Subject: Re: Peace Plan might not even be about Gaza's Fut
Right. Taking steps to counter China and trying to advance human rights and democracy are both arraying chess pieces on the global board. Neither is trying to remake Rooks into Knights.

Iraq and Afghanistan were 100% trying to turn Rooks into Knights. I have no problem encouraging the Saudis to let women drive or wear whatever. Assuming we're going to have free and open elects in Gaza tomorrow vs. this Peace Board thing is what I'm talking about. Realistically, some kind of mandate is going to be the best solution they get.

Will there be repression? Sure. Of Hamas, who even now is gunning down their political opponents (not getting much media coverage).

Now who's refusing to see the world as it is and instead applying their own cultural lens? Clinton never offered Arafat a deal he could agree to. The actual politics of the Palestinian people are different than what Clinton wanted them to be.

Hahahahahahahaha! Arafat turned it down because he wanted to pretend that 1948 didn't happen. He demanded the "Right of Return".

But Arafat continued to demand that large numbers of Palestinian refugees, mainly from the 1967 and 1948 wars, be allowed to return-numbers that Clinton said both of them knew were unacceptable to the Israelis.

Talk about delusional.

The actual politics of the Palestinian people are different than what Clinton wanted them to be.

And this is the rub, isn't it? The Palestinians do - at all - believe that Israel should exist. They think the land is theirs and the Israelis should be swept into the ocean like so much flotsam. When one side doesn't acknowledge that you have a right to live, hates your guts, and refuses to accept anything less than your total annihilation, there's not a lot of deals they're going to accept.

And thus go the Palestinians.

The majority Palestinians have been at the point where they could live with the existence of Israel and the presence of Jews in the region - but being forever denied the same right to emigrate to Israel that Jews are given and that the UN said they had was a non-starter.

LOL. Come on, the Palestinians wouldn't be moving to Israel to live side by side with their neighbors and you know that. They tried the "let's throw them in the ocean strategy" in 1948/1967/1972 and went 0 for 3.

Hey, I'm still sore that the state of Washington stops where it does. 54°40' or fight, goddammit!

Because the Palestinian people don't have an actual government, there's no mechanism by which a Palestinian leader can gain the authority to agree to something that the population doesn't support.

That holds true today. There's no functioning government in Gaza because Hamas runs it, so....