Palestinians
 

Let me clarify a few things if I may, Desert Man...


*** The Fatah is actually the organisation led by Yasser Arafat himself, that he absolutely controls since its inception, some 50 years ago. The Fatah is also the most popular organisation among the Palestinians (ie with the most members).


*** There are no official elections among Palestinians but there is a Palestinian sorta Parliament (Council), where every resistance organisation is represented, except for those 10-15 member splinter groups who are doing the real terror. I don't know the election procedures. But in that Parliament-in-exile the Fatah has the most representatives.


*** Palestinians have been radicalised in the last years and many have turned to the extremist religious groups such as Hezbollah or Hamas, not because they suddenly became very religious. The Palestinians have never been fanatics in matters of religion (Arafat's wife is a practicing Christian). But because they are desperatewith the impasse of their situation, where their future is something like the Blacks' enclaves in apartheid Soauth Africa. And that's according to the Oslo agreements, which even that, Sharon found as "giving away too much"!...


*** The Palestinian men and women and old people and most young persons have tasted disaster and massacre first-hand many times over. They are wise enough to share form a distance in the suffering of the American families who lost their loved ones, instead of being glad. They are not glad. They've been there. They empathize.

. . . and double standard?
 

You find it far-fetched that Israel's covert intelligence unit would spread disinformation that serves Israeli interests? If you say so.


You wrote: "My complaint with the Palestinian Authority is that I don't think they are capable of governing the Palestinian people and the various groups like Fatah in a coherent enough way to make the peace process meaningful. I thought that before the recent events, but the celebrations highlight this."


I don't see any connection between such bad-taste celebrations and the ability of Palestinians to negotiate peace or govern themselves. But assuming there is one, aren't you applying a standard to the Palestinians that you won't apply to Israel, particularly the fanatically racist settlers?


For example, regarding Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the NYT, 2/26/94:


"Thousands of Israelis and settlers participated in the funeral of Dr. Goldstein. . . . In the eulogy, participants shouted ‘death to Arabs' and ‘transfer the Arabs.' In the eulogy, one of Kach leaders, T. Pollack, gave an impressive speech about Dr. Goldstein. He told the participants that Dr. Goldstein refused to treat any Arab patient in his life, even during his service in the IDF where he refused to treat the wounded of the enemy. Rabbi Yisrael Ariel Goldstein described Goldstein as a person who is having a higher status than the saints. He described him as a ‘Royal Martyr' who was ‘Listening to the cry of the stolen Land [complaining] from the Ishmaelites [Arabs] every day. And he did [something] to alleviate that cry.' . . . Another speaker in the eulogy said that ‘The People of Israel were sick and Goldstein gave us the medication.'"


From The Guardian News Service, 2/27/98:


"Over the years [Goldstein's] grave has become a place of pilgrimage for Israel's far-right, who come to pray and read the words on the stone block: "Of blessed memory, may the Lord avenge his blood...who gave his life for the state of Israel, its Torah and its land."


Goldstein earned these accolades and tributes by his cold-blooded murder of 29 Palestinian worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994. Imagine how popular he'd be with this segment of Israeli society if he had murdered 10,000.