The Emir of Qatar paid an official visit to Gaza today.
I think the general public in the West underestimates the influence that the Qataris have in the region and over American foreign policy.
They are pretty much at a point where they can give AIPAC a run for their money, and after all, money is what it's all about.
Sheikh Hamad is the first head of state to grace the Gaza enclave with an official visit. It comes six years after Hamas won fair and square elections that had been heavily promoted by the Nations of Virtue, who assumed that Israeli stooge Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority would prevail.
Alas, that was not to be. The Palestinian Authority seemed to lose most of its authority with the demise of Arafat
The triumph of Hamas in Gaza was a bitter irony. Hamas originally had at least the tacit support of Israel and the Nations of Virtue, who saw them as a pliable alternative to Arafat.
What a miscalculation that was!
The Qataris are the money and the brains behind Al Jazeera. They are the money and the brains behind the Syrian uprising. When the leader of Qatar pays a visit to those terror masterminds in Gaza, we ignore the ramifications at our peril.
By "rehabilitation" we are not talking about a substantive change in Hamas ideology. We are talking about a PR rehabilitation.
Look for broadly sympathetic features about daily life in Gaza, coming soon to the New York Times.
And it's just a matter of time before we see Piers Morgan interviewing Ismail Haniyah on CNN.
Showing posts with label Arafat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arafat. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The next intifada
The next intifada is just around the corner, and it won't be pretty.
The US government went a long way towards hastening the next intifada by cutting off $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority today. For those of you who don't follow our middle east adventures on a regular basis, the PA are the "good" Palestinians, the ones we put in place to replace the ones we didn't like.
PA leader Abbas is our bumboy, our stooge. Yet even a bumboy needs to have something to show his people once in awhile just to maintain his cred. After the demise of Arafat, who we couldn't talk to, we put Abbas in place. We gave him lots of money and lots of guns and set him loose on the Palestinians we didn't like, the Hamas.
Ironically, Hamas were a crew we used to support because we thought they'd undermine Arafat, which they did to a point. Then, before we even realized what had happened, the bumboys went rogue. Not a new phenomenon. Think Noriega. Think Saddam Hussein. Think Pakistan. History is chock full of guys who take our money and our guns and then turn against us.
So we've had our bumboy Abbas "negotiating" a two-state solution all these years, while our erstwhile ally, the only democracy in the middle east, continues to build settlements on the land that Abbas is supposedly negotiating over. While it's a nice thing for him to be on our payroll, he still has to give his own people some sense that there is forward motion. That's been getting harder and harder. While he's negotiating, the settler population goes from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand.
In desperation, our boy in Ramalla decides he's going to appeal for statehood directly to the UN, just like Israel did over sixty years ago. Well! If that didn't twist a few knickers in Tel Aviv and Washington! So the leaders in Washington are going to teach him a lesson. Two hundred million bucks worth of lesson.
Well, that'll for sure cut the legs out from under our puppet. So who's left? Oh, Hamas! Great!
As I've pointed out in previous posts, if the folks in Gaza can smuggle full-size Mercedes sedans through the tunnels, there's a lot of other stuff they can smuggle in too. And if they're stealing the cars in Libya, guess what else is up for grabs there? Got the picture yet?
The Third Intifada. Coming soon. Hold on to your hats.
The US government went a long way towards hastening the next intifada by cutting off $200 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority today. For those of you who don't follow our middle east adventures on a regular basis, the PA are the "good" Palestinians, the ones we put in place to replace the ones we didn't like.
PA leader Abbas is our bumboy, our stooge. Yet even a bumboy needs to have something to show his people once in awhile just to maintain his cred. After the demise of Arafat, who we couldn't talk to, we put Abbas in place. We gave him lots of money and lots of guns and set him loose on the Palestinians we didn't like, the Hamas.
Ironically, Hamas were a crew we used to support because we thought they'd undermine Arafat, which they did to a point. Then, before we even realized what had happened, the bumboys went rogue. Not a new phenomenon. Think Noriega. Think Saddam Hussein. Think Pakistan. History is chock full of guys who take our money and our guns and then turn against us.
So we've had our bumboy Abbas "negotiating" a two-state solution all these years, while our erstwhile ally, the only democracy in the middle east, continues to build settlements on the land that Abbas is supposedly negotiating over. While it's a nice thing for him to be on our payroll, he still has to give his own people some sense that there is forward motion. That's been getting harder and harder. While he's negotiating, the settler population goes from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand.
In desperation, our boy in Ramalla decides he's going to appeal for statehood directly to the UN, just like Israel did over sixty years ago. Well! If that didn't twist a few knickers in Tel Aviv and Washington! So the leaders in Washington are going to teach him a lesson. Two hundred million bucks worth of lesson.
Well, that'll for sure cut the legs out from under our puppet. So who's left? Oh, Hamas! Great!
As I've pointed out in previous posts, if the folks in Gaza can smuggle full-size Mercedes sedans through the tunnels, there's a lot of other stuff they can smuggle in too. And if they're stealing the cars in Libya, guess what else is up for grabs there? Got the picture yet?
The Third Intifada. Coming soon. Hold on to your hats.
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