Soccer Dad

The logical conclusion

Fouad Ajami writes in Brothers to the Bitter End

The Palestinian ruin was a long time in coming. No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.

He holds the rest of the Arab world culpable for this state of affairs

For decades, Arab society granted the Palestinians everything and nothing at the same time. The Arab states built worlds of their own, had their own priorities, dreaded and loathed the Palestinians as outsiders and agitators, but left them to the illusion that Palestine was an all-consuming Arab concern.

Now the Palestinians should know better. The center of Arab politics has shifted from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, a great political windfall has come to the lands of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, vast new wealth due to the recent rises in oil prices, while misery overwhelms the Palestinians. No Arabs wait for Palestine anymore; they have left the Palestinians to the ruin of their own history.

My quibble with Ajami is that Fatah doesn't represent so much a national movement but rather a criminal syndicate, vindicated by its claims of national liberation. Daniel Pipes wrote in 1983

In short, the PLO's acts of violence against its own people-grenades against laborers seeking work in Israel, bullets for those on the West Bank and Gaza who disagree with its policies, truncheons for those living in the camps-closely resemble the policies of the governments that champion it most fervently. Remove the framework of a "liberation movement," and what remains is the sort of dictatorial regime all too familiar in the Middle East. Only the fact that the PLO does not rule a territory endows it with the aura of romance lacking in "progressive" states already in power. But the PLO's record should make its character clear enough. Like other radical movements, this organization appeals to two groups primarily-the elite that it benefits and the distant admirers who stay far enough away to avoid the consequences.

(Yes, I know, I quote this article a lot. It may be 24 years old but it was amazingly accurate and is still relevant after all these years. This 10 year old article also lays out some of the background for the current violence.)

And again, Cox and Forkum make the point in a single picture.

UPDATE: More links at Buzztracker.