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How to Help Palestinians
Palestinians need help. They are trapped in a spiral of despair and destruction. Their embrace of terrorism, the power of clans and criminal networks, and their conflict with Israel are destroying their lives and their country. I think Israel has only a small part of the blame in this; but even if Israel bears all the blame, only Palestinians can get themselves out of it.
Palestine has real economic potential. It has great potential for producing olives and olive oil. It exports dairy products, furniture, textiles, and stone. It has hydrocarbon reserves of 3 billion barrels of oil and 28-32 BCF of gas. Plus, its human capital is the most important resource of all. One of the smartest World Bank economists I have met was Palestinian.
But it has some of the worst governance ever. Mahmoud Abbas was elected to a four-year term as president and has served 19 years. The Gaza Strip was a hotbed of terrorism before they provoked the Israeli attack. Fatah, Hamas, and criminal gangs dominate the economy. Instead of building one of the largest metros in the world, they built terror tunnels in Gaza.
The only way Palestine will ever prosper is to rid themselves of the dictators and thugs that ruin the country. Killing, torturing, and raping Israelis will never improve Palestine’s prospects. Even if they were to drive the Israelis out of Israel, Palestine would still be ruled by brutal kleptocrats who have murdered and stolen from their own people for decades. Palestinians need to drive their evil leaders from their land and pray that God will heal their country.
If Palestine would start to improve itself, I think Israel would gradually lift restrictions. But even if Israel didn’t do it voluntarily, the US and other countries would push Israel to do so. The only way for Palestine to gain respect in the world (and to prosper) is to be worthy of that respect.
Published in Foreign Policy
They won’t do it
Why should they? They have been raised to be told that nothing is their fault and everything is the fault of other people.
Money continues to be given to them and they continue to be victims. As long as they were victims they will have no agency
Cutting off the international welfare might be one of the best things that could be done for them. Just like cutting off the welfare to most American recipients would be the best thing that could be done for them. In both cases, it would force them to start being responsible adults.
when they start investing in infrastructure instead of tunnels, then we can talk
The Palestinians and Arabs in general were simply not morally offended by the October 7th attacks. A great many of them say they don’t believe those atrocities happened according to a Palestinian pollster. Probably these same people who say they don’t believe the attacks celebrated them on October 8th.
I think they have other values rather than peace and property.
This. But change “probably” to “certainly”.
This is like saying “some people did something”
I don’t have adequate words for the what they did
That’s an absurd comparison.
Seen this cat’s video?
https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/07/30/american-influencer-goes-to-west-bank-interviews-residents-on-support-for-hamas-gets-rude-awakening-n2177532
It’s well known that Palestinians supported the terror attacks of 7 October. But that doesn’t change the fact that they need help to get out of their spiral of destruction.
I wish someone other than me luck with that.
So how exactly do yo get people out of that.
Take their money away.
The biggest problem that Palestine faces is the genocide that the Israelis are committing in Gaza, followed by the illegal occupation that has lasted longer than I have been alive.
Israel is the overall aggressor, always. This is why the Israelis started, about 100 years ago, with about 10% of the people and less than 5% of the land, and now have about 50% of the people and 95% of the land.
My sister introduced me to a new term today, DARVO. Deflect, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Oppressor.
This post is doing this again.
Breaking the monopolies that enrich criminal and terror gangs, for example, distribution of (stolen) food aid, would make a huge difference. Hamas taxed all the goods that came through the tunnels – if you could permanently destroy the tunnels and prevent new ones while opening up import of consumer goods, that would break a source of Hamas’ wealth.
Encouraging competition in the market. For example, there are two mobile telecommunication companies in Gaza. A few minutes of internet research revealed that the largest is Jawwal, owned by Paltel, whose chairman is Sahib al-Masri. The al-Masri family was close to Yasir Arafat and is one of the wealthiest families in Palestine. While the al-Masri family promotes peace between Palestinians and Israelis, since they were close to Arafat, I’m sure a chunk of their income went to Arafat who promoted conflict and terror. And now that stream of income probably goes to Mahmoud Abbas.
The smaller is Ooredoo, which is owned by the Qatari royal family and other Qatari entities, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and others. How much you want to bet that some of those Qatari entities are controlled by Hamas? Both mobile companies would seem to be controlled by those who support terror.
These evil entities get their power and wealth by controlling business. Promoting competition and the market would reduce their power.
You are just adorable.
Jerry, I wrote this post because I was tired of all your dead-end anti-Semitism. Ranting against Israel just ignores the problem. The problem is within the Palestinians, but we should have compassion to care about them. Too bad you seem not to have compassion for them but just want to use them as a stick to beat the Jews. That’s what the Arab world has been doing for 75 years.
CORRECTION: The Arabs used the Palestinians as a stick to beat the Jews for about 70 years. In work deserving the Nobel Peace Prize starting in 2020, Trump and Jared Kushner helped the Arabs out of their dead end with the Abraham Accords. Now Iran is using the Palestinians as a stick to beat the Jews.
The creator of the term was Jennifer Freyd:
Lot of that going around.
And thus, why there is no hope. They are tools to attack the Jews
Excellent. I strongly recommend this “man-in-street” video.
“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
“I’m from the UN, and I’m here to help.”
I embrace the paradox that I do feel some compassion for the Palestinians, and I believe that they are too embedded in their mindset to change. It must be terrifying to contemplate that everything you have believed your entire life is wrong, and you need to take a different path. I’m quite sure at this time that they’d rather stick with self-destructive behavior.
That’s too pessimistic. UNRWA has been exposed for supporting terror, and they will have less latitude in Gaza going forward. If a new Trump administration would cut off their funding, that would reduce Palestinian dependency on them. If Trump would get Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, there would be a cascade throughout the Middle East of cutting off the Palestinians. If sanctions would be put back on Iran, they wouldn’t have the resources to fund terror. But a lot depends on a new administration taking office and taking some good steps.
But the biggest change needs to come from within Palestinian society. They have to stop accepting dictators and the connection between local business and terror. That’s going to be a long process and will probably take a disaster to catalyze it. Maybe the massive defeat in Gaza will cause their leaders to re-think their strategy. Or maybe they will just double down.
It will never happen. It will never happen because their society has to be destroyed like Nazi Germany.
I am thinking more of imperial Japan. A religious deathcult that was destroyed after two atom bombs forced the Emperor to renounce his divinity. With that they were utterly defeated and became one of the least violent countries on Earth.
The only lasting peace I can see is for Israel to make Hamas lose and the only way I can see that happening is to go through regular Palestinians like fat man and little boy tore through Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I didn’t notice anything in the comments suggesting that Islam’s attitude towards Jews (and Christians and anyone who isn’t a Muslim) has something to do with Palestinian attitudes towards Israel. It seems to me that unless there’s a fundamental rejection or revision of Islam (which I don’t see happening), hostility towards Israel (and America and Europe, etc.) will continue unless they are conquered or otherwise taken over by Muslims. Israel also occupies land once ruled by Muslims and that’s not acceptable to Muslims. Spain also is illegitimate, but geographically harder to deal with.
imagine if they invested all the money given to them by the global community and invested into education and infrastructure instead of terror tunnels. They might not to depend on Israel for internet, electricity and water.
We probably should keep in mind that the terror tunnels were built by Hamas. I suspect their civilians didn’t want to tell them to stop.
I also suspect the Hamas didn’t do the actual building, it was probably outsourced to some of the locals