Sunday, October 23, 2005
Brett Stephens has it just right in this OpinionJournal piece from yesterday.
A History of Violence - How did the Palestinians descend into barbarism?
Yet the checkpoints and curfews are not gratuitous acts of unkindness by Israel, nor are they artifacts of occupation. On the contrary, in the years when Israel was in full control of the territories there were no checkpoints or curfews, and Palestinians could move freely (and find employment) throughout the country. It was only with the start of the peace process in 1993 and the creation of autonomous Palestinian areas under the control of the late Yasser Arafat that terrorism became a commonplace fact of Israeli life. And it was only then that the checkpoints went up and the clampdowns began in earnest...
Worth reading it all and bearing in mind as Mahmoud Abbas is feted at the Whitehouse.
There has never been a Palestinian State, and there is no Palestinian State infrastructure to turn juridsiction over to. That's why, for all the complaining about the horrors of occupation, and the screaming for it to end, there are simultaneous calls for Israel not to move too swiftly, to coordinate their moves and withdrawals with the Palestinian Authority -- becase they need to build a country in the wake of Israeli withdrawal. They must be the only people in history to be recognized as a nation without any of the characteristics ordinarily required for nationhood -- like a demonstrated ability to provide law and order, for instance. But then, the international community (such as it is) has made many an exception for the Palestinian Arabs. Is it they, their friends...or their foe that accounts for it?
By the way, that state infrastructure wasn't destroyed by Israel. It never existed. To the extent that there was a civil society, driven by a tribal village structure in the West Bank and Gaza, it was largely destroyed and supplanted by the return of Arafat's gang from Tunis in 1993. He is the one who destroyed what there was of a Palestinian society not solely dedicated to war and hatred. Is Abbas the man to change that? So far it looks more like anarchy and anarchy alone will do the job of tearing the old down. What is built in its place is more up to outsiders forcing change and responsibility on the Palestinians as they never have done before.
The prognosis isn't good.
