Um, yeah, this is kind of obvious:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/world/middleeast/arab-spring-and-iran-tensions-leave-palestinians-sidelined.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20120307

The gist of the article is that the broader upheaval in the region, including the latest game of military chicken from the USA and Iran has sidelined the Palestinian Authority, whose people are as unhappy with Israeli occupation as they've been since 1967. I still don't get what Israel's rationale for annexing these territories in 1967 was, as it makes precious little sense beyond waving their dicks at the rest of the Middle East in a "Fuck you sonsobitches, we kicked your asses, Israel FUCK YEAH" mindset.

That Abbas doesn't know any better than Arafat how to run a society in peacetime and actually do day-to-day governance is no surprise. The PLO selected its leaders on who had the best trigger finger, not the people who were actually necessarily the best choices for the Palestinian people. So in other words, there's a good summary of this article in this macro:




So, the TL;DR version is "Well, yeah, this is what you expect". Your thoughts?

Comments

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Eh, I think Israel had a reasonable strategic argument for annexing the West Bank, considering that in 1967 Israel was surrounded by openly hostile neighbors, on all sides, whose main foreign policy goal was the destruction of Israel and the elimination of her people, all the while having a large section of their country that was less than 100 miles across. That the Arab states were always thinking of this was born out in '73.

Of course they way they've gone about occupying the West Bank since then has been mostly unreasonable. The whole story is a giant collection of "if only they'd..." speculations.

The arguments for seizing the Golan Heights and Gaza are less understandable, strategically speaking, (The Golan buffer zone didn't do much to stop the Syrians in '73, after all).

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Could holding the Golan Heights be part of a strategy to control water supplies and have access to a strategic high ground?

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't know that much about it to say. I always thought the Heights themselves were barren and pretty useless as far as agriculture went, but I may be mistaken.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about agriculture. It has been said often that the wars of the future will be for control over water.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I think there's an argument that could be made there, yes.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I've had several professors who think that Golan's entirely about control over water.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except that the West Bank belonged to Jordan, the state that was the *least* hostile to Israel and the one with the most reason aside from Israel to want to suppress Palestinian nationalism (namely that Palestinians vastly outnumbered Jordanians in Jordan). Making a state that Israel had had its most effective dealings with going all the way back to Meir and the King in 1948 understandably hostile is nonsensical on the face of it, why wreck the one case where Israel *did* have its friendliest state? And where the Arabs also had their best and most formidable armies, too?