How can you say Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is the ROOT of the problem but that Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders will end this conflict once and for all? What was the 1967 war all about?
You're contradicting yourself.
The root of the conflict goes back to when the Brits installed Mufti al-Hussayni shortly after the Faisal-Weismann agreement. Up until that point, 2 states for 2 people was workable. Al-Hussayni took over, wiped out all moderate and progressive Palestinian representation and leadership and that's continued to this day. You want an end to the conflict, you have to first address al-Hussayni, Arafat, Hamas, and all the other extreme, fanatical regional leadership that will not abide even one square mile of a national home for Jews in that area and ALLOW for real, representative moderate Palestinian leadership and representation to materialize.
That's the pro-Palestinian position.
And here's one possible solution to the conflict.....
NO DEMOCRACY FOR THE ARAB WORLD
By Ben-Dror Yemini
The new buzz-word in the Middle East now is Democracy. Who could possibly object? Even those opposed to the USA do not dare come out against this winning concept. To implement it, a Jewish professor, Noah Feldman, was recruited to "Go to Iraq and install Democracy". Here we have a double treat: Democracy, and a Jew. Who could ask for anything more?
The answer comes unexpectedly from a brilliant Muslim. Farid Zakharia, a newspaperman and intellectual living in the United States, has been claiming for many years that democrarcy can wait. Not to worry: He is not a follower of Edouard Sa'id, nor a hater of the West. Quite the contrary. Zakharia is one of the severest critics of fundamentalism and the backwardness into which it forces the Muslim world. In a recently published book, "The Future of Liberty", Zakharia writes that there are a few more important items of business requiring attention before going to cast ballots in make-believe elections in Iraq.
Tens of millions of Muslims all over the world have for decades been brainwashed in a primitive educational system, a significant part of which consists of anti-Western polemics. This system is supported by Western academics and is in blatant violation of human rights. It views liberalism as permissive, conducive to corruption and as desecrating family honor. Fawning post-modernists will tell us that one must 'understand the other', and that 'Liberal values are not necessarily preferable'. They add that 'Repressive American hegemony' is to blame for all the world's troubles, and so on. Everyone is at fault, not only the medieval education system, the corrupt tyrants, and the hate-mongering mullahs.
For democracy to take hold, public debate is essential, a culture in which opposing points of view may be expressed and discussed. But this has been eliminated in most of the uslim world. Even in Egypt, where there is a certain amount of freedom of the press, such freedom has a very definite purpose, such as anti-Israel diatribes voiced by a certain Israeli guest writer. That is the current "Democracy". This type of misinformation, when fed to the average Egyptian reader, limits his options to a choice of a party that calls for the elimination of Israel, and a bin-Ladenite party that will declare a Jihad on all Western infidels. And the intellectuals? They are the worst offenders. For them "Progress" is mainly the option, even the obligation, to hate the entire Western world, and especially Israel. Thus the literary societies, engineers and lawyers. If this is representative of the warped views held by educated Egyptians, the leaders of monstrous self-delusions, what could be expected of the ignorant masses?
There are other voices in the Arab world which are critical, open and enlightened. But they are in the minority, and suffer from discrimination, especially among the literary. If this be democracy, it appears doomed before even trying. It was tried in Algeria, with well-known results. In Turkey, an autocratic leader, Mustapha Kamel (Attaturk) enforced liberalization. Blessed tyranny. Even now, Turkey operates under a secular army rule which prevents the return of Islam.
In most Arab countries, religion is the escape for the ignorant, desperate and poverty-ridden, and the tool of the inciter. Liberation from Saddam will not make the Iraqi masses embrace American revolutionary standards - not even the old French values, but will rather leave them open to religious tyranny. Free elections will not install any human rights enthusiast, but will instead produce some bin Laden mutation. There are some examples of success, such as in a few of the states of the former Soviet Union. There, a precondition for democratization - even if incomplete - was the suppression of fundamentalist factors. The problem is neither Islam nor the Qur'an. On this point, and on this point only, Professor Feldman - whose failure in Iraq is assured - is right. The problem is incitement to hatred, brainwashing and a corrupted education.
Zakharia claims that liberalization also depends on economic growth and the presence of a middle class. He also differentiates between an oil-produced (and meaningless) growth and one based on progress resulting from an expanding industriousness as the way to freedom. Only with a wide-based middle class with reasonable income can opportunity come. But democracy will not be the cause, but rather the result of this. Democracy means reaching the end of the road, not the starting point.
The solution for the Arab world is a period - and not necessarily a short one - of a benevolent dictatorship. Elimination of coercion, preaching of hatred and incitement to violence, and a sound general education system coupled with economic development. Iraq needs an Attaturk, with a tyranny for the purpose of enlightenment, at least for the interim, and not free elections, which would result in the coronation of some ayatollah. Democracy is indeed the best form of government, but in this region, at this stage, it is a recipe for collective suicide.
And here is why the above isn't happening and won't happen anytime soon.
...by the same author.
EUROPE VERSUS THE ARABS
Who was it who wrote that 'The culture of self-delusion is the reason for the Arab world's backwardness'? And who wrote that 'All the resources stolen by British companies during their years of rule in Iraq do not amount to one-tenth the fortune spent by Iraqi governments to build a (military) machine that brought it no benefits, except the death of about a million young men'? And who wrote that Arab fantasy causes them to think that their culture is superior to that of the West?
Surprise! All of the above were written by Arab intellectuals, who live and who publish in the Arab world.
The following is but a partial list of partners in this new wave, such as Dr. Jabber al-Ansari of Bahrein, Al-Afif al Akhchar of Tunis, Toufik abu-Bakhar of Ramallah, and many others. They do not belong to any party or movement, and are not all alike. Yet, they are no longer anonymous. They are having their say in the most important and widely distributed newspapers. They are fed up with absence of critical thought, hatred of the West, and of self-delusion.
One would have thought that Western intellectuals would delight in discovering this treasure of clear thinking: Here are reformists in the heart of Arab and Muslim culture who do not despise their identity and who yet detest Saddam and bin Laden. Here are partners for a better world.
But surprise again! Europe is not interested. These thinkers do not fit the theories developed in academe and which have taken over most of the European media and governments. Europe knowingly encourages only Muslims or Arabs who adhere to the extremist line. Europe prefers Khomeini. She protects Saddam. She encourages Arafat. Maintains a dialogue with Nasrallah. Understands bin Laden. Europe is in love with power, as long as it's not Western.
When European companies supplied Iraq and Iran with the means to manufacture WMD, its intellectuals became manufacturers of excuses for hating the West. Slogans that only a few years prior were the property of radical writers are now common currency even in centrist circles - the same slogans expressed by the most despicable hate-mongers. It is no longer possible to differentiate between someone identifying with al-Qaeda from an editorial in Le Monde. The same anti-West canards are circulated in the Arab world and Europe. Middle-Eastern studies are supported by one of the Western world's most pro-Fundamentalist and anti-American European organizations. Hamas supporters are welcome guests at their conclaves, but not Iranian student representatives, because they are against supporting Hizbollah. That is too much for Europe!
Europe is mired in a morass wherein significant parts of academe and media consider it politically incorrect to espouse liberalism and democratic ideals. It is a real crime to claim that the Muslim world's main problem is internal tyranny and self-delusion. The "other" god, that of "the oppressed", approves the appearance of Chirac in Beirut alongside Nasrallah - and it matters nought that this murderer loathes all that is Western.
Millions of Muslims live in Europe, most of them secular individuals. Most want to become part of Europe, not part of al-Qaeda. But they are under pressure from European governments to play the part of the eternal 'other'. If Saddam and Nasrallah are Chirac's pets, and if the Guardian's senior commentator on Middle-Eastern affairs - like many of his colleagues - 'understand' and espouse terror, then what exactly can a young Muslim from the Paris or London suburbs conclude? Should he identify with intellectuals like Al-Akhchar of Tunis or Prof. (Fouad) Ajami of the USA, or rather with the Hate-the-West crowd?
Europe is bound to pay a heavy price for this stupidity. Those accepting or even justifying anti-American terror do not realize that by so doing, they are not reducing the potential for violence from within, but rather, are showing millions of Muslims in Europe the way. The wrong way. And that is not going to stop in the United States.
so tell me, what's so offensive, RACIST, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian about the above?
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