“What do you think,” asked Alice, “about what Israel is doing in Gaza because Hamas kidnapped their 19-year old soldier?” I answered that Israel was doing the right thing, except they should be doing more, faster.
Palestinians are like children. They have no goals or leadership. After over fifty years of failure of leadership, failure of vision, endemic corruption, and wasted opportunities, all they have is poverty and misery and memories of Yassar Arafat and stories of his world-class wealth. They should be proud that, out of such poverty, Arafat was able to amass such wealth. Anyone can steal when surrounded by riches, but it takes a special thief to prosper so amongst the impoverished.
Like children, the Palestinians were easy to teach all the wrong things. They saw how Israel prospered, and how their Arab neighbors sank further into ignorance and poverty, so naturally they followed the Arab path. They saw how despots like Saddam used violence against his own people and neighbors, and they made him their hero. They saw how the Ayatollahs in Iran, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, tortured and oppressed their own people, and begged for the same for themselves. They saw how, until very recently in Iraq, the only democratically elected Muslims in the Middle East were in the government of Israel, and voted against democracy.
Muslim women are uneducated and oppressed. “That’s the way we like it,” say the Muslim women. Martyrdom is the highest calling for Muslim youth. “We want to die,” say the youth. “We want them to die,” say their parents.
How do you reason with children who have already learned all the wrong things? “Give diplomacy a chance?” What has diplomacy been doing for the past fifty years? Failing, that’s what. Then why should it work now?
Didn’t Einstein say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results was a sign of insanity?
Children frustrate parents when the children have learned all the wrong things, and then the parents want to change their behavior. What good is it to tell them they won’t get what they want with a temper tantrum, when a temper tantrum has always worked?
The world has been harsh on Israel for trying to protect its people from violence, and easy on Palestinian terrorists for perpetrating violence. The United Nations has censured Israel, and condoned the attacks that have provoked Israeli retaliation. Much as we speak of children who can’t control their impulses, so the world expects nothing good from Palestinians, and are never disappointed.
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