Palestine: a Dysfunctional Economy and a Bottomless Country.
Dr. A.K.Enamul Haque PhD.
As I write this episode from Bangkok Thailand, I am watching BBC TV where I learned that Israeli planes are buzzing low over the house of Syrian President Asad and has bombed a power station in Gaza. They are doing this in a bid to free a soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas gunmen. Although it is not going to affect me or any of you, it is again another sign of the escalation of violence in the Middle East. To me, I see no end to the violence in that part of the world. The Palestinians made their first mistake by trusting the US in their bid to win freedom. They are now at the lowest level of public trust by anybody including the Arabs. Nobody seems to be interested in them like that of many others in the world and increasingly they seem to be fighting a losing war.
I do not think that they can do this and win a game.  The late PLO leader Yasser Arafat was wrong to enter into a peace deal with the Israelis brokered by the USA in order to go for power. All he wanted after years of war was to die peacefully being in power. He was successful. However, Palestine has become a failure. Why?
First, I don’t think it was right for him to negotiate a peace deal on the basis of promises from the US. Trust is mutual. The US never trusted him and so he should not have trusted them either. As a result, he lost any sympathy from others in the world. The Palestinians lost their friends in the world. Second, in negotiating the deal he had no real broker for him. The US was the official broker but we all know that they were working for Israel. Third, the Palestinians are looking for a home and I see no reason why they want a separate home? They can easily live inside Israel as their citizens and take measures to ensure that Israel does not impose discriminatory law based on religion beliefs or nationality. Arafat could have won the war on the ground of apartheid. To me he did not do so because he wanted to become the statesmen. At the end he died like a gang leader, officially the unofficial “President” of a country that does not exist.
Arafat’s lack of foresight is responsible for this continuing trouble in the Middle East. As a result, a large part of the Islamic world is very quiet as Israelis kill civilians, children and women. If he was clever and accepted or demanded equal rights in Israel then he could have got his country by now. Unfortunately, I don’t understand why they never agreed to become citizens of Israel.
At the moment, they are caught in between two clever foxes. Look at this example. Once upon a time Palestinian fighters were called terrorists because they were kidnapping civilian planes, killing civilians in Israel as well as in Europe. The world wanted them to stop because killing civilians is “against the norm”. The poor PLO leaders thought that it would be useful for them to listen to such a crap! Instead, they started shooting at Israeli military targets, but this was also condemned in the west because they were terrorists and they do not recognize Israel – the friend of US! During this time, Israelis continued to kill civilians in Gaza, imprisoned the whole community for years together including their leader Arafat (when he was alive). The Palestinian authority has now lost all of its authority. Neither their own people nor the world has much sympathy for them. Look at what is happening in that part of the world now. Gunman kidnaps one Israeli soldier. Why? Because they have said that they demand the release of prisoners in the Israeli prison. Who are these prisoners? Well, according to the list of demands published they want the release of children and women from Israeli jails. Do you think that this is a legitimate demand? Oh! No. How could you? How can a “government” negotiate with a “terrorist” group of people!!!
What we are talking about is that the kidnapped person is an Israeli soldier – God’s own choice! He has all the right to kill any one – women, children, Palestinian, etc. He can bulldoze any part of Palestine and no crime takes place. He can walk into the home of any Palestinian because their homes are not recognized as homes. It is a refugee camp! They are less than human.
How about the Palestinian? They can do as much protest as they can. The world will accept it. They cannot threaten anyone – civilian or military! They cannot walk freely, elect their own leaders, or have a country of their own! What can they do? Well, they can seek mercy from the US, ask for compassion and elect the one whom the US likes. Killing! Oops no. They cannot kill anyone except the mosquitoes and the flies. They cannot throw a rock even. They cannot even kill an ordinary Israeli or a SOLDIER – who is trained to kill them!  I wonder whom they can kill to remove such injustice! Maybe a chicken! What do you think?
This is a tragedy. All this could have been avoided if they had one plot of land and had one country. This is now impossible. They have east and also west – Gaza and the West Bank. Arafat did not realize the problem of running a divided country, neither their current leaders understand this. On the other hand, if they accept Israel and give up the fight to have an independent state, they will have to be accepted by the Israelis as citizens of Israel! At least, Israelis cannot push Palestinian out of their homeland just like what had happened to them thousands of years ago! Can they?  If not, then all Palestinians will have to have the same rights as the others, including voting rights. Imagine now who would become the Prime Minister of Israel under this situation. I hope one day Palestinians understand that they should have a better leader then what they have now. They should know whom to trust and whom not. Instead of trusting the US, it would have been better to trust Israel and become its “proud” citizen. The current framework of creating two countries in this tiny peace of land will not be successful. The country Palestine is not even viable. It will be a dysfunctional economy and a bottomless country.
The Palestinians Versus the Israelis: What Do the People In the Congo Think?
By Philip Shaw M.Sc.
This is a long story. Oh, how I get tired thinking about it. The Palestinians versus the Israelis again. What day is it? Is it Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday? What difference does it make? They are at it again. Don’t the people in the Democratic Republic of Congo bleed too? There have only been about 4 million killings over the last five or six years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What’s that fuss about in Israel again?
This stuff drives me crazy. I do not understand how the western media is so continually fixated on a little country like Israel with a population of 6.2 million people. Add another 3 million people on the west bank and Gaza and it would seem we have a pressure cooker of hate, which the world is addicted to.
Enamul is all right. From this western perspective there is nothing right about what is going on in the West Bank and Gaza where Israel and the Palestinians are once again at each other’s throats. Israel with its superior resources comes across as the heavy. The Palestinians say they will fight back any way they can. The war will go on.
In the west the Palestinians have a long history of bad press. Enamul in the East half of East West mentions the following
“Once upon a time Palestinian fighters were called terrorists because they were kidnapping civilian planes, killing civilians in Israel as well as in Europe. The world wanted them to stop because killing civilians is “against the norm”. The poor PLO leaders thought that it would be useful for them to listen to such crap! Instead, they started shooting at Israeli military targets, but this was also condemned in the west because they were terrorists and they do not recognize Israel – the friend of US!”
This is interesting to me because at one time in the early part of our relationship Enamul and I actually “fought” or “debated vigorously” about this very thing. From my perspective it was “what’s up with these Palestinians hijacking planes and killing cruise ship passengers like Leon Kinghoffer on the Achilles Laurel? Enamul would shoot back that these people weren’t terrorists. “Who were they going to shoot back against? They didn’t even have a country.
That was a bit of a tough argument for me. I didn’t know a lot about the Palestinians and I certainly didn’t know a lot about Enamul. In turn he didn’t know a lot about me and he certainly didn’t know a lot about western sensibilities when it came to “terrorists” versus another man’s “freedom fighters.” Over time we’ve come over to close to the same side. Still though with my obvious aversion to this “global issue” I find it hard to truly understand. The killing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo seems so much worse.
No, killing is killing is killing no matter where it is and on what scale. There are all kinds of villains. Certainly the Palestinians and the Israelis have their share of accomplices on their way to today. A grand reconciliation isn’t in the cards.  Grandpa hated the other grandpa so much it’ll be forever before a whiff peace will be possible.
Still a peaceful Palestinian homeland should be a goal.
In 2001 the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs collated the estimates of worldwide distribution of Palestinians quoted in the table below. Source: Wilkpedia.  You might not know it but Palestinians are spread around the world.
At the end of the day, I agree with Enamul. As it is now the Palestine I know has a dysfunctional economy and no hope as a nation. From a Palestinians perspective, it almost seems like no-way out. Israel seemingly holds all the cards with Arafat’s legacy hurting them too. Yes, if they were part of Israel it might have been better.
However, that long and winding road has long been burned. Finding any hope in this current situation is almost impossible.