August 21st, 2006
Missiles Aimed at Preventing an End to the Occupation
Many were outraged by Ehud Olmert’s declaration, in the middle of the war, that this war was about his convergence plan. It may not have been pragmatic to say so, but it was nevertheless true. Had Israel won, had it been able to subdue the threat of missiles, we would have been on the way to ending the occupation. The Israeli left should have been the prime supporter of the war effort. Read the full piece here.
August 21st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Thanks for your insightful analysis of the situation, Prof. Taub.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:42 am
Dear Professor Taub, that it is in the interests of Hamas, Hezbollah, etc to prolong the conflict is not a new conclusion. Should peace break out (heaven forfend!)the Palestinian collective would find itself in a difficult position. As has already been seen to some extent, once peace arrives the willingness of the international community, various states and private persons to continue to provide extensive funding to the Palestinian society will diminish rapidly. State assistance, like the EU, will be subject to constraints and audits, thus limiting the capacity of the current leaders to siphon off aid to fund their armed forces and their life styles. Further it is likely that the auditing bodies will demand that aid is only awarded against hard demographic indicators, not corrupted estimates.
Once peace breaks out the Arab Muslim world will no longer have the Zionist enemy upon which it can heap distracting opprobrium. Thus it is likely to find itself increasingly in the spotlight regarding the absence of secure civil rights and the corruption of political life. If they can’t blame the international capitalist communist zionist conspiracy the Arab states might just have to mature and learn to take responsibility.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Dear Prof. Taub,
Your article is one of the few that challenged my view of recent events, especially the otherwise mysterious refusal of Arafat to accept Barak’s offer. The typical view is Arafat was too thickheaded to accept it. Your view is he was too shrewd to accept it. This is fascinating and frightening and I hope your view gets wider consideration within Israel.
Sincerely,
Mark Cohen
August 31st, 2006 at 10:31 am
as someone put it, Israel is saying “we want a divorce” and the palestinians (now arabs) are saying, “you can’t leave me, your’re still beating me.”