You may not think so, but the Palestinians certainly do, as do the IFIs. I've seen the PA's internal economic projections and planning, post-(hypothetical) agreement. Have you?
Gaza proved if you withdraw from part of an occupied territory while continue to occupy and settle the rest of it, some of the locals don't suddenly come to like you. Big surprise there!
As I said before, and having worked on planning for disengagement with both the Israelis and Palestinians, they did not plan on the withdrawal ending periodic rocket fire, and undertook it for quite different strategic reasons.
As for "the Arabs," it is about as useful referring to them generically, as if they all had the same views and interests, as it is talking about "the Jews."
Yes, this was my point. And even without money, Egypt would have accepted it. After all, they had dangled the same offer as early 1972, but weren't taken seriously until after the 1973 War.
This claim drives the Hashemite security establishment crazy--it really does. I've seen senior GID officials, foreign ministry officials, and even Jordanian prime ministers go on at length about why is it that others have the temerity to describe to them what their security interests are, what it is Jordan "really" wants. The speed with which King Abdullah shut down talk of Palestinian non-statehood under Jordanian or Jordanian-Israeli custodianship last year highlights how frustrated they are that this thing gets floated from time to time.
It's on Maysaloun Street.
Yes, his wife received payments (largely to get her out of the way), but no, the funds weren't generally diverted to private Arafat accounts for private Arafat personal reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Arafat fan--indeed, I was writing about corruption and patronage in the PLO in the late 1980s, long, long before most others. However, what happened to Arafat's money is fairly well established (used for political patronage and security force expenditures), as is how it was diverted to him (it wasn't foreign aid money, but rather Israeli excise tax collections). Moreover, the vast bulk of it was recovered and put into the PIF (
http://www.pif.ps).
I'm not quite sure how Canada slipped in here, unless it is some sort of guilt-by-citizenship thing. (I could debate how friendly current Canadian government policy is to the current Israeli government, but it really doesn't have anything to do with anything).
I'm starting to think Wilf's policy of generally avoiding comment on the Arab-Israeli conflict is the smart one
Originally Posted by Rex Brynen
You may not think so, but the Palestinians certainly do, as do the IFIs. I've seen the PA's internal economic projections and planning, post-(hypothetical) agreement. Have you?
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