Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I didn't SUPPORT him. It was about understanding who had to be worked with in order to actually END the war.
It was about recognizing the reality that a large number of Palestinians supported him...and that, therefore, he and the PLO were going to HAVE to be included in the process in some way.
Including the PLO was about your favorite word "reality". Reality REQUIRED including them. If they hadn't been included and you'd ONLY had an agreement with whomever these other, "home-grown" Palestinian leaders you are talking about, the war with the PLO would just have gone on, and Hamas, a group both of us hate, would still have emerged. What, exactly, would then have been achieved?
It's the same thing as acknowledging, in the Northern Irish situation(which has some parallels)that peace could ONLY come if Sinn Fein was included as a negotiating partner. A lot of Ulster Unionists wanted power-sharing ONLY with the Social Democratic and Labour Party, a more moderate group, but a group whose popularity has been in decline in the Catholic community in Northern Ireland for decades now and isn't likely to stop being in decline. Having a peace deal only with the SDLP(a group that never actually had any connection with the armed struggle)would have been pointless.
On this point, I'm in agreement with Rabin, who pointed out that you make peace with your enemies, not your friends.
BTW, how much support among rank-and-file Palestinians did these "home-grown" leaders have, it really wasn't going to mean much that he was there-any more than it meant anything in Zimbabwe that Abel Muzorewa (a figure with no real personal base of support among ordinary black Zimbabweans and thus no credibility at all), was part of a "compromise" with Ian Smith. To end a war, you have to either score an outright military victory(which wasn't and isn't possible for either side in the I/P war) OR you need a peace agreement including ALL the combatant forces.
You still haven't said who these superior Eighties home grown Palestinian leaders were...you'd think that the Israeli government would have wanted to publicize their existence heavily.
I'm still puzzled about this argument your making...this curious notion that one side in a war should get to, in effect, CHOOSE who leads the other side and who on the other side they negotiate with...and the jury's still out as to whether that strategy ever had a chance of producing peace. Look at what South Africa might be like now if the white minority leaders had done what the really wanted and negotiated ONLY with Inkatha. The place would be like Angola by now. Look at what Northern Ireland would still be like if the Ulster Unionists and the British government had continued to refuse to negotiate with Sinn Fein. Would you want to live in either place if that's how things had gone?