Sometimes, when we think we’re changing 4 quarters for a dollar, we actually get short-changed. This is the case with the death of Yasser Arafat.
All of a sudden, the whole world has huge expectations for Middle East Peace because Arafat is out of the picture. But that’s not necessarily so. At best, the world just might be trading one tyranny for another.
Everyone blamed Hitler and his top aids for the Holocaust, but that wasn’t true. It wasn’t just Hitler and his henchmen. No matter how charismatic and controlling a leader is: he can not lead his people in a direction they are not WILLINGLY prepared to follow.
This is the salient point made in the extraordinary analysis of the Holocaust in the book: “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”.
The Holocaust could not have happened without the willing participation and complicity of a large number of supportive Germans (and other Europeans).
Arafat and his gang of thugs were (are) not the exception to the desire and culture of the Palestinian people. They were (are) the voice.
No matter how much we hope and try to convince ourselves that Arafat’s death ushers in a new day amongst the Arabs and the Islamists; it isn’t necessarily so. In fact, it could be worse.
The fact that Arafat is dead and gone, does not change the values, superstitions, erroneous beliefs and hatreds of the Palestinian people. And the so-called Arab Street.
And nothing illustrates this more than the pledge by Mahmoud Abbas: that if he is elected leader of the Palestinian people, he will continue to demand the Right of Return for all “dispossessed” Palestinians, to “return” to Israel proper, and swamp the Jewish State with a hostile Arab/Moslem population numbering in the millions.
And now that the world is holding its collective breath in the hopes that a peace deal can be negotiated in the absence of Arafat, the Palestinians are already pouring cold water on lukewarm embers by demanding what the Israelis could never accept.
It’s unfair and one-sided, that most of the world is placing the onus of fair and free Palestinian elections on the back of Israel, setting Israel up for the fall when (not if) the Palestinian election fails.
And the likely winner of the election (Mahmoud Abbas) is already setting the stage for blaming Israel for the failure of new peace negotiations predicated on a demand (the Right of Return) that is unattainable with the exception of the death of Israel.
Remarkably; Israel might have been better off with Arafat. At least with him, in spite of the fact that virtually all world leaders gave him their public support, they knew the scum that he really was.
But on a different side of the same coin, a different Palestinian face (“moderate” Mahmoud Abbas) with a “heartfelt” appeal for peace and justice (even though he wrote his thesis as a Holocaust denier) will be able to get the world to place unbelievable weight and pressure on Israel.
Nothing though will change with the death of Arafat. The Arabs will continue to hate Israel and Jews. The Islamists will continue to blame Israel, Jews and the Americans for everything from their poverty, ignorance and violence; to the current invasion of the locusts.
The world will point at Abbas, and tell the Israelis that it is only up to them to make peace since Abbas is not Arafat. And if Israel is not willing to commit national suicide to support such an Arab “moderate”. Than failure will belong to Israel.
The day of Arafat is done. And the day of the Arab “moderate” Abbas, who only wants Israel to be overrun with millions of Jew-haters will soon begin.
And as always; the world will pressure Israel to accept the unacceptable, and when they won’t; Israel will be blamed (as always) for placing roadblocks in the path for peace.
So goes it in the Middle East.
One Comment
I am 95 years old some days and 95 years young on others and I completely understand what you and Ann are planning.
God Bless.
Jim
Comments are closed.