{"id":2653,"date":"2002-08-02T14:51:48","date_gmt":"2002-08-02T14:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=198"},"modified":"2002-08-02T14:51:48","modified_gmt":"2002-08-02T14:51:48","slug":"further-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2653","title":{"rendered":"FURTHER THOUGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bigwig<\/a> has essentially proposed that we hold out immigration to the US as a bribe to the broader Palestinian community to a) stop the violence against the Israelis; and b) abandon the \u0091Right of Return\u0092 which is probably one of the key issues holding the two sides apart.
\nI\u0092m attracted to the idea, but for different reasons than Bigwig sets out. I reserve the right to change my mind once I sleep on it, but restate my belief that right now two very stubborn and resilient people are playing Irish Sit-Down (a game I’ve seen played in which two thickheads take turns hitting each other until one of them can’t get up). Even if we don\u0092t care about the players, all the furniture is getting broken. The solution to this problem is going to either come from exhaustion, which I doubt, or from outside the narrow band of negotiation both parties seem trapped in.
\nComments and email have flowed, and they make two sensible points:
\n1)\tThe Palestinian crisis is really a mask for a deeper crisis with Arab world, so \u0091solving\u0092 this problem will only deal with the symptom, not the problem;
\n2)\tWhy would we let thousands or hundreds of thousands of virulently Anti-American folks into the country?
\nFirst, let me explain why I think this would be a brilliant move.
\nIt seizes the moral high ground: No one can accuse the US of not extending a hand to the poor oppressed Palestinian population after we make an offer like this. I\u0092m ignoring the fine details of Bigwig\u0092s plan, like the \u0091tax\u0092, and simplifying the plan into: if you\u0092ll stop bombing and accept a peace plan, we\u0092ll let 100,000 Palestinians who pass security checks into the US per year.
\nIt gives us a stick to hold over the Palestinian and Arab leadership: Play ball or we turn off the tap. I have to believe that the hope of immigrating to the US would be a strong enough lure for the average person that the PA would risk losing control if they messed with it.
\nIt divides our opponents: I believe there is a \u0091silent middle\u0092 in the Palestinian world; people who just want to live their lives and raise their kids. Right now they are cowed by the thugs with guns, in large part because they have nothing to fight for. The thugs steal the aid dollars, kill political opponents, and will wind up with whatever wealth can be created. This is an appeal to them, an offer to them of a future both in Palestine, and possibly here in the U.S. What is needed is for the Arab and Palestinian middle-class to stand up; something that has been rare up until now because, in part, they haven\u0092t had anything to stand up for. Suddenly the political spectrum there isn\u0092t narrowed to IJ, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and while the PA might get away with \u0091retail violence\u0092 – the occasional murder of a political opponent, \u0091wholesale violence\u0092 against large crowds would not play well for them at all.
\nAs to the issues raised, my responses are simple:
\nYes, I deeply believe the Palestinians are a proxy used to mask a deeper conflict between the Arab\/Islamist world and the West (and its beachhead, Israel). We keep getting stuck in the proxy argument and not being able to deal with the deeper one. Let\u0092s get the proxy off the table so we can see what\u0092s really going on.
\nNo, I don\u0092t think that the Palestinian immigrants will substantially place us at risk; we\u0092re already<\/u> at risk. The only reason Hamas hasn\u0092t attacked on U.S. soil is that they don\u0092t want to, and I don\u0092t believe that Homeland Security could do a damn thing about it.
\nI don\u0092t think that the average Palestinian is virulently anti-American. If that was the case, we\u0092d have no choice<\/a> except to kill them. I think they are trapped physically and economically and culturally, and the question is how can we help them out of the trap?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bigwig has essentially proposed that we hold out immigration to the US as a bribe to the broader Palestinian community to a) stop the violence against the Israelis; and b) abandon the \u0091Right of Return\u0092 which is probably one of the key issues holding the two sides apart. I\u0092m attracted to the idea, but for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}