[Optimist]

Palestinian leaders are elected directly by the Palestinian people. President Yasser Arafat was directly elected in a free and fair election,"

And when we, the Palestinian leaders, decide who the next "President" will be, only THEN, will we hold free and fair elections again so the ignorant Palestinian people can directly elect him.

[goldstategop]

The PLO can wait for statehood til hell freezes over. 'Nuff said.

[d4now]

President Yasser Arafat was directly elected in a free and fair election," Cabinet minister and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told CNN.

This was in 1996 - right?

[monkeyshine]

"Palestinian leaders don't come from parachutes from Washington"

Where does Mr. Erekat think Arafat came from?

It was President Bush Sr. who plucked him from exile to represent the Palestinians in peace talks with Israel.

Is Bush saying you have to get rid of him? Or is Bush just saying that he has to go before we'll listen to your BS anymore?

[Spiff]

Well, this is going to put Bush in a bad spot. After what he said today, he's actually going to have to finally let the Israelis wipe the desert with those sand fleas. Or will he? Anyone here a betting man?

[leftiesareloonie]

Bush's policy of putting off provisional statehood -- what kind of statehood that is I don't know -- until Arafat is removed may look good on the surface, but it seems to me a policy counterproductive in the extreme.

Ask yourself who he imagines will replace Arafat and how he imagines the replacement will happen? I imagine that it would take a bloodbath among the Palestinians to bring this about. And I don't see any incentive for secular, democratically inclined Palestinians to risk such a bloodbath -- especially since Bush's promised payoffs are so inchoate and indefinite.

Why would it take a civil war, you ask?

Well think like a Palestinian.

Suppose you are a Palestinian of the Hamas, Hezbullah sort. You desparately want to replace the secular Palestinian Authority with an radical Islamic "government." If so, you have no interest whatsoever in the "vision" Bush laid out in his speech of a democratic and presumably secular Palestine. Nor do you have any deep interest in peace with Isreal. You want to destroy Isreal, not negotiate peace with it. How do you react to Bush's proposal? Despite the fact that you totally reject Bush's vision, you should react with utter glee because it sets up a trap for your secular Palestinian brethen. The only way they can move toward their secular state is by kowtowing to Sharon and Bush. You would love to have the US joined at the hip, in Palestinian opinion, with Sharon. And you would love it even more to be able to portray the secular Palestinians as the whipping boys of the Sharon-Bush axis of evil (to coin a phrase.).

Okay. Now take the other side. Suppose that you are a secular Palestinian who loathes both the corrupt and ineffectual Arafat and jihadists like Hamas, et al. You would deeply love to see a modern, democratic state of the sort Bush envisions. What do you do. In your secret heart of hearts you say that Bush is right about the best course forward. But you worry deeply about how to get there from here, about how to bring the majority of Palestinians, who mostly are suffering angry and alienated, along to your cause? Do you do so by dumping the very guy who is in some sense the father of your resistance movement on command, as it were, from Sharon and his toady Bush? HOw would that sell in the streets of Palestine? HOw would you radical islamic opponents play that one up?

You can't accept Bush's approach. If you do, you undermine Palestinian unity -- which despite all the differences among you is a powerful weapon in your favor. Imagine that the slaveholding south and the free north had not made common cause in the American revolution. Would the Revolution have succeeded? To be sure, the failure to deal with the deep divisions among you may have far reaching consequences in less than a century -- just as in the American Revolution. But you are trying to give birth to a nation. You believe you can put off dealing with internal divisions until after the nation is born.

So in order not to breach the fragile unity of your disparate people, you too reject Bush's vision (at least publically and for the moment.) But Bush has set it up so that if you reject his vision, the only alternatives before you are either decades of further repression and occupation or armed struggle.

Which do you choose?

Maybe you and the jihadist form a united front. Maybe you declare a Palestinian state right now. And devote yourself to armed struggle entirely. Maybe you call on all "right thinking" people of the world, people who love freedom and rejecty tyranny and oppression to side with you, to understand your need to wage war against Isreal.

Speaking again in my own voice. It may be that I'm just a dark souled pessimist. (I am at least that, the only question is whether I am only that). But I do have to say that if I were a secular Palestinian, I would believe that I have just been told that there is no hope short of civil war, without having been given any incentive to engage in such a war. And if I were a jihadist, I would believe that I have been given exactly what I want and that the only way the secularist can "isolate" me now -- which they have always wanted and have been unable to do -- is via civil war. Moreover, I would rejoice at the thought that short of civil war, the option of a peace which I cannot endure -- a peace that produces two states, a jewish state and a secular palestinian state -- has effectively been taken off the table indefintely.

[Bon mots]

Have a look here:

A great presentation about Israel and its evil neighbors. Have a look, it's well worth it. Pass it on.

Click here: History in a Nutshell

[DonQ]

Bush essentially put out a contract on Arafat. Something I wish he had done long ago. The Arabs now have a choice: They can stick with Arafat, even though he's old, sick, and crooked, and sending their children to slaughter, or they can find another leader and get some progress.

[The Raven]

Duh !! "Palestinian officials" are the problem...they need to go as well as Arafat.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

...Palestinian leaders are elected directly by the Palestinian people. President Yasser Arafat was directly elected in a free and fair election," Cabinet minister and chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told CNN...

April 25, 2002, 8:45 a.m.
Arafat, Elected?
The sham 1996 vote.

By Joel Mowbray

 

[evad]

Translation: All the proper statements have been made...now....full steam ahead and clean out that RATs nest once and for all.

[EternalHope]

Did any informed human being anywhere on earth seriously think Arafat would voluntarily step down just because the U.S. made that a pre-condition for a Palestinian state?

I didn't think so.

So, given the obvious, what did President Bush have in mind for the next step?

The Bush Administration knew Arafat would not step down. The speech was not given until the U.S. was ready for the next shoe to drop.

For those Freepers who actually want to think about what's really going on, it's time to start thinking at least one move ahead in the chess game.

We just made a major move, and Arafat is in check. His next move will be more terror (that's all he knows). We gave Israel a green light to defend itself.

The really interesting question is: What happens then?

I don't know, but I am sure we believe we are ready or the speach would not have been given.

[EternalVigilance]

"It would be dangerous and erroneous to eliminate him from the political stage because in the view of the Russian leadership this would only radicalize the Palestinian movement," Mr. Putin said

Sheesh...how in the world could the 'Palestinian movement' get any more radical.

Sometimes the diplomats, and the politicians who mouth their words, are just too much.

Just substitute the name 'Hitler' in the above paragraph, and pretend it's 1939, and it will be obvious what I mean.

[lilylangtree]

That'll teach ole araRAT to make close identity with Clintoon, as portrayed last week when araRAT decided he wants to return to the 2000 peace negotiations. This occurred a day after the Jordanian Prince Abdullah announced rethinking of Jordan's support of good ole araRAT.