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From: tbray@mprvaxa
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Quote about overall situation in Mid. East - and a question
Message-ID: <436@mprvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jan-84 01:26:56 EST
Article-I.D.: mprvaxa.436
Posted: Thu Jan  5 01:26:56 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Dec-83 00:54:15 EST
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x <-- USENET insecticde

Eli Posner (utcsstat!rao) quotes Herzog to the effect that the correct 
application of one day's oil revenue would solve the "Arab Refugee" problem.
I would like to make the following points, and pose a question.

1. Since when has an issue rooted in politics and nationalism ever been
   solved by the application of money?

2. The problem is a Palestinian refugee problem, not an Arab refugee
   problem.  People who do not understand the difference are not qualified
   to pontificate about the Middle East.

3. Yes, the Palestinians could have all been assimilated into the
   various Arab countries where they ended up, with a certain amount of effort.
   And the Jewish people could have been assimilated in Europe and Asia
   as well.  Neither shows any sign of happening.  Neither group
   desires assimilation.

4. Given that the oil-rich Gulf states (and some POOR Arab states !!) have 
   spent buckets of money on Palestinian relief projects, and that the
   technical and mangerial elite of the Arab oil and banking business is
   contains a high proportion of Palestinians, it is fair to conclude
   that several YEARS worth of oil revenue has gone, and will continue
   to go, to the Palestinians.  But it won't be spent on assimilation.

This is the sort of of blinkered thinking that holds back progress on the
difficult, but essentially soluble, Middle East situation.

My question - I would like to hear from some of the strongly pro-Israel
people on the net their opinions on the Peace Now movement.  I have always 
thought that they present some of the sanest thinking going going on in the 
Middle East.

Tim Bray  ...decvax!ubc-vision!mprvaxa!tbray