides.

With politicians handling all this, its bound to get screwed because of 
dynamics of elections and popularity. Which politician would take a 
politically strong decision if it costs him his chair? None!!!

response 18 of 50:

Aug 31 23:17 UTC 2003

I assume when you say I advocate "transfer" you're talking about dismantling
of settlements.  But it's hardly the same thing.  Settlements exist because
they push back the potential borders of any Palastinian state.  No one really
believes that any settlements that exist when such a state is created will
become part of that state.  In fact, the people who create these settlements
proudly declare that they're winning new land for Israel.

response 20 of 50:

Sep 2 15:01 UTC 2003

> To advocate only the transfer of Jews living in areas that will become
> an Arab state but being horrified by Jews who talk of transferring
> Arabs out of the Jewish state is curiously hypocritical.

By design, the settlement areas will never become part of an Arab state.
  The whole point of settling Jews there is to make sure those areas
stay part of Israel.

response 22 of 50:

Sep 3 00:22 UTC 2003

BRU IS A JEW.

response 24 of 50:

Sep 4 08:08 UTC 2003

David, once again you're trying to change facts to suit your model
rather than basing your model on facts:

> By design, the settlement areas will never become part of an Arab state.
>   The whole point of settling Jews there is to make sure those areas
> stay part of Israel.

Um, no. Under the Clinton compromise, some 80% of the "settlements"
would have been evacuated (mostly smaller villages which only comprise
about 20% of the "settlers").

Your misunderstanding does not obviate your hypocrisy.  Just because
you erroneously believe that Jewish settlements will not be evacuated
doesn't diminish your hypocrisy: on one hand you state that "transfer"
is evil while on the other hand you are calling for the "transfer"
only of Jews.

As I said:

 What *some* people may say hardly justifies forcibly removing
 people off the land where they may have lived for 35 years. And possibly
 the same land that their parents and grand-parents lived on prior to being
 ethnically cleansed in 1948 -- a mere 19 years earlier.
 
 Either you are against "transfer" or you're not. To advocate only the
 transfer of Jews living in areas that will become an Arab state but
 being horrified by Jews who talk of transferring Arabs out of the
 Jewish state is curiously hypocritical.