Implications of Yasser Arafat's death

The Last Conformist said:
People take better to oppressors if they at some level can feel they are of their own. Additionally, the "stakeholder" theory of political organization would hold that the interest of a domestic dictator are more likely to coincide with those of the people than a those of a foreign ruler are.

In this case atleast it seems like the opposite. Israel, being a democracy, had people and media to criticize and effect govermental policies. As a result the Palestinians did have freedoms that individuals in no dictatorship have, they had a good education system and their infrastructure was brought into the 20th century. Arafat managed to greatly hurt all these things while becoming the sixth richest leader in the world (according to forbes).


The Last Conformist said:
But the main point is one of usage; national independence is commonly described as freedom regardless of whether it brings any personal freedom or political influence for the masses or not.

What's the point of saying someone fights for the freedom of his people if his actions aren't ment to give his people any real freedom?
 
G-Man said:
In this case atleast it seems like the opposite. Israel, being a democracy, had people and media to criticize and effect govermental policies. As a result the Palestinians did have freedoms that individuals in no dictatorship have, they had a good education system and their infrastructure was brought into the 20th century. Arafat managed to greatly hurt all these things while becoming the sixth richest leader in the world (according to forbes).
That's certainly arguable. But the people whose opinion on the matter matters isn't you or me, but the Palestinians. And unless I'm mistaken, most of them prefered being ruled by Arafat.

What's the point of saying someone fights for the freedom of his people if his actions aren't ment to give his people any real freedom?
I don't know if there's a point, per se. But it's commonly done.
 
G-Man said:

We were discussing the number of PLO attacks up to the 80's, not the number of general total terror attacks on Israel (I guess those figures include the attacks of organisations like Hamas etc, which aren't part
of the PLO) of the period 2000 - 2004, which are mentioned in your document.

AFAIK the PLO committed a much lower number of terror attacks on Israel up to the 80's than the tens of thousends you claim.

For someone who fought for "freedom of the Palestinian people" he sure had an easy time in creating a centralized dictatorship.

I agree with the reaction of TLC on this comment.
 
The Last Conformist said:
That's certainly arguable. But the people whose opinion on the matter matters isn't you or me, but the Palestinians. And unless I'm mistaken, most of them prefered being ruled by Arafat.

The Palestinians were never asked.


The Last Conformist said:
I don't know if there's a point, per se. But it's commonly done.

Well I must say I find it ridiculeous to put dictators as equals of great leaders of democracy.


AVN said:
We were discussing the number of PLO attacks up to the 80's, not the number of general total terror attacks on Israel (I guess those figures include the attacks of organisations like Hamas etc, which aren't part
of the PLO) of the period 2000 - 2004, which are mentioned in your document.

AFAIK the PLO committed a much lower number of terror attacks on Israel up to the 80's than the tens of thousends you claim.

I said the general number of attacks carried out by the PLO (and most of the attacks there were carried out by them) in order to explain why I can't mention all of their actions. In any case even before the 80s they carried out hundreds if not thousands of attacks.
 
G-Man said:
The Palestinians were never asked.
That's true. But do you really believe that, if able to chose freely, they had prefered staying under Israeli occupation over having an independent state consisting of Gazah and the West Bank ruled by Arafat?
Well I must say I find it ridiculeous to put dictators as equals of great leaders of democracy.
You're welcome. Personally, I do not see anything odd in using the same term for all who fight for national independence.
 
The Last Conformist said:
That's true. But do you really believe that, if able to chose freely, they had prefered staying under Israeli occupation over having an independent state consisting of Gazah and the West Bank ruled by Arafat?

I don't know. And in any case you can't have a "free" survey, because the Palestinians don't live in the free society required for such a survey - they live in a society where the education system, the newspapers, radios, TV stations - all glorify Arafat and ignore his mistakes and corruption.
 
The Last Conformist said:
I do not think that a decision need be adequately informed to be "free".

Ofcource it has to be such, that's one of the basic ideas of democracy - freedom of information. When you brainwash people you're taking away their ability to make a free decision.
 
G-Man said:
Ofcource it has to be such, that's one of the basic ideas of democracy - freedom of information. When you brainwash people you're taking away their ability to make a free decision.
I seem to recall that I'm the guy who's expressed sympathy for the idea of brainwashing people into democrats ...

But we're basically down to semantics again. Call it free or not, people make their decisions based on what they think, not what they would have thought if adequately informed.
 
The Last Conformist said:
But we're basically down to semantics again. Call it free or not, people make their decisions based on what they think, not what they would have thought if adequately informed.

Maybe, but the point remains - Arafat's regime did not give Palestinians the option to decide what's best for them.
 
I've claimed that, and your argument didn't say otherwise.
 
The Last Conformist said:
Um? Lost me there, I'm afraid. You certainly did not say that Arafat did give the Palestinians the chance to decide what's best for them.

I think you misread my post.
 
G-Man said:
I don't know. And in any case you can't have a "free" survey, because the Palestinians don't live in the free society required for such a survey - they live in a society where the education system, the newspapers, radios, TV stations - all glorify Arafat and ignore his mistakes and corruption.
That is true. But it is generally recgnised that Araft's big problem has always been that he has tried to please the Palestinian "public opinion". The way he saw it, if he missed it, he would be gone. He very much had his ear to the street.
Which left him in the ridiculous position of talking tough and agressive aganist Israel when adressing his people like proper hawk, and sounding very much like a dove when dealing with those western leaders he also needed the support of to get somewhere with Israel. His idiotic decision to back Saddam in 1991 was popular on the "street" and this popularity was his only real reason for doing it.
That was kind of the problem with Arafat. He was The Uniting Figurehead of all Palestinians, but never really had the guts to be a leader in the sense of telling them waht would have to happen.
That and the fact that he never managed to get out of his "guerrilero frame of mind" and become a proper politician. The last ten years have been another missed opportunity for tha Palestinians to build a modern democratic state. But the Israeli input hasn't hepled the situation. (I still wonder exactly why the IDF trashed the Palsetinians statistics office that was part of the Swedish aid package in the early 90's? Number crunching as "terrorism"?)

As far as the future is concerned the warnings going around at present seem to center on the fact that Arafat may have been the last secular political leader of the Arab world. From now on any successful leader may have to get religion. Questionable if that will make anything easier.
 
G-Man said:
Why? Where's the mixing? What kind of freedom did Arafat achieve, or wanted to achieve, for his people? He only took away freedoms that they had under Israeli rule - freedom of speech, freedom of press, etc. Only now, with his death, there are leaders who need the legitimacy of an elections process so they can actually vote.
This would only be an argument if the Palestinians had the choice of becoming proper Israeli citizens. They never have. (And today they have also lost the freedom of movement even within "their" territories.)

Actually, one solution to the whole mess would be an Israeli annexation of the lot with political rights and liberties for all Palestinians as Israeli citizens.
Why is that not even considered?
 
Verbose said:
This would only be an argument if the Palestinians had the choice of becoming proper Israeli citizens. They never have. (And today they have also lost the freedom of movement even within "their" territories.)

The argument is deliberately between two situations in which the Palestinians don't have control over themselves.


Verbose said:
Actually, one solution to the whole mess would be an Israeli annexation of the lot with political rights and liberties for all Palestinians as Israeli citizens.
Why is that not even considered?

First, it wouldn't be recognized by anyone and would be heavily condemned. But this is just a minor problem. The real problem is that Israelis want to keep Israel as their own country. If we give all Palestinians citizenship and voting rights Israel will turn into Palestine within a decade.


Verbose said:
(I still wonder exactly why the IDF trashed the Palsetinians statistics office that was part of the Swedish aid package in the early 90's? Number crunching as "terrorism"?)

The Palestinian authority used numbers in many ways in order to sponser terrorism. For example, they'd pay their employees in low exchange rates and use the remaining money in order to fund organizations such as the tanzim and the al aqsa martyrs brigades (now the Arafat brigades).
 
G-Man said:
Why is it withdrawing from gaza? Why doesn't it kick away the Palestinians?
Because removing people from their land--let alone dominating them as we can see in Iraq--is easier said than done.

Labour may call itself moderate left but it serves mostly right wing interests thus is right wing.

Isreali politics are right-wing for a reason: it's an unstable part of the world and Isreal has evolved as a militant state--not to mention that its militarism has been wholeheartedly backed by the most militant state in the world, which also happens to be the planet's only superpower right now; Isrealis that support militarism, support US intervention in the Middle East and thus get the big bucks--making truely left-wing political opposition in Isreal look like nothing in comparison.

Were there to be a left-wing party in power now, Yasser Arafat being gone might make a (good) deal possible but the fact that Sharon is in power means that there may be the usual BS talks but nothing more.

Two people, two nations. How is this not justified?

That would be Scotland and the UK. This is just two people.

If by 'two nations' you mean two states, then that is incorrect because the Palestinians have no state (their state technically would have been Isreal had things gone differently).

If by nation you mean ethnicity, then that is pretty much the same as saying people.

The deal wasn't justified from a legal standpoint because you can't found a state on someone else's territory (haven't you played Civ3? ;) ), thus a deal solidifying that state's claim would be illegitimate. When I say justified, I mean that rejecting the deal was just if not necessarily the right decision to make given the circumstances (see below).

The initial idea behind Isreal was to create a state out of all the territories and then people (mostly Jews) from Europe would be able to live there. Right-wing zionist political influence caused there to be a push for an exclusively Jewish state (i.e. no Palestinians). Just one problem: Palestinians also live in the areas that are meant to be 'Jewish.' The state was founded anyway and like most states, then went on to expand to its maximum potential. From the moment Palestinians were given the boot, Palestinian opposition became justified (for the record, had Palestine been included into Isreal but Palestinian culture repressed by the Isreali government, Palestinians would still be justified in resisting, and were the resistors to be attacked by the Isreali military, they would be justified in counter-attacking).

So, Arafat's opposition to the deal was a justified decision if not entirely favourable to Palestinians (i.e. it was a justified decision from a legal standpoint but not necessarily from a humanitarian one; in other words, Palestinians are right to reject the deal because it would be legitamizing Isreali policy but doing so will result in the continuation of hostilities). But then, that is the main criticism of Arafat: he didn't always do what was best for his people.

So your "best deal" is to put jews at the mercy of a populations which considers killing them on a racial base to be a good thing?

This "populations which considers killing them on a racial base" is like Americans who say that everyone in the Arab world wants to do nothing but kill Americans. Granted, people get pissed when you blow up their houses killing their whole families but these aren't necessarily the ones "blowing up Jews" as some Isrealis like to put it. Most people just want to lead a normal life and are willing to forgive and forget. Others believe in justice thus will not let things go that easily but will see reason. Then there is a small minority that have a hatered that will never die and lack reason. These are what we call fanatics...psychos...nut-cases...uh...fruitcakes. The problem that would arise is that people have a tendency to make a big thing out of tiny things, so I can picture this:

Isreal makes a deal like that. Everything is going smoothly: police round up fanatics (on both sides), Palestine is built up, people get their land back people get their land back, etc. Then on day, a Jewish man is walking along Yaro street when he bumbs into a Palestinian man walking in the other direction. They pardon each other and keep walking along their merry way. Shortly afterwards, a Zionist and an Islamic Fundamentalist also walk along Yaro street and bump into each other. Instead of seeing it as an accident, a fight ensues. Upon seeing this, the people gather, old hatreds resurface and soon Yaro street is one big mess. Meanwhile the third generation youth are unaware of anything and ignore what little they see as they keep walking while listening to their MP3 players or talking on their cells. By nightfall, the riot squad has moved into control the mob. Palestinians are beaten up by a few prejudice Isreali police officers. This sets of a chain of events and by the end of the week bombs are going off again. And by next week the army is shooting kids throwing MP3 players.

It all happened because of those two religious goofs who couldn't be civilized. Most people are not like them but humans have a tendency to let themselves get swept up by unthinking mobs (sometimes just because they were grumpy that day). Instead of saying, "oh, there they go again, those two goof," Palestinians will say, "the Jews are being hostile again!" Likewise Jews will say, "the Palestinians will never stop killing us!"

The reason why such a deal would not work is because of a special kind of stupidity that affects most people on this planet: bias. Very few humans are able to put bias aside even though they know better. Few people will take it as far as wanting to kill someone though. Assume that most humans aren't that barbaric. (Palestinians may yell in the street but, well, see my example above; i.e there's a difference between yelling and doing.) Also assume that people only react in such a way when things are going VERY badly for them (and please don't insult my intelligence by saying "it's of their own making"). This doesn't happen under less desperate circumstances.
 
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