Soccer Dad: Rich thugs

February 16, 2007

Rich thugs - 2007

Bloggers Solomonia and Seraphic Secret recommend Jeff Jacoby's Statehood for Palestine? Take a good look and with good reason. Jacoby writes:

The wonder is not that the Palestinian Authority seethes with violence and instability; there are other places too where bloodshed is the daily fare. The wonder is not that the Palestinians, who receive copious amounts of international aid -- more than $1.2 billion last year from Western governments alone -- channel so much of their resources into weapons and warfare. The wonder is that so many voices still push for a Palestinian state.

But has any population ever been less suited for statehood than the Palestinians? From the terrorists they choose as leaders to the jihad promoted in their schools, their culture is drenched in violence and hatred. Each time the world has offered them sovereignty -- an offer that the Kurds or the Chechens or the Tibetans would leap at -- the Palestinians have opted instead for bloodshed and rejectionism.

Another question is what why did anyone expect anything else? Here's Daniel Pipes from 1983!

When PLO guerrillas were initially stationed in South Lebanon following the 1967 war, their struggle against Israel enjoyed the sympathy of local Lebanese, especially the Shi'is. Relations between residents and the PLO deteriorated, however, as Israel's overwhelming military superiority dashed hopes of the conflict being moved to Israeli territory. Instead, the PLO settled into South Lebanon. Its troops, better armed and organized than other militias in the area, compelled the Lebanese to supply sustenance, shelter, medical services, and money. By 1975, the PLO constituted an elite that effectively controlled South Lebanon, flouting local regulations and enforcing its will in capricious ways. PLO soldiers billeted themselves in the best houses, grabbed what they fancied, expelled property owners, availed themselves of local women, indulged in random violence, directed drug and prostitution rings, and ran protection rackets. Foreign mercenaries employed by the PLO became especially notorious for extracting whatever they could from South Lebanon, and the PLO's thirty autonomous groups, each with its own loosely disciplined troops, wrought havoc with the civilian population.

The result was a reign of terror. For seven years the outside world heard little from South Lebanon-in part because the inhabitants feared retribution if they talked, in part because the PLO kept journalists from the region. When its control was broken and newsmen appeared in June 1982, stories of life under the PLO began to filter out. Everyone seemed to have a tale-Muslim and Christian, Sunni and Shi'i, Lebanese and Palestinian-and was eager to tell it.

This article doesn't just document the violence that was part of the PLO governing doctrine but the massive resources that the PLO accumulated nearly a quarter century ago! And subsequent article like the The return of the tribes, Man who swallowed Gaza and Investing in Yasser Arafat show how the PLO's corrupt governance has taken hold in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

The descent into civil war and chaos was foreseeable. But all those blinded by the vision of a Palestinian state as a prerequisite for peace and stability in the Middle East couldn't see what JoshuaPundit expressed to me in an e-mail yesterday about Fatah and Hamas :

in reality they are one and the same....different mafia families vying for the same turf, if you will.

The PLO and Hamas are more similar to criminal syndicates than they are to national liberation movements. Giving them money and autonomy won't reform them, it will just produce rich thugs.

UPDATE: Israel Matzav links to a PJM report

But giving guns to Abbas is utterly unnecessary. The Palestinian security forces Abbas commands already have tens of thousands of rifles and millions of bullets; rifles and bullets they have never used to stop the attacks of Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other militias against Israel. In fact, Abbas has control over some 45,000 members of a dozen security forces in the Gaza Strip. In addition, Abbas also controls thousands of gunmen and activists belonging to his Fatah party. Hamas, by contrast, has less than 6,000 militiamen.

Clearly Abbas has all the men, guns and ammunition he needs to stop Hamas� rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. Instead he uses these military resources to wage war for personal power, not peace.

Blogdigger tags: Israel, Palestinian State, Hamas, Fatah, Corruption.