Yasir Arafat. If there is anyone who personified the phrase "he never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity," it was Arafat. At the last meaningful Palestinian-Israeli negotiations nearly a decade ago, when presented with an extensive Israeli plan, one which gave the Palestinians nearly everything they wanted, Arafat said: "No." Not "no, as in this is my counter-proposal," but "no" as in "no deal, go fuck yourself."
Ariel Sharon. Sharon was warned in 2000 that his visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem would be extremely provocative to the Palestinians and would trigger a second intifada. That was just what Sharon wanted, a man whose political career rested largely on slaughtering people. He went ahead with the visit both to start another round of fighting and to shore up his support from the batshit-right of Israeli politics. No serious negotiations occurred while Sharon as the prime minister of Israel, for his main objective was to destroy any capacity of the Palestinian Authority to govern. Which opened the door for Hamas.
George W. Bush. To quote from Buffalo Beast, where he is the 4th worst person of 2008:
"It’s hard—believe us, we know—to keep coming up with new things to say about this brutally stupid narcissist, who may have ruined this country irrevocably and certainly has ruined a couple of others, mugging amiably all the way."Palestine, though arguably not a country, is one of the places that, if Bush didn't ruin it, he certainly put the finishing touches on its destruction. Bush's policy towards the Arab-Israeli problem for over five years was this: "Duh, whatever you want to do, Arik, is OK by me. Duh." As Sharon destroyed the PA, Bush did nothing but nod his head, when he even thought about it, which was probably very seldom. Bush (and Sharon) made it brutally clear to the Palestinian people that the PA was powerless. But then, in a move that showed a stunning if not wholly criminally stupid ignorance of the facts on the ground, Bush pushed both Israel and the PA into holding "free and fair" elections for a new Palestinian government.
Which, to the complete lack of surprise to anyone who was not named "George W. Bush," were won by Hamas. That was a result which both the Israelis and the PA told Bush would happen, but Bush is nothing if not both ideologically rigid and convinced of his own infallibility, despite oodles of evidence to the contrary. The Hamas government dissolved within a year, the Fatah faction seized control of the West Bank and Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.
And so, here we are.
4 comments:
And so, here we are. Indeed.
Ariel Sharon was a thug, in many ways, or perhaps worse, in all ways no different than any Aryan uber spouting type pos.
W, look at what he comes from. Daddy laid the table, the moronic fuck tried to clean all the plates. At whose urging?
And the invisible current VP, what put that certified 666 engraved fuck in such close proximity to real power?
Not a good night 'tude wise for the exmixer (oddly referring to his self in the 3rd (?) person now ;-), though a bright spot is that the Steelers and Eagles won :-)
exmixer
You left someone off your list: Yitzhak Rabin. In 1993, both Rabin and Arafat knew there was no way there could be a viable Palestinian state in Gaza and on the West Bank. There simply was not enough territory there, and the West Bank could never be fully turned over to Palestinian control because the West Bank controls the water supply for Tel Aviv, where 2/3rds of Israel's Jewish population lives. The best that could be done was a South African style Bantustan. But Arafat was quite happy to be the Kaiser Daliwonga Matanzima of Palestine-stan, it gave him more opportunities for corruption and self-aggrandizement, and for some reason Rabin thought that setting up a Bantu-stan for Palestinians would a) quell the outrage over the refusal to grant Israeli citizenship to the people in the territories ceded to Israel under the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties (respectively), and b) make those people happy that they had citizenship in something, rather than being stateless people with citizenship in no nation.
So it was a corrupt deal in the first place that both people knew was a corrupt deal, the problem is that it didn't solve the fundamental problem of having a bunch of stateless people with citizenship in no real nation. The fictitious "Palestine" run by the Palestinian Authority didn't even control its own borders -- Israeli troops controlled all border crossings with Egypt and Jordan and Israeli gunboats determine who is allowed to dock at Gaza (or not) -- and passports issued by the Palestinian Authority weren't recognized as proof of citizenship by any country on the planet. So the root problem -- a bunch of stateless people who have no citizenship in any real nation and thus not much to lose by being assholes -- remained. And then Rabin had the good luck to be assassinated before he could be blamed for what inevitably would happen when the Palestinians discovered they'd been sold a bill of goods by both Fatah and Israel...
I hold no brief for Arafat, but he did not walk away saying "no" to Clinton's last run at a resolution. He took the plan to Arab nations for consultation. Bush then sabotaged the plan. You neglected Sharon's contribution, which transcends most of the others: settlements.
But, I don't see the point of blame here. This is part of a long struggle; the latest ceasefire broke down as each side attacked the other.
I describe this as a failure of moral leadership. W for the reasons stated by our Earth-Bound Misfit (EBM). Hamas and Fatah for failing to make even a token effort at governing. And Israel (Olmert) for indiscriminate killing. They have no right to decide who governs (and Hamas is not the only group lobbing missiles). It is simply wrong. They need to see the enemy and realize it is they (or is it them?).
On a happy note, one week and one day till we are rid of that meddlesome president.
Glen Greenwald and Bill Moyers combine here for a sobering look at Gaza.
http://tinyurl.com/8u5u25
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