Let me here recommend a particularly insightful piece by Barry Rubin, with more to follow shortly
Rubin, in his piece, "Defining Palestinian Strategy," writes about the failure of westerners to "get it" with regard to what the Palestinian approach is because it so defies logical expectations. Says he:
"1. There are hardly any moderate Palestinians in public life and even they generally keep their mouths shut or echo the militant majority…. The mantra of ‘helping the moderates’ cannot work under these conditions.
"2. Fatah and PLO strategy rests on the belief that defeat is staved off as long as you keep fighting. Their only true victory is to continue the struggle…Palestinians don’t attack Israel because Israel attacks them but because that is their sole program.
"3. Whatever the common people think privately, the vast majority of activists believes everything must be subsumed to the struggle…This is why the idea of appealing to Palestinian material interests or finding some leader who puts the priority on achieving peace and plenty fails.
"4. The interim goal is to be able to claim phony victories, which are actually costly defeats…Celebrating martyrs simply means bragging about your casualties.
"5. The movement’s social policy is remarkably reactionary…Fatah has no economic or social policy; Hamas seeks to turn Palestine into Iran or Afghanistan.
"6. Not only is infrastructure unimportant, it interferes with waging all-out struggle. If Palestinians become obsessed with job creation, educational or health systems, or a successful economy, this makes them satisfied with their lot and less willing to fight and die for the cause.
"7. Use your people’s suffering to win international support…there is a long pattern of sacrificing Palestinian lives and welfare for propaganda gains.
"8. Lie endlessly not only to everyone else but to yourself, portraying Israel as always wrong and America as always hostile.
"…this disastrous approach…seems capable of providing decades more of glorious defeat and martyrdom. Maybe it will even go on long enough for those in the West who keep expecting something different to comprehend this system."
http://gloria.idc.ac.il/columns/2006/rubin/07_11.html
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