“No one cares about the Palestinians,” I wrote in this space two years ago [1], and since then the world has stopped funding them. As a result, the Palestine Authority is collapsing, comments Khalid Elgindy, a former PA adviser, on the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, about “the wave of Palestinian protests that swept through the Israeli-occupied West Bank this month [and] … virtually paralyzed life in Palestinian cities, with scenes reminiscent of the first intifada”.
The PA can’t pay salaries because international donors, including the Gulf States, haven’t sent promised aid:
-
A rapid infusion of cash from the international community and Israel may buy the PA some time, but it cannot kick the can down the road forever – especially if a recently released World Bank report is right that a more severe fiscal crisis will take root if donor countries fail to act swiftly.
Even if the PA manages to hobble along for a few more months or years, a weak and divided Palestinian leadership with questionable domestic legitimacy will be in no position to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with Israel or make that agreement stick. This week’s mass arrests of Hamas activists, carried out in the wake of the protests, speaks to the PA leadership’s deep sense of insecurity. [2]
International donors are weary of Mahmoud Abbas’ sorry little West Bank kleptocracy, while the squeeze on the state budgets of all the industrial nations makes it harder to shake loose money for an unpopular destination. The World Bank warned on September 19 of a “deepening Palestinian fiscal crisis” and issued an “urgent appeal” to donors. [3]
Diplomats and bureaucrats at international organizations will issue press releases, wring their hands, make promises and then break them. No-one is going to write a check to the Palestine Authority.
The question is: when will the world also grow weary of Egypt? With liquid cash reserves down to a month or two worth of imports in July, Egypt began bouncing checks to oil suppliers in August, and has stopped importing some urgently needed items. The latest shortage to plague the Egyptian economy is infant vaccines. (See North Korea on the Nile, Asia Times Online, August 28, 2012.) The news site AllAfrica.com reports:
- Cairo – Tens of thousands of children are at risk because of a vaccine shortage in Egypt, pediatricians warn.”The longer the government fails to immunize these children, the more vulnerable to disease they are,” Eman Masoud, head of the Pediatrics Section at Abul Riesh University Hospital in Cairo, told IRIN. She said a delay of more than one or two months in obtaining vital vaccines like MMR, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, can put children’s lives in peril.
Over the last two weeks, parents have lined up at many of the government’s 5,000 health offices which vaccinate children for free, only to be told: “The vaccines are not available.” (Shots are, however, available for the equivalent of US$50 at private clinics.) [4]
It’s hard to get accurate readings on Egypt’s economic free-fall, but according to the country’s importers association, the reluctance of banks to provide trade financing to Egyptian firms has cut imports in half since the January 2011 revolution, and now threatens essential food supplies. The government claims to have six months’ of wheat stockpiled and recently bought additional supplies, but other staples, including beans, sugar and cooking oil.
Ahmed Shiha, the head of the Cairo Chamber Commerce importers’ group, warned earlier this month that Egypt has been living off inventories of key food commodities, according to the Egyptian news site el-balad.com. [5]
After the 2011 revolution, importers stocked up on food out of fear of devaluation. Now they are having trouble obtaining letters of credit to replace their diminishing supplies. Especially vulnerable is Egypt’s provision of beans, the biggest staple after bread. High dollar prices and dwindling cash reverses could lead to a 40% reduction in the supply of imported foods, Shiha warned. Egypt imports half its total food consumption.
By its own estimate, Egypt needs $12 billion to get through the next year. Some private estimates quoted by the Egypt Independent put the gap at twice that much. [6] Every few days, the Egyptian government hails another multi-billion-dollar aid package from a foreign donor, but none of these packages appears to entail much ready cash. Qatar deposited $500 million in Egypt’s central bank in August, and promised another $1.5 billion, which is yet to appear.
Egypt announced that Turkey had promised $2 billion in aid, but Turkish press accounts doubt that Egypt will spend any of that money in the near future; $1 billion is reserved to finance the operations of Turkish firms in Egypt, which does nothing for Egypt’s urgent import requirements. The other $1 billion, the Turkish newspaper Star wrote on September 15, is just an advance on the prospective $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). [7]
Turkey still owes the IMF $5 billion from its borrowing after the 2008 crisis, so it will expect repayment out of the IMF money – if the IMF loan ever comes through. In the meantime, the $1 billion will sit in the central banks’ display window and won’t be spent.
The Barack Obama administration offered the Egyptians $1 billion (half of which was debt forgiveness rather than ready cash), but shelved the proposal after the attacks on America’s Cairo embassy until after the November elections. Saudi Arabia seems to have no intention of funding the Muslim Brotherhood, the monarchy’s most dangerous internal opponent.
For the moment, it really does seem like Egypt is living on diminishing stockpiles, as the Chamber of Commerce’s Shiha warned. Egyptians will have enough bread to go around, but not much to put on it, and not enough gasoline to distribute it.
Some problems simply can’t be fixed. In the past, I have argued that the Palestine problem is hopeless but not serious. Roughly one in four Palestinian men between the ages of 20 and 40 is paid to carry a gun, and a putative nation whose economy is based on the imminent prospect of violence does not have first claim on scarce international resources.
Meanwhile the living standard of Arabs in the so-called Occupied West Bank is double that of pre-crisis Egypt; compared with Egypt or Syria, it is an oasis of peace and plenty.
After years of intoning that the Palestine issue was the crux of the world’s security problems, the world has left the keys in the wreck and walked away from it. And the Oslo process is ending with a whimper rather than a bang.
Egypt is a different matter. The notion that the world will find $1 billion a month for Egypt – let alone $2 billion – seems whimsical. The catastrophic decline of a nation of 80 million people is something the world has not seen in some time, and policymakers would be wise to take precautionary measures.
Notes:
1. Obama in more trouble than Netanyahu over Iran, March 16, 2012.
2. Why Palestinians Protest: The PA Leadership Is Not the Only Problem, Foreign Affairs, September 20, 2012.
3. World Bank Warns Of Deepening Palestinian Fiscal Crisis, World Bank, September 19, 2012.
4. Egypt: Vaccine Shortage Hits Egypt’s Children, AllAfrica.com, September 14, 2012.
5. See el-balad.com.
6. Hunger economics: Do rising food prices mean trouble ahead?, Egypt Independent, September 20, 2012.
7. M?s?r’?n istikrar?na bizden 2 milyar $, Star, September 15, 2012.
Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman. His book How Civilizations Die (and why Islam is Dying, Too) was published by Regnery Press in September 2011. A volume of his essays on culture, religion and economics, It’s Not the End of the World – It’s Just the End of You, also appeared last fall, from Van Praag Press.
@ Bernard Ross:
Right now you don’t. But we’ll see.
No, that’s not my ‘fixation.’
MY ‘fixation’ is, as I told you, on the Law of Unintended Consequences.
There’s no comparison, Bernard. Apples & Oranges.
The Jew in me recoiled at that too.
I continue to be outraged at it in Y/S, and as proposed.
The difference between you & me, Bernard, is that I’m against mass expulsion, period. Full Stop. I oppose it regardless of whom it’s done to — because it’s intrinsically evil.
You only oppose it for the Jews.
You know that is not remotely what I said.
I never let people put words in my mouth, Bernard.
That includes PresentCompany.
I bellowed bloody murder. Still do.
Clearly it’s the only argument that you will listen to.
I don’t presently live there. I won’t let myself become a burden on the state or its people.
@ Bernard Ross: I haven’t formed any independent conclusion on that. Meinertzhagen in his diaries talked about the Jews being cheated out of about 3/4s of their land or about 75%. However Mr. Benzimra has carried out a meticulous study and I wouldn’t want to disagree with him unless I had very strong evidence to the contrary.
@ Wallace Brand:I have the impression from Solomon Benzimra and the below wikipedia link that the original transjordanian “envisioned”portion of the balfour declaration and mandate was not 77%(including most or all of trans jordan but was the area similar to the faisal witzman agreement map up to approx. the Hejaz railway. The link gives the impression that the british attached the larger portion of transjordan to the mandate before it was severed (but after and in addition to original jewish homeland); that the increased portion was not originally envisioned to be a part of the Jewish national homeland. Mr. Benzimra says that Grief disagrees with his analysis. What do you think?(see transjordan section)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)
dweller Said:
I believe this is also Howard Grief’s argument that the arabs were never envisioned to have “political” rights in Israel, only civil and religious.
reply to dweller in moderation
dweller Said:
I Dont care about their “identity”, thats your fixation and theirs, just as I dont care about their identity in the other current nations of their residence. They can pine away for “Palestine” as do the pals in lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Gaza,etc. The threat of arabs will remain as it is today externally but the internal threat will be completely dissolved” immediatley on transfer. we can call it sustainable transfer.dweller Said:
this is how Israel was seen by many prior to its rebirth. Oh Ye of little faith.
dweller Said:
This was just done in Gaza, is done regularly in YS and is contemplated in YS for, guess who, the JEWS. My gosh, we wouldn’t want to contemplate the same solution for the arabs, its unthinkable,incredible, a pope dream. Its far easier to just do it to the Jews, after all we are all used to that, its far more conceivable and easy to forget. I prefer this solution for the arabs just as I would prefer my enemy to die rather than myself. This solution is far more realistic and sustainable than the “pipe dream” of living together. It is my view that as time goes on the Israeli Arabs will join with the others to eradicate the Jews.
dweller Said:
Change the “s” in fasting to an “r” and you will have the accurate description of the process and of the relief that follows.
dweller Said:
Understood, it is only a starter for the Jews.
dweller Said:
Did you hold your breath for the more miraculous rebirth of Israel? Did you hold your breath at the sight of Jews expelling Jews from Israel?
Your arguments appear to revolve about the unwillingness of Jews to accept transfer, that the pals would be a bigger threat externally than internally, that you would need the cooperation of arab states and could not do it unilaterally to the belligerent states,that the diplomatic flak would be too great. In my view the only real argument is the first which is to convince Jews of its feasibility and value. I will continue to write for transfer and you can continue to write for absorption. I do not live in Israel and it is Israelis who must decide how much they are willing to take and whether they can sustain the 5th column in their midst and survive. So far they are choosing your approach of absorption. I read about it from afar so I do not truly know whether they or the arabs feel they can end in peace. The Jews wanted and acted for peace but the arabs dont want it. I know that I would not be able to keep living in such circumstances without destroying or banishing the enemy, if I were capable of it. Perhaps as you live in Israel you are better able to know how much absorption they can sustain.
@ Wallace Brand:
They do seem to have been thinking about some form of “transfer” — though it seems more likely that they simply assumed the “Wogs” couldn’t wait to get clear of the “Yids,” and wouldn’t need to be coaxed to pull up stakes & cross the River.
From Kirkbride:
Of course, in the Report of the Peel Committee [Palestine Royal Commission, 1937], where partition of Western [cisJordanian] Palestine was first proposed, the Brits were quite clear that mutual obligatory transfer was precisely what they had in mind.
It never came off, but only because — instead of mollifying the Arabs (a big chunk of the Land for an Arab state, a tiny sliver for a Jewish one) — the proposition only whetted the Mufti’s appetite for the whole enchilada; so instead of cooling the violence (which had prompted Peel’s investigation in the first place), Hajj Amin stepped it up: into what came to be known as the “Arab Revolt” of ’36-’39. And the Peel Plan wound up in the circular file.
Anyway, when Peel’s proposals were presented, it was then scarcely 14 yrs since the traumatic, post-GreatWar separation of the Greeks & Turks [1923] — and the idea of mutual transfer would’ve still seemed workable, if problematic.
But then, even that was at least some 3 decades BEFORE any separate, Palestinian Arab identity would begin to emerge.
This is an extraordinarily significant point, which — astonishingly — is regularly overlooked by partisans & pundits from ALL parts of the political spectrum & ALL pov’s, both cordial and hostile.
@ Bernard Ross:
You will not remove this threat WITHOUT destroying that identity. I’m not talking about ‘changing’ it, but dissolving it.
EVERY ONE OF US is wedded to some “analysis of the cause,” Bernard.
I haven’t ‘lost’ focus
— my sense of history has sharpened it.
Sorry; you were wrong when you said it before. You are still wrong.
“Pal identity” WAS once purely a strategy — with the Brits, beginning about 1920
— then with the Arabs, beginnning about 1967.
For better or for worse, however (no doubt, for worse), it has now become an identity.
And the REAL problem is that it’s a pathological identity; it’s toxic.
It has no independent life of its own
— it’s built up strictly upon (and around) the hatred of the Israeli identity
the more there is of the one, the more there is of the other; it is Israel’s mirror image (perhaps her caricature).
I’m saying that I’ve learned to be ever conscious of the Law of Unintended Consequences
— and that you could do worse than to start thinking about it too.
That’s one of the reasons why mass expulsion is a non-starter.
Not at all ‘strange.’
I didn’t think you’d understand the meaning of patience — most people don’t (casual usage aside, it DOESN’T actually denote stoic passivity) — so I included the word resolve. Apparently it still got past you; but I can’t help that.
Sometimes there’s no ROOM for true hope until false hope has first been dispelled.
I try to see clearly & without illusion. Mass expulsion seems to me a pipedream clung to by some like a security blanket.
Moreover, driving out people who — together with their parents, grandparents & great-grandparents before them — were born & raised there
— just isn’t right. The Jew in me recoils at the proposition.
And I seriously doubt that I am (or will ever be) very much alone — especially among Jews — in that outlook.
No such ‘suggestion’ at all.
Some ailments are best relieved by purgatives. Others by fasting; etc.
The “disease within [Israel’s] midst” is not the Pali persons themselves — but their Pali GROUP IDENTITY, their Pali identity.
I submit that this disease is of a sort best, and most lastingly, to be cured by faithfully & systematically starving it.
@ Bernard Ross: The suspension gave Churchill time to paper up a reason for eliminating Transjordan from the Jewish National Home. This was needed because of the fait accompli of Abdullah and his army. Most everyone knew that all Palestine was originally contemplated as the National Home. When ion September 19, 1917 the British Foreign Office discussed their justification for the Balfour Declaration, they said it would be antidemocratic to put 10% jewish population or 60,000 Jews as sovereign over 600,000 total population so the vesting of sovereignty in the Jews would be delayed by giving legal dominion over the political rights to a trustee, England or the US. Six hundred thousand was the estimated population of all Palestine at the time, both CisJordan and TransJordan. . Churchill and his buddies did so promptly in the White Paper of 1922 in which England made the “remarkable discovery” that Sir Alec Kirkbride referred to, that all of Palestine was never really contemplated for the Jewish National Home. After that the British Mandate was administered as if it were a dual mandate until 1928 when they entered into the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty giving Abdullah limited sovereignty.
@ yamit82:
Off-point, Yamit.
We weren’t talking about transfer within context of an agreement — let alone, transfer to an existing Pali State.
This poll was taken many months into the al-Aqsa Intifada of Rosh haShana 2000.
By then, the violence had rolled into high gear, and had essentially become the OSLO WAR — characterized by, inter alia, some 30 suicide bombings originating in Jenin alone (“Shahid Central”) — & necessitating a 9-day IDF incursion into that town, accompanied by international bellowing & blubbering from the usual media & diplo suspects — and which violence didn’t rally abate till it became clear that building of the defense barrier was proceeding as planned.
In a wartime situation, some options become thinkable that would otherwise have remained dead or dormant.
You cannot use such poll findings, however — obtained as they were in such a context of urgency — to represent sustained trends in popular sentiment.
As we both know pefectly well.
Right, and all you have to do is get the cooperation of those sovereign Arab countries, and you’ll be in business. Mazal Tov!
Personally, if I were polled in re MY opinion as to the question of “What’s the best solution to the high price of Courvoisier?” — my answer would unequivocally & unhesitatingly be
— “Rain water should be cherry brandy.”
Am I holding my breath that such an idyllic a solution has any prospect of materializing?
Sadly, no. You’ll forgive me, but none of my ties, shirts, or scarves comes in a color that matches that charming shade of bluish-grey.
Not one of the three you offerred, Yamit, was indicative of a sober, ongoing assessment of non-emergency-skewed opinion for a blanket, ethnicity-based expulsion to uncooperative sovereign entities.
I’m sure THAT’s probably true.
I’m less certain, however, that the answers would be quite as you’ve offered.
Repeat: these are NOT good samples — ANY of them — for this discussion, Yamit. You’re 0:3.
@ Bernard Ross:Read Chapter 3 of Sir Alec Kirkbride’s book “A Crackle of Thorns” for the answer. Sir Alec was a British Political Officer at the time who set up his own government in part of TransJordan in the 20s. He nicknamed it the government of MOAB. He learned that Abdullah was coming with his Army and asked for instruction from Jerusalem. Jerusalem told him that Abdullah wouldn’t dare invade territory over which HMG was exercising sovereignty. So when Abdullah and his army arrived, he could either fight it with his 25 policemen, or he could welcome them. He welcomed them and asked for further instruction. HMG accepted the fait accompli and made a remarkable discover that the Jewish National Home was not intended to cover all of Palestine.
The next step was to amend the Mandate that had been approved at San Remo so that it included paragraph 25 that suspended temporarily, the Jewish right of settlement in TransJordan. Richard Meinertzhagen tried to persuade Churchill to give Abdullah only a temporary right in TransJordan. It was temporary until 1928 when it became permanent. That remained the situation until 1928 when England entered into the Anglo-Transjordanian Treaty which gave emir Abdullah some but not all power. In 1922 following that fait accompli, in order to find a good excuse for their action, the British issued a White Paper in which it announced that remarkable discovery that the Jewish National Home was never intended to cover all of Palestine. One of the books I have been reading recently by Isaiah Freedman, “The Question of Palestine” says the Zionist Organization agreed to this change.
yamit82 Said:
This is interesting, I wonder why? what was the view to the future of this suspension?
yamit82 Said:
Then why do the successive Israeli govts appear to be “leading” an entirely diferent nation than those polls? Israeli govt goals are so far removed from transfer either the polls are wrong or a majority of Israelis cannot control their govt. If so many Israelis are for transfer then it is not a matter to convince jews but to mobilize them to demand their rights from govt. and, during the mobilization, educate the remaining 48%.
yamit82 Said:
The problem is that Israel has not extended sovereignty over the west bank although it has the right AND ultimately the obligation. The prime directive of the Balfour declaration was to settle Jews west of the Jordan River. Therefore, it is not fulfilled or completed. There is an outstanding obligation to world Jewry which Jordan and the GOI neglected during their administrations. Israel may establish itself as a state and decide for itself not to take sovereignty over the west bank but it does not have the right to speak to that effect for the interests of world jewry in the west bank. Israel cannot cancel the rights of world jewry for the sake of its own interests as a state. Israel cannot purport to be the successor agent of the Jewish people wrt the Pal. mandate if it ignores the only remaining outstanding interest of the Jewish people: their interest in settlement and future sovereignty west of the Jordan river. In fact, as either an occupying force and/or the successor mandate trustee its obligation is to continue toe encourage settlement of Jews even if it does not want sovereignty their for itself in the smae way tha the UK was obligated. It is odd that Israel, like Jordan and UK, failed in its obligations to world Jewty as a result of the perceived self interest of individual politicians. If Israel does not want the west bank it should act as the mandate trustee which according to Wallace means to encourage the settlement of Jews west of the Jordan river until they are ready for sovereignty. There is no legal reason why the JS Jews cannot have their own sovereignty if Israel doesn’t want it. the state of Israel is scandalous in its negligence of the prime directive and should do everything in its power to facilitate settlement to the Jews, in that regard it is no better than the UK or Jordan. Again, it is the problem of confusing Israels rights with Jewish rights in the mandate, they are not synonymous. Israel arrogantly believes that because it controls and administrates it can then cancel jewish rights.
Wallace Brand Said:
This is interestin and makes sense; it would not have been considered an absurd solution as some do now. This was what was done to resolve the India and Pakistan situation. (Although no really resolved because muslims remained in India and are now the source of ongoing violence and civil instability: The same wold happen if they remain in Israel)
@ Wallace Brand:
I agree. I can’t speak from any knowledge Re: British intentions but I have read it somewhere as well.
Found this which you might find interesting even relevant.
.
Transjordan was part of the Mandate not “for a few months” in 1921, as the authors state, but for twenty-five years until 1946, when it became independent and was recognized as a state. During that period, the State Department referred to Transjordan as “the Transjordanian province of the Palestine Mandate.” Defense, foreign relations, and other functions were in British hands, and the inhabitants carried British Mandatory passports. Most revealing of all, the Jewish right of settlement under the Mandate in Transjordan was not abolished in 1921, but only suspended.
In 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations, whose substantive resolutions can never be more than recommendations, recommended to the Security Council that the parts of the Mandated territory west of the Jordan River be partitioned between the Arabs and the Jews, with a special regime for Jerusalem. The Arab states rejected that proposal and went to war. The Security Council never acted on the partition resolution directly, but turned its attention to stopping the war and achieving peace on the basis not of the partition plan but of the agreement of Jordan and Israel first to an armistice and ultimately to peace. In 1950, Jordan attempted to annex the West Bank, but its decree of annexation was not widely recognized (and was recently repudiated by King Hussein). In 1967, the Security Council specified standards for the peacemaking process and in 1973 ordered the parties to make peace in accordance with those standards.
The Mandate was terminated as to the territories of Israel and Jordan by the diplomatic recognition of those states; a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel settling their boundaries would have the same effect as to the West Bank.
Thus there is no basis for claiming Jordanian or “Arab” sovereignty in the West Bank. The proposition that Jordan was part of the territory of the Palestine Mandate, and is the Palestinian Arab state intended to divide the remainder of the Mandate territory with Israel, is not an “eccentric” view or simply a matter of partisan politics in Israel. It is an indisputable fact, and a fact, moreover, which has consequences in international law and politics.
It follows that the Arabs who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not the only “Palestinians.” The Jordanians and the Israelis should be called Palestinians also, because the only conceivable definition of the word must be drawn from the territorial boundaries of the Mandate. This is the definition the PLO uses, and it is correct. There is no other source for the word.
Eugene V. Rostow
National Defense University
Washington, D. C.
_____________
@ yamit82: Some of the history of Palestine I have been reading suggests that the British were thinking of transferring the Arabs West of the Jordan (CisJordan) to TransJordan, East of the Jordan River. One of these is by Sir Alec Kirkbride “A Crackle of Thorns” and I think there was an additional reference either in Lawrence Stein’s “The Balfour Declaration” or Isaiah Friedman’s “Palestine, a Twice Promised Land”.
But Stein’s book also came up with something very interesting. At San Remo, on April 25, 1920, the French weren’t satisfied with the savings clause saving the “civil and religious rights” of the non Jewish communities. They wanted to add “political rights” too. Of course we know this was not done. They settled for a “process verbal” in which they were assured that the existing language guaranteed that the non-Jews would not be required to surrender any existing rights.
Of course the Arabs in Palestine never had political rights over it. It was always ruled from afar. Since 1520 it was ruled by Turks from Constantinople, 400 years later by the British from London with temporary sovereignty they had while they were trustees of the political rights to Palestine recognized at San Remo. Still later,for 19 years by the Jordanians from Amman. As trustee the English had legal dominion over those rights and World Jewry, the beneficiary, wasn’t to get sovereignty until Jews had attained a population majority in all Palestine. It did in 1950.
dweller Said:
the goal is not a change of identity but a removal of threat. Yo lost focus of the goal because you are wedded to a particular analysis of the cause. As I said before the “pal” identity is not an identity but a strategy to win. Either way it does not matter because threat removal is the goal and my focus. Are you really saying it would not be better if the pals were out of Israel?
dweller Said:
Why not,,that is what they are doing now. Their bredren exploit them not the other way around. Notice that no one is absorbing them there. They dont even like them. The pals are a good source of instability for the enemy.
dweller Said:
This is a strange suggestion that Jews continue to be patient with their wannabe killers.
dweller Said:
Obviously I don not agree with your prognosis. The suggestion is that the Jews should be long suffering and continue to bear the disease within their midst. It is a suggestion to continue the current scenario with a slight meaningless twist. The result is the same. Stop being prejudiced about a solution that is difficult to swallow but can actually solve the internal threat o a sustainable basis. Removing one of the 2 threats is an advancement.
@ dweller:
As usual’s you don’t know what you are talking about.. “Fuhgeddabaddit” yup 🙂
Israeli Jews favor transfer of the arabs
Poll: Israelis favor Arab transfer to Palestine
Poll: 76% of Israelis favor relocating Arab citizens as part of agreement to form a Palestinian state.
More Israeli Jews favor transfer of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs – poll finds By Amnon Barzilai
haaretzdaily: Some 46 percent of Israel’s Jewish citizens favor transferring Palestinians out of the territories, while 31 percent favor transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies’ annual national security public opinion poll.
Poll: Transfer Tops Solutions to Arab-Israeli Problem
Transfer of Arabs from the Palestinian Authority to actual Arab countries was the most popular solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, according to a poll this week by Israel National News. Of the more than 6,400 people surveyed, 53.2 said ‘Transfer of Palestinians to another Arab country’ when asked, “What’s the best solution for the Arab-Israeli conflict?”
The “two-states for two peoples” solution being pushed by the United States and the international community received 30.8 percent support, while the idea of giving Palestinians Jordanian citizenship was approved by 14.5 percent. Maintaining the status quo received 1.3 percent of the vote.
Every poll in the last 10 years has shown a majority for transfer of the Arabs both Israeli and those from the territories. They stopped polling this question a few years ago because they don’t like the answers. I only supplied here samples of the polls available which are consistent and probably even more favorable today if they had the guts to poll the question again.
Time is past that you get with the Jewish program and not the Un-Jewish one you subscribe.
@ yamit82:
Right, Samuel carried out God’s command without anger.
What about it?
@ Bernard Ross:
You want the unreconstructed Palis organizing their Arab brethren?
While the Palis are in the Land, the Arab world can make pious gestures, and wash their hands. It’s not so easy to do that evasion routine when they’re parked on their front lawn.
“Therapy?” — no therapy needed.
What’s needed are patience & resolve.
The Paly problem is specific to Israel
— and while it overlaps the Islamic mishegasse located throughout the M-E, it’s not a “Muslim problem” per se.
Paly Christians are just as nationalistic (even without a nation to BE nationalistic ABOUT) as the Paly Muslims.
— Some, more so (it’s how Paly Christians establish their bona fides w/ the Muslims).
The views of the Jews aren’t going to change in favor of mass expulsion; aint gonna happen, Bernard.
Not tomorrow.
Not the day after tomorrow.
Not the day after hell freezes over & the devil skates across the ice.
Fuhgeddabaddit.
It’s half-a-century too late for that, Bernard. If this were 1960 or so, maybe.
(And maybe not, even then.) But not in 2012, or later.
“The moving finger writes
— and having writ, moves on. . . .”
@ yamit82:
[Sigh,] Obviously you couldn’t resist going there. (I doubted that you could; but all-the-same, I had to give you the opportunity.)
“Arabs of Israel”? — Clarify: Are you alluding here specifically to Arab citizens of incorporated Israel?
— or the heartland Palis?
Come off it, Yamit. You don’t seriously believe that they are actually thinking in terms of the “covenant between the L-rd of Israel and the Jews” — let alone, the “kingship of the L-rd G-d of Israel.”
GRANTED, they have a rough time reconciling themselves to the notion of non-dhimmi Jews, esp sovereign Jews (and as “Palis,” they always will) — but the rest of your tapestry? — get a life, Yamit.
You’re flagrantly creating a straw man.
I’m not even sure “punished” is the quite right word.
They were in the Gaza District before the Tribes left Egypt for the Land. It’s not as if the P’lishtim were “brought into being,” as it were, after the Tribes arrived in the Land.
Moses took the Tribes on a path southward, then from the South & then from the East in a deliberately circuitous, counterclockwise trek via the southern Sinai peninsula in a pronounced & painstaking attempt to avoid a premature & untimely clash with the Philistines.
Once the two groups began to clash in the Land, God used the Philistines as a foil, a prod, a goad.
The question is, why did HE not order them exterminated? — or expelled?
There was a point, eventually, where David could’ve accomplished it. They were nowhere near as numerous as the Israelites. Yet, having conquered them, he made no further attempt to press his advantage by way of ANY of the more usual recourses available to a victorious & ascendant oriental despot of the ancient world (expulsion, extermination, enslavement, despoliation, etc).
He made no such attempt. And there is no hint in the scripture that this fact displeased the Almighty.
Eventually they were absorbed.
@ yamit82:
What’s ‘wrong’ about it? — You think you ARE gonna destroy that group identity when it’s outside the land?
How? — hypnotize them remotely on Facebook?
Irrelevant. You couldn’t do it fast enough to avoid the diplo fallout.
— And that was the reason you rejected search-&-disarm/destroy as an M-O w/ the terror groups. Remember?
Maybe not, but I doubt seriously that they’ll be thinking like you are now.
Frankly, I doubt that in 20 yrs YOU’LL be thinking like you are now; assuming you’re still breathing.
moderation again
dweller Said:
Not a good analogy. Israel was trying to preserve aan agreement, as it usually does. However, I am saying to transfer to the neighboring belligerents as there are no treaties or relations.
dweller Said:
Therefore transferring the internal threat outside the borders would make no difference to the already massive external threat but it would remove the collective internal threat. It is too massive a job to undergo the therapy of trying to cure the global collective disease of Islam within the borders of Israel, and it would not be a continuous sustainable solution. transfer is an ongoing cure to the internal problem.
dweller Said:
Then we agree that he primary problem would be diplomatic and that the logistical problems are realistically achievable. Israel will always have diplomatic fallout merely for waking and breathing in the morning. at least the price in fallout would have purchased something of value.
yamit82 Said:
If the views of the Jews change then the GOI will change. If both change their views then all is achievable, realistic and even positive to all parties. The jews get the Jewish state and the arabs refugee problem starts to be solved as a refugee problem because they would no longer be an Israeli problem but primarily an arab problem, the arabs get to live in their jew free states. The pals may even get a home in the (hashemite kingdom of?) Palestine. All of a sudden they would want to solve hte refugee problem, that they caused, dumped in their lap.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, for beginners it is important all Jews (Israel & abroad) get on board with the removal.
Let it begin by allowing the IDF to provide protection at the Holy Temple allowing the Jews to pray there it is their G-d given right.
Israel needs to be reclaimed.
@ dweller:
Without Anger:
“So Samuel returned after Saul, and Saul prostrated himself before HaShem. Samuel then said, ‘Bring me Agag, king of Amalek.’ And Agag went to him submissively. And Agag said, ‘Surely, the bitterness of death has passed.’ And Samuel said, ‘As your sword made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.’ And Samuel cut Agag into pieces before HaShem in Gilgal.” (I Samuel 15:31-33)
@ dweller:
Yes I have.
“They [Children of Israel] provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them.” (Deuteronomy 32:21)
And as the Torah clearly commanded: And you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you…But if you will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that those which you let remain of them, shall be thorns in your eyes and thistles in your sides and shall torment you in the land wherein you dwell. And it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them” (Numbers 3:52-56).
The Arabs of Israel represent Hillul Hashem in its starkest form. Their rejection of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel despite the covenant between the L-rd of Israel and the Jews constitutes a rejection of the sovereignty and kingship of the L-rd G-d of Israel. Their transfer from the Land of Israel thus becomes more than a political issue. It is a religious issue, a religious obligation, a commandment to erase Hillul Hashem. Far from fearing what the Gentile will do if we do such a thing, let the Jew tremble as he considers the anger of the Almighty if we do not.
One can say that everything that happens to the Jews is a test of their faith and loyalty to G-d and his commandments. In Judaism it’s a given. I concede that the Palis like the Philistines are the means G-d uses to prod the Jews into doing what they don’t want to do naturally.
God punished the hebrews with the philistines
All of your assumptions are predicated on the above and you are wrong so everything else is also wrong.
There are many ways to effect population dispersal. Even a slow gradual use of strategic: Legal, economic and societal pressure enforced by the police and Army to induce them to leave. No subsidies, no work, no building permits, illegal homes and structures bulldozed. strict enforcement and long prison terms for tax evasion, deportations in lieu of prison as offered options. Collective punishment for violent opposition to the aforementioned. First make the young people leave who would attract other young people to seek better opportunities elsewhere and leaving mostly the over 50 groups which would eventually die off. and neither pose a security or demographic threat to the State or the Jews.
I don’t care how it plays, when Peoria returns the land it sits upon back to the Indians they have a case.
The current GOI couldn’t, but things and even GOI can change. Remember that the demographics in Israel are changing quite rapidly. In 20years there will be a real Jewish majority in Israel who will not care what they think in Peoria
@ Bernard Ross:
Seizing territory for the express purpose of mass deportation won’t play in Peoria
— or in Tel Aviv either.
GOI simply couldn’t handle the diplomatic fallout.
@ yamit82:
Has it never occurred to you that the presence of the Palis might be God’s judgment?
— and I don’t mean His judgment on the fact that they haven’t been wiped out or deported, or any of that rot (you can go there ANYTIME, Yamit, this is a different question; track w/ me)
but rather, that the Palis’ presence represents something that the Jews have drawn to themselves (in response to something which is WITHIN themselves, magnetlike) — and which, until they grow beyond, will continue to remain & plague their existence?
Recall, if you will, that in the end it was the P’lishtim that effectively FORCED the otherwise often-reluctant, political union (which, in turn, would supplant the existing, shifting alliances) of the heretofore largely autonomous, self-absorbed, and for 3 or 4 centuries, rarely cooperative — indeed fractious (and even, per occasion, mutually & internecinely warring) — post-Exodus, Hebrew tribes.
WITHOUT the P’lishtim as a goad, that political union would’ve not come to be.
— The P’lishtim were God’s goad.
I do understand the difficulties. I’ve said that I recognize it’s a tall order. But my next remark was, “Until that happens, everything else is a pipedream.”
Get real, Yamit, removal of the general populace would take as much manpower — and be just as time-consuming & media-crazy — as hunting down & rounding up the terror organizations for a shootout. You’re dreaming.
Given the present Justice System in Israel, yes, that’s probably so
— but, as I’ve said, I make no such presumption.
I think destruction (or erosion) of their pathological group identity is the only way
— and that CANNOT happen outside of Israel.
@ yamit82:
Right, that’s the theory.
Yet when Mossad botched the hit on Khaled Mashaal, it was JERUSALEM — not Amman — that blinked, to avoid an international incident & to protect the ’94 Treaty
— notwithstanding that in harboring a known terrorist leader — in contravention of the Treaty — Amman was arguably accountable for a casus ad bellum.
Mossad wouldn’t’ve needed to take out Mashaal’s sorry arse if His Majesty hadn’t, in effect, pulled up a chair for the mamzer in the first place & said, ‘Make yourself comfortable, pal.’
Yes.
P’lishtim were in the land — the southern stretch of Canaan’s western maritime plain — from about 1300-1400 BC. The remnants of them were ultimately absorbed as a polity, a people & a culture by the dominant Judean populace, sometime after Alexander destroyed one of their 5 poli [Gaza actually, 332 BC] — much the same as the Jebusites (a Canaanite ethnicity of the Jerusalem region) had been absorbed centuries earlier.
Granted, a thousand years is a long time to wait, but I seriously doubt it would require anywhere near that long this time. Might not happen in our lifetimes, though; or even in this century.
No problem. If you catch him trying (or planning) to do you, then by all means do HIM.
— Though I doubt you’ll see as much of that among people who are consistently treated as indiviuals, not as “Palis.”
It’s catering to their group identity that encourages the problem.
There certainly wouldn’t be any more of that nonsense of treating them as ‘prisoners of war.’
“One law and one ordinance shall be both for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you.” [B’midbar 15:16]
For those who commit capital crimes, there should be capital punishment — swift, certain, and (when warranted) unyielding.
For those guilty of serious crimes not of a capital nature, solitary confinement is appropriate for full duration of the sentence.
My reply is in moderation
@ Yamit and @ Dweller
I believe that alll 3 of us can agree on the following, but for yamit and myslf these would probably be a minimum or a point of departure. However, if jews could reach agreement on these issues it would be a step forward:
dweller Said:
…….for me all terrorists with “blood on hands” should be executed or deported but even imprisonment is better than the current situation. Imprisonment facilitates hostage taken and swaps.
dweller Said:
….a good beginning we can agree on probably
dweller Said:
…Or translated= it would be a good thing if the PLO were “taken out”
dweller Said:
(I translate this to mean No PLO in Israel is a desired goal…
dweller Said:
Although I would choose the peace of the grave only for terrorists…solitary confinement is better than now
Now regarding expanding on these points of agreement:
dweller Said:
I absolutely disagree with this statement. Israel has demonstrated it is fully capable of seizing and holding areas of Gaza and Lebanon for both short and long periods of time. Israel has demonstrated, in the gaza disengagement, a planning and logistical ability to move masses of people quickly. Somewhere that Israel does not control is probably better. My view is to seize areas immediately across any of the current hostile borders so as to make agreements and negotiations with the new hosts unneccesary. transport the transferees across the borders and then withdraw. after withdrawal the trasferees are defacto the responsibility of the new host entity. There are many logistical details to work out such as how long to hold buffer transfer repository areas;whether to have a simultaneous mass transfer, succeeding waves or combinations thereof;etc It would have to be carefully worked out because while the PLO command and militias remain the main problem remains(due to US training). They would probably have to be eliminated at the beginning. Certainly Israel should already have contingency plans for all out civil war with the arabs that would inevitably result in mass displacement and transfers.
@ Bernard Ross:
Once under the jurisdiction on a recognized country that country can be held responsible for any aggressive actions or actors emanating from within their national jurisdiction. Jordan since 73 has maintained relative peace and quiet between Israel and Jordan, even with a multitude of anti Israel groups and elements in Jordan, which was so even before the Jordan Israel Peace Treaty. Same with Syria and until recently Egypt.
Hello? Say What? Absorbed into the general population? “Fare treatment”? Fare treatment in my lexicon means we won’t kill them if they agree to leave peacefully and not kill them outright.
“If one comes to slay you, slay him first” (Sanhedrin, 72d). “Do not be overly righteous” (Ecclesiastes 7). “Said Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: He who becomes merciful unto the cruel is destined to be cruel unto the merciful.” They Must All Go One way or another. Maybe they will be accepted in Oregon or Michigan or better yet the Mojave Desert to make them feel at home?
This isn’t cowboys and Indians but we should emulate the cowboys treatment of Indians to the Arabs. No Arabs no
terroristsOutlaws 🙂Sounds good until you understand the difficulties and impossibility of disarming them. It would require manpower beyond our capacity and take too long empowering our local 5th column to strengthen and solicit and even without solicitation move the worlds do-gooders to mobilize against us. The removal of the Arabs must be planned to the smallest detail and done quickly with a minimum of press, photos and videos.
Even small groups of Arabs not removed will commit acts of terror and breed so that in a generation or two they will again increase to threatening proportions. Total Repatriation with their brother Arabs is the only way.
@ dweller:
The ONLY kind of peace I would offer
terroristsPali Arabs isA. the peace of solitary confinement, OR
B. the peace of the grave.
FIFY
@ Bernard Ross:
Neither do I.
OTOH, I don’t think that was ever the PLAN with the Jebusites or Philistines either.
No they sure don’t.
Gaza will have to be retaken — and cleaned out. Any terrorists remaining alive should be imprisoned
— in solitary confinement for the full duration of their sentences.
Tall order, I know — but inescapable.
Those guilty of crimes must be prosecuted & punished. Deportees can’t be punished; they are free to organize from outside.
Yes, J/S.
Realistically speaking, you can’t deport them to somewhere you don’t positively control.
Besides, get rid of them and you leave them (and their far-kakh’deh identity) INTACT— and free to organize from without.
You like what happened with Tunisia?
Always seemed to me that one of Reagan’s biggest FP mistakes — and I liked Reagan — was preventing IDF from taking out the PLO in Beirut (and, no, I don’t mean preventing IDF from “taking them out to lunch“).
If PLO’d been destroyed in Beirut in ’83, they couldn’t have been brought back from Tunisia 10 yrs later. . . .
The ONLY kind of peace I would offer terrorists is
A. the peace of solitary confinement, OR
B. the peace of the grave.
Pr. O the Carter Jr. or Carter the 2nd.
Hopefully Romney will deal with Iran in a masterly fashion and reestablish international order and discipline. Otherwise we need to expect further ANARCHY.
Considering how far backward Pr. O has bent to get into the good grace of the Mullahs, no doubt he will do the same for Egypt at the expense of IL.
dweller Said:
I think it would be an improvement
dweller Said:
I really dont see the Jews or the west bnk arabs seeking absorption with each other. The current gaza region phillistines dont appear to be on any track to being absorbed.
dweller Said:
agree but would change outlaw to deport, most likely to gaza to begin with as it is already a defacto pal state. what are the heartlands, does that include everything west of the river?
dweller Said:
Agree, but along with disarmed I would add deport to gaza or lebanon. I dont see why Israel should keep them as they have a state in gaza and it would be interesting to see them work out their internal disputes there. If this can be accomplished, as before Oslo they were in Tunisia, after that there should always be a mandatory deporting for anti state and anti jewish crimes. From that point you can see if they can live in peace but no absorbing and no citizenship. Everywhere I see the muslims I see trouble arise as they grow in numbers.
@ Bernard Ross:
You’ll breathe substantially easier if the internal threat becomes an external one?
Not only do I find the prospect of simply pushing them out en masse unrealistic (this apart from the dubious justice in the proposition)
— but I regard even MORE significant the fact that even if such externalization were possible, it would seem LESS PROMISING a goal than dissolving the identity altogether:
by refusing to nourish it, by refusing to give positive reinforcement to those who do feed it.
Since 1993, it’s been the PA that does the locking up of individuals, etc — if it does it at all, and then only for its own reasons.
PA must be dissolved & replaced by GOI, and the local ethnic Arabs treated by GOI as individual persons, not as “Palis.”
In time — without reinforcement of the ‘Pali’ identity, but with fair treatment as individuals (only) — they will be absorbed, just as the Jebusites [Jerusalem area] and the Philistines [Gaza region] were.
GOI must first annex the heartland provinces & outlaw the instigators.
All the terror organizations — Fatah, Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, their adjuncts & offshoots, etc — must be dissolved & their members disarmed
— hunt them down & round them up; if they won’t lay down their arms, they can lay down their lives: right then & there. . . .
Until THAT happens, everything else is a pipedream.
dweller Said:
…
dweller Said:
Please elaborate with specific examples of how individual treatment of the Pals can bring success in achieving the objective. Perhaps our objectives are different. My objective is the removal of the internal threat posed by the Pals to Israel. In the foreseable future I do not see any possibility of removing the threat entirely because I view it as a threat from the collective cutlure of Islam: muslim intolerance making it impossible for them to live peacefully with Jews. I view the pal identity as being a resulting strategy rather than a cause of motivation. The muslim intolerance is the cause whereas the creation of the identity is a strategy or tactice. However, I am less interested in which is the cause but rather achieving success in removing the threat. Perhaps you seek a trasformation of the pals culture as your objective.
dweller Said:
I do not understnd this statement. I see the locking up over decades of individuals with individual cahrges and releases. I see this as a failure in achieving the objective of removing the threat because it does not deal with the collective cultural cause of muslim intolerance. Individuals may be reached and changed, or not, but the problem is too large and too risky to solve in that manner. Transfer is my solution to the collective problem as an ideal. However, there can be some success in dealing with smaller collectives such as removing the PLO leadership back to Tunisia, or gaza, or lebanon, etc. There can also be a removal on a case by case individual basis such as mandatory deportment of any pal who engages in certain activities such as terror, jew hatred, etc(gaza or lebanon is good) This would be part of a collective solution executed on an individual level. Is this semantics: as individuals form collectives? The real first goal is to identify specific solutions for development or rejection.
@ Bernard Ross:
To begin with, they aren’t dealt with as individuals (maybe by PA, but not by GOI); they should be.
Their group identity is a photo negative of the Jews.
They aren’t a ‘nation’ but an anti-nation
— a thoroughgoing counterfeit, constructed wholly ex nihilo, whose entire purpose, direction, life’s meaning & motive energy have been, from the very beginning, unmistakably derived from the fixed, compulsive craving to destroy an existing nation.
Treating them as a group only reinforces that identity. I seriously doubt that pushing them — as a group — into Sinai, or southern Lebanon, or the Hauran, or even Jordan, is going to alter the above objective
— because that objective is so clearly wedded to the aforesaid identity.
Treating them strictly as individuals, OTOH, would offer their shared demon no home.
dweller Said:
Please elaborate on your suggestion, I do not understand. I would have thought that as the problem is located in the collective identity then the solution resides therein also: that they need to be dealt with as a collective. Right now they are dealt with as individuals and this appears to be failing as their motivation is collective. they are dealt with as individual criminals and terrorists but most of the population is electing, aiding, abetting and supporting them: therefore a collective problem needing a collective solution. Locking up individual criminals as if it were unrelated to the collective directive governing those actions is just employing an ostrich solution. Transfer is a collective solution to the problem they create to Israel. Perhaps I misunderstand your suggested solution.
@ Wallace Brand:
Given the circumstances & parameters of such a group identity, the logical solution is to abandon — to reject outright — any & all attempts to deal with them as a group.
— They need to be dealt with strictly as individuals.
The implications of that may take some extrapolation, but there’s clearly no OTHER direction that holds so much as minimal promise of success.
The poetic truth of The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood is so wide spread that it is difficult — nigh impossible — to overcome. Facts, logic and reason don’t even dent it. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2586/palestinian-victimhood-narrative “Poetic truths like that are marvelous because no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.
Why not? These narratives, these poetic truths, are the source of their power. Focusing on the case of the Palestinians, who would they be if they were not victims of white supremacy? They would just be poor people in the Middle East. They would be backwards. They would be behind Israel in every way. So this narrative is the source of their power. It is the source of their money. Money comes from around the world. It is the source of their self-esteem. Without it, would they be able to compete with Israeli society? They would have to confront in themselves a certain inferiority with regard to Israel – as most other Arab nations would have to confront an inferiority in themselves and be responsible for it.
The idea that the problem is Israel, that the problem is the Jews, protects Palestinians from having to confront that inferiority or do anything about it or overcome it. The idea among Palestinians that they are victims means more to them than anything else. It is everything. It is the centerpiece of their very identity and it is the way they define themselves as human beings in the world. It is not an idle thing. Our facts and our reason are not going to penetrate easily that definition or make any progress.”
No one cares and that is correct, in particular the Muslim world. However there is ONE exception. Everybody can guess: when Israel needs to be undermined by the WEST then it is good rhetoric. We all know that UNRWA was created by the West for the West for the sole purpose of undermining IL. Even the Arabs do not care and do not contribute.
Egypt on the path of Afghanistan or Pakistan? No need to go so far. What about becoming like Yemen or Sudan? There is a big choice. They will not miss the opportunity to become more “fanaticized”.
What would these measures be? for Israel i would say be ready for war with Egypt because they will have nothing else to do with the masses of violent unfed men. What does egypt have to offer anyone?
I suspect, as others have written at other websites, that starvation and subsistence existence is exactly what the MB wants. The more the people of Egypt have to depend on th Brotherhood to stay alive, the more power they have.
Also, starving people would make excellent martyrs for a 5,000,000 martyr march across the Sinai to occupy Israel and then exterminate the Jews. If people are pushed to starvation anyway, then martyrdom is not a difficult choice.
The only way Israel could stop would be to nuke these masses, at which point, Pakistan (or Iran, if they have the bomb) nuke Israel, thus unleashing a nuclear war that gets out of control and ends civilization.
In short, don’t worry about those retirement accounts.