Doc's Talk: The Middle East

Friday, October 16, 2009

The Middle East

Palestine problem hopeless, but not serious
By Spengler

"The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable," declared United
Sates President Barack Obama in his June 4 Cairo address. Really? Compared
to what? Things are tough all over. The Palestinians are one of many groups
displaced by the population exchanges that followed World War II, and the
only ones whose great-grandchildren still have the legal status of refugees.
Why are they still there? The simplest explanation is that they like it
there, because they are much better off than people of similar capacities in
other Arab countries.

The standard tables of gross domestic product (GDP) per capital show the
West Bank and Gaza at US$1,700, just below Egypt's $1,900 and significantly
below Syria's $2,250 and Jordan's $3,000. GDP does not include foreign aid,
however, which adds

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roughly 30% to spendable funds in the Palestinian territories. Most
important, the denominator of the GDP per capita equation - the number of
people - is far lower than official data indicate. According to an
authoritative study by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies [1], the
West Bank and Gaza population in 2004 was only 2.5 million, rather than the
3.8 million claimed by the Palestinian authorities. The numbers are inflated
to increase foreign aid.

Adjusting for the Begin-Sadat Center population count and adding in foreign
aid, GDP per capita in the West Bank and Gaza comes to $3,380, much higher
than in Egypt and significantly higher than in Syria or Jordan. Why should
any Palestinian refugee resettle in a neighboring Arab country?

GDP per capita, moreover, does not reflect the spending power of ordinary
people. Forty-four percent of Egyptians, for example, live on less than $2 a
day, the United Nations estimates. The enormous state bureaucracy eats up a
huge portion of national income. New immigrants to Egypt who do not have
access to government jobs are likely to live far more poorly than per capita
GDP would suggest.

Other data confirm that Palestinians enjoy a higher living standard than
their Arab neighbors. A fail-safe gauge is life expectancy. The West Bank
and Gaza show better numbers than most of the Muslim world:

Life Expectancy by Country in Years

Oman

75.6

Bahrain

75.6

West Bank and Gaza

73.4

Saudi Arabia

72.8

Jordan

72.5

Algeria

72.3

Turkey

71.8

Egypt

71.3

Morocco

71.2

Iran

71.0

Pakistan

65.5

Yemen

62.7

Sudan

58.6

Somalia

48.2

Source: United Nations

Literacy in the Palestinian Authority domain is 92.4%, equal to that of
Singapore. That is far better than the 71.4% in Egypt, or 80.8% in Syria.

Without disputing Obama's claim that life for the Palestinians is
intolerable, it is fair to ask: where is life not intolerable in the Arab
world? When the first UN Arab Development Report appeared in 2002, it
elicited comments such as this one from the London Economist: "With barely
an exception, its autocratic rulers, whether presidents or kings, give up
their authority only when they die; its elections are a sick joke; half its
people are treated as lesser legal and economic beings, and more than half
its young, burdened by joblessness and stifled by conservative religious
tradition, are said to want to get out of the place as soon as they can."
Life sounds intolerable for the Arabs generally; their best poet, the Syrian
"Adonis" - Ali Ahmad Said Asbar - calls them an "extinct people".

Palestinian Arabs are highly literate, richer and healthier than people in
most other Arab countries, thanks to the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency and the blackmail payments of Western as well as Arab governments. As
refugees, they live longer and better than their counterparts in adjacent
Arab countries. It is not surprising that they do not want to be absorbed
into other Arab countries and cease to be refugees.

If the Palestinians ceased to be refugees, moreover, it is not clear how
they would maintain their relatively advantaged position. They cannot return
to farming; for all the tears about bulldozed olive groves, no one in the
West Bank will ever make a living selling olive oil, except perhaps by
selling "Holy Land" products to Christian tourists. Apart from tourism, the
only non-subsidy source of income the Palestinians had was day labor in
Israel, but security concerns close that off. Light manufacturing never will
compete with Asia, and surely not during a prolonged period of global
overcapacity.

An alternative is for the Palestinians to continue to live off subsidies.
But why should they? Why should Western taxpayers subsidize an Arab in
Ramallah, when Arabs in Egypt are needier? The answer is that they represent
a security concern for Western countries, who believe that they are paying
to limit violence. That only makes sense if the threat of violence remains
present in the background and flares up frequently enough to be credible.
One cannot simply stage-manage such things. A sociology of violence in which
a significant proportion of the population remains armed.

To contain the potential violence of an armed population, donors to the
Palestinian authority hire a very large proportion of young men as policemen
or paramilitaries. According to a February 10, 2008, report by Steven
Stotsky [2]:

Overhauling the Palestinian security forces will cost $4.2 to $7 billion
over the next five years. What's more, the recent aid package agreed on in
Paris committing to $7.4 billion for the Palestinians doesn't contain any
provision for the security services.

The Reuters report follows a piece in the Jordan Times announcing plans to
train a 50,000-person police force for the West Bank. This translates to one
police officer for every 42-70 citizens (depending on which population
figures for the West Bank are accepted), an unprecedented concentration of
police presence. Currently, there are only 7,000 Palestinian police officers
in the West Bank (Reuters, January13, 2008), so the new plan calls for a
seven-fold increase. The planned expansion would result in a density of
police at least three to four times that of major American cities that have
to contend with much higher crime rates than the West Bank.

Add to this bloated police force the numerous other state security
organizations as well as private militias, and it is clear that security is
the biggest business in the Palestinian territories and the largest employer
of young men. The number of armed Palestinian fighters is estimated at
around 80,000 or more than six times the soldiers per capita in the United
States. About one out of four Palestinian men between the ages of 20 and 40
makes a living carrying a gun.

That is, the economic structure of "pre-state" Palestine is heavily skewed
towards the sort of institutionalized means of violence that is supposed to
disappear once a state has been established. This is absurd, and creates a
double disincentive for the Palestinians to maintain a low boil of violence.
Just how this violence-centered society is supposed to make the transition
to an ordinary civil society is an unanswerable question.

Once the problem is diagnosed with this kind of clarity, the solution
becomes obvious:

* Cut Western support to the Palestinians with the aim of reducing living
standards in the West Bank to those prevailing in Egypt, as an incentive for
emigration.

* Demilitarize Palestinian society: offer a reward for turning in weapons,
seize them when necessary, and give newly-unemployed gunmen employment
weaving baskets at half pay.

Like many obvious solutions, this one never will be put into practice. The
problem all along has been the wrong set of expectations. Once Palestinian
Arabs adjust their expectations to correspond to levels of income, education
and health prevailing in other Arab countries in the region, they can either
form a state similar to other Arab states in the region, or simply emigrate
to those states as individuals.

The Palestinians cannot form a normal state. They cannot emigrate to Arab
countries without accepting a catastrophic decline in living standards, and
very few can emigrate to Western countries. The optimal solution for the
Palestinians is to demand a state and blackmail Western and Arab donors with
the threat of violence, but never actually get one.

That is why the Palestinian issue is "hopeless, but not serious", in the
words of my old mentor Norman A Bailey, a former national security official.
As long as all concerned understand that the comedy is not supposed to have
an ending, the Palestinians can persist quite tolerably in their
"intolerable" predicament.

Notes
1. The Million Person Gap: The Arab Population in the West Bank and Gaza,
Bennett Zimmerman, Roberta Seid and Michael L Wise, February 2006. The
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-ilan University, Mideast
Security and Policy Studies No. 65. Click here
.
2. Plan

for Palestinian Police Force Seven Times Larger than Current Force by Steven
Stotsky, February 10, 2008.

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, associate editor of First Things
.

(
Doubts over
Obama's 'peace engine' (Jul 23, '09)

Two sides to
violence (Jun 27, '09)

1. China to roll out the
big guns
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
2. The closing of the Christian
womb
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
3. Jihad bling bling

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
4. Tough sanctions won't tame
Tehran
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
5. China calls halt
to Gwadar refinery
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
6. Stupidity without borders

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
7. Syria pulls
some strings in Iran
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
8. The bill is coming due

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
9. Karzai suffers an election
blow
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
10. US casino bosses vary
Macau bet
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/images/1pix.gif
(24 hours to 11:59pm ET, Aug 13, 2009)

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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