generalspeaking

Middle East Future

Downright puzzling when one reads continually the de rigueur reminder that Gaza is an "impoverished territory". Particularly so when one also reads of truckloads of provisions regularly passing through from Israel to Gaza. And all the more so when one reads of the many tunnels through which enterprising Palestinians ferry goods to Gaza through a well-run and -remunerated underground market provisioning the territory amazingly.

Think of tunnels so large and sophisticated that vehicles are brought in for sale, and warehouses full of refrigerators, flat-screen televisions, and electronic equipment.

That kind of thing. And the explanation that these products, given the dangers and labours inherent in smuggling them through the tunnels, sell for whopping huge sums of money. And the additional explanation that many Palestinians prefer to 'save' their money, rather than squander it unnecessarily on luxury goods. Save their money? People who are unemployed, who are suffering dire impoverishment?

Yes, well, all is not necessarily as it seems. One must perforce remember that the United Nations has for over 60 years ensured that cash transfers and goods and services have gone out to Palestinian 'refugees'. Who live in 'refugee camps', which somehow resemble towns and villages existing anywhere else, and thriving small cities equipped with all the modern conveniences seen elsewhere.

Yet these are 'occupied' territories and those who live within them are 'refugees'. They need not have been refugees, had the United Nations left them to fend for themselves, and realize that it was past time they matured into thinking of themselves as independent, capable and invested with the potential for self-enterprise, and drop their resistance to responsible management of their own resources and futures.

Instead of their aggrieved and ongoing entitlement to earning the sympathy of the world at large as poor refugees, living under inclement conditions, in the menacing shadow of a Jewish state. Needful of charity from abroad to maintain their preferred 'refugee' lifestyle. When the simple fact is that they choose to live this way, because they aspire to the destruction of the Jewish state and the establishment of a Palestinian state where Israel rests.

The UN-initiated Partition was never accepted by the Arab population, even while it was embraced by the Jewish population of 'Palestine'. The nascent state, then the declared, autonomous and independent State of Israel was forced to fight one defensive war after another brought to its new borders by a coalition of incendiary-driven, Jewish-destroying Arab armies.

Although Israel fought them all back and in the process gradually acquired its status as a power to be feared (which equates with loathing respect) it also acquired an extension of its territory. Some of which has been surrendered in exchange for (a sour) peace agreement, some of which it continues to retain. But which would be surrendered with alacrity if peace could be assured.

Alas, it cannot. For even while vanquished, the urgent and violent need to surmount the obstacle to ownership of the entire territory that Israel presents, will not so easily evaporate. Even while the Palestinians disincentivize themselves to become masters in their own house (territory and eventual independent state) with the maturation of their society into one accepting a neighbour unlike themselves, they insist on their victimhood.

Until such time as the realization finally impinges that it would be greatly to their advantage to accept the presence of a Jewish state in their Islamic midst, that huge benefits would accrue to the entire geography by so accepting the reality of the situation, there will be no peace, and there will be no economic, political and social advantages accruing to the entire area.

The inevitable surely cannot be forestalled forever...?

Labels: Conflict, Israel, Middle East

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, April 29, 2010