Saturday, June 13, 2009

Palestine: Dissociative Identity Disorder?

David Solway
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, June 12, 2009


Mark Twain famously observed in The Innocents Abroad, “If these Arabs be like the other Arabs, their love for their beautiful mares is a fraud. Those of my acquaintance have no love for their horses, no sentiment of pity for them, and no knowledge of how to treat them or care for them.” His conclusion: “weep for the sentiment that has been wasted upon the Selims of romance.” It is no great stretch, I fear, to extrapolate to the present and apply Twain’s observations to the current Palestinian attempt to mount a State, let alone to care for it. This is not meant as an insult. There is every objective indication that a self-divisive and volatile Palestinian state, assuming it does not evolve into another Middle East terror enclave—a very large assumption—could only survive on international life-support if it were not to flatline in record time. Indeed, Palestine may one day look like a state, but it is doubtful that it would ever be anything more than a political hologram, a three-dimensional projection produced by a two-dimensional strip of paper, called a “Peace Accord.” Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat makes loud noises about the Palestinians being ready for the “end game,” but I am afraid there will be no dancing in the end zone for his people. They will fumble the ball on the way in, as they have repeatedly since the time of the Peel Commission.



Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute, agrees with this pejorative, which is to say, realistic, assessment. In his Policy Focus Paper #78 for the Institute, The Palestinians: Between State Failure and Civil War (December 2007), he writes that “Although the PA, since its creation in 1994, has functioned as a de facto state with a parliament, executive, judiciary, governmental bureaucracy, and security forces, it has…increasingly exhibited many of the pathologies typically associated with the phenomenon of state failure,” being unable “to fulfill the most important fuctions of a state: to provide for the welfare and security of its people.”



The clearest signs of the weakness of the PA, he continues, were what Palestinians refer to as the four F’s: fawda (chaos), fitna (strife), falatan (lawlessness) and fassad (corruption). None of this will end, Eisenstadt cautions, until far-reaching political reforms are achieved, including “the inculcation of a culture of political compromise, and strong leadership—conditions not likely to be fulfilled soon.”



How is it possible that our political leaders cannot be aware of what is so glaringly obvious? Owing in part to the adoption of the Palestinians as the Noble Savage du jour and the foster children of Western bad conscience—the new Selims of romance—and in part to the construction of a fiction to appease Western electorates, the underlying truth is that the Palestinians have been sanctified at the expense of Israel and this is their warrant for existence. What the Palestinians have going for them is the latent—and often manifest—hatred of the Zionist enterprise in much of the world, which is only the contemporary permutation of an age-old antisemitism that Palestinians can tap into and exploit to their own advantage. This is why the Palestinian narrative of the struggle for self-determination and what it regards as a “reasonable” (read: unreasonable) arrangement with respect to borders and refugees has taken.



But it is a narrative that is belied by the Palestinians’ behavior at every level of engagement, whether at the negotiating table with its unbudgeable stipulations, in the mosques with their incendiary Friday sermons, in school curricula and local media pledging the destruction of the Jews—all contradicting their public statements bruited to the western Press assuring peace and co-existence should Israel comply with their demands. The Annapolis promise that Israel would live in “a sea of peace” does not compel assent. Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and the mayhem that ensued suggests otherwise.



Sometimes it is hard to determine what the Palestinians themselves believe or if they suffer from a terminal condition of split-personality. For they do present a major puzzle. Are they canny or uncanny, cunning or schizophrenic?

Are they shrewd and cynical manipulators, thinking they can eventually defeat Israel by erosion? Or, as often seems the case, are they merely incapable of coming to terms with reality, divided not only among themselves but in themselves as well? Is the disorder from which they suffer macro-political or micro-psychological? Or both?



Small, local events in particular have large, analogic significance. Following prayers at the Temple Mount, a crowd of 150 Arab-Israelis, protesting the Israeli excavations to repair a collapsed walkway in the area and shouting Allahu Akbar, pelted their own buses sent to take them home. Palestinian protestors also stoned a bus carrying a “Peace Now” delegation which had come to Hebron to join a pro-Palestinian, “anti-settler” demonstration. In the Israeli satirical YouTube cartoon Ahmed and Salim, the two bungling mock-terrorists inadvertently place a bomb on a Palestinian rather than an Israeli bus. There is a profound truth in this episode for the Palestinians can be counted on to scuttle their own best hopes time and time again. One gets the impression that if Palestine were ever to become a state, it would be the largest insane asylum in the world.



But insanity is not an exclusively Palestinian prerogative. There is plenty of it to go around in Israel too, typified by the proposal of Shlomo Avineri, a leftist professor at Hebrew University, which envisages neither the two-state solution nor, as former ambassador Martin Indyk has proposed, a Western or international trusteeship for Palestine, but a Saudi Protectorate. Avineri is correct when he recognizes that the structure of Palestinian society lacks “the basic ingredients of tolerance, legitimized pluralism and the understanding that differences are not to be decided by force and coercion.” The proliferation of Palestinian militias and clan gangs make the possibility of a “functioning body politic totally unrealistic.”



Avineri’s conclusion, however, does not follow; it is, not to put too fine a point on it, entirely demented. A Saudi Protectorate would bring the Wahabbi terrorist machine immediately adjacent to Israel’s borders and create a far more alarming situation than what exists today. Nor are tolerance, pluralism and the peaceful reconciliation of difference mainstays of the Saudi regime.



There is an old joke about the Arab scorpion who hails a Jewish carp to ferry it across the Jordan river. “But you will sting me,” the carp protests. “Why would I do that,” the scorpion counters, “since it would cost me my life?” The carp agrees and is duly stung in the middle of the river. As they are about to sink for the third time, the carp asks, “Why then have you stung me?” “It’s the Middle East,” the scorpion replies.



Madness in the Middle East is pandemic. In the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, one might say that the Palestinians are driven by their demons, the Israelis are seduced by theirs. Nevertheless, despite the political lunacy of the previous Kadima Israeli leadership and the moral and intellectual delirium of the Israeli left-oriented professoriate, the subversive media and the ubiquitous “Peace” movements with their self-defeating convictions, there are still, judging from the last election which brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power, enough sane and resourceful Israelis to provide some hope for the country’s continued survival and prosperity.



But this is contingent on the recognition that the Palestinians, given the dissociative syndrome they continue to exemplify, do not constitute a responsible negotiating partner. One should not expect Norman Bates to begin acting like the Dalai Lama.



It may be possible under certain conditions to treat, but it is not possible under any conditions to treat with, those who remain in the grip of so rampant an epidemiology.
David Solway is the award-winning author of over twenty-five books of poetry, criticism, educational theory, and travel. He is a contributor to magazines as varied as the Atlantic, the Sewanee Review, Books in Canada, and the Partisan Review. His most recent book is The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity.

FP Guest Comment: USMCSniper 8 hours ago
Paraphrased From Hal Lindsey:

In the 7th century, the Muslims took control of Judea for the first time. From A.D. 635 until 1917, the Muslims ruled it, with only a few interruptions by the European Crusaders. During that span of time, the land was reduced to total desolation. Many people who traveled the land in the 19th century remarked on the fact that Palestine was as desolate as the moon and very few people lived there.

In 1867, Mark Twain remarked about his visit to the Holy Land in his book, "The Innocents Abroad." He lamented, "Stirring scenes occur in the valley [of Jezreel] no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for 30 miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings."

By all eyewitness accounts of that era, Judea was a total desolation. There were virtually no trees and no people. Because of lack of trees, the weather changed and it rarely ever rained. The irrigation systems of the once fertile valleys were all destroyed, rendering most areas into malaria-ridden swamps. The terraces of the mountainsides were torn down, causing terrible erosion that left only barren rocks. This was the condition of Judea by the beginning of the 19th century.

It was at this time that Jews began to flee severe persecutions in Russia and Eastern Europe. In the mid-1800s, some Jews came to Judea and, with the generous aid of some successful Jews like the Rothschilds, began to buy property from Muslim Ottoman Turks. The Muslims thought the land was worthless anyway, so they sold it to the "dumb Jews" for extremely inflated prices.

To everyone's amazement, the Jews were very successful at reclaiming the land. Many of them died from malaria and the rigorous life the work demanded, but they performed an agricultural miracle that made the land very productive again. As a result of their success, poor migrant workers from the surrounding Muslim countries began to flood in to work for the Jews. The Jews literally became victims of their own success – almost all of the people calling themselves "Palestinians" today are the descendants of those migrant workers or recent workers born in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, or in Lebanon. The name "Palestine" was not given by the British to Judea until 1922 after they conquered the Ottomans.

The Muslims have repeatedly shown they understand that the so-called "Palestinians" are not a homogeneous people and have never ever had a homeland or owned land, but rather a mixed conglomerate of migrant workers and descendants of same with no cohesive organizational or political skills, they have repeatedly not given them a state and never will allow them to have a state - nor will they ever allow them to emigrate to Arab Muslim states. Hamas under Iran's umbrella wants the Palestinians as proxy terrorists against Israel.

When the Hashemite Tribe, who were Muslim rulers over Mecca and Medina for centuries, were driven out by the Saudis, the British gave them control over the vastly greater numbers of "migrant workers" in Trans Jordan. The British said this would actually be, in effect, "The State of Palestine." Instead, the Hashemites, who make up only about 20 percent of the population, turned it into their own kingdom and called it the Kingdom of Jordan and either put the Palestinians in camps or drove them out into Lebanon.

When the Jordanians and Egyptians controlled the so-called West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 19 years (1948 to 1967), there was never a thought of giving the disorganized mass of "migrant workers" a state. Why? Because they knew there was no cohesive, homogeneous people known as "Palestinians."

The current efforts of Jordan and Egypt (and all the rest of the Muslim Middle East nations) to give these same people a state is clearly a ploy to get a foothold inside Israel. It is a strategic accommodation to establish a base from which the final assault against Israel can be made. What they couldn't do militarily is now being facilitated through the United States and the E.U.

Muslims also will never accept a permanent presence of infidels in what they claim is sacred Islamic soil.
Especially Jewish infidels for which the Koran reserves its most vehement condemnations. In their minds, the Koran and Allah will not let them accept Jews in what they view as their third holiest site. So recognition of Israel as a legitimate state by the Arab Muslim states will never ever happen in reality even when they "hint" at supporting it.

The United States and the European Union had better learn these things, or we will find ourselves guilty of facilitating the destruction of Israel and the completion of the genocide of the Jewish people.

2 comments:

Philip Metres said...

This sort of blinkered thinking parades itself as a kind of great wisdom, but is not. Who would not argue with the thesis that the PA has not become a corrupt quasi-organization? To argue that this is somehow an essential flaw in the humanity of Palestinians, that they are incapable of self-rule, smacks of the worst sort of bigotry possible. There are many historical and ongoing reasons for such failure--not the least of which is the failure of Oslo itself to address most critical issues, thus reducing the PA to a quisling authority for Israel and the U.S. Yes, the PA bears a great burden for its failures. But the blame goes all around, and this sort of "Twain got it right" nonsense is beneath you.

GS Don Morris, Ph.D./Chana Givon said...

Philip,
With due respect, the arguments presented are not those of a bigot-why is it that any time one disagrees with the PA's behavior, finds fault with their consistent behavior, must you use the bigotry card? This post is about identified behavior reflecting a pattern of actions. If you believe one is responsible for their actions and actions are personally controlled, your unwillingness to place burden is suspect.You seem to excuse blame and seem to indicate that some kind of blame equivalency exists-the data does not support this conclusion.