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| Re: Helen Thomas Retires (617948) | |||
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Re: Helen Thomas Retires |
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Posted by trainsarefun on Tue Jun 8 10:31:08 2010, in response to Re: Helen Thomas Retires, posted by bmtlines on Tue Jun 8 09:33:28 2010. But the conquered peoples were offered citizenship.It took a long time. It started with some treaties and the Dawes Act, but it didn't finish until 1924. That's about a century and a half after the creation of our country, and some tribes had an even longer wait if you look back at the colonial era. All Native Americans are citizens of the US. I don't think that would be a good solution for Israel given the demographics and projected population growth of the Arab population there. As I've stated, democracy is not the answer. OTOH a large Arab population living within Israel (assuming annexation of the territories)that eventually becomes a majority will be a serious cause for concern. The Arab population is already a cause for great concern. The non-citizen part is a very unhappy Arab population. It also doesn't matter how prosperous you make a territory - national aspirations will always trump prosperity. Look at Yugoslavia - they were one of the better off communist countries but a civil war broke out once the police state evaporated. Israeli Arabs may be loyal (to some extent) but they are citizens. Maintaining a colonial style control will be much harder for the people to accept and for Israel to maintain. Yugoslavia, running on communist precepts, wasn't prosperous enough. You also had in the post-Soviet era, one person, one vote. Look instead to the example of British colonialism and imperialism for a model of relative stability. The only 2 options left for Israel are expulsion or granting independence. Expulsion seems to me a practical non-starter, as I said in other posts. Granting independence also undoes Israel's gains in territory, while making it substantially less secure. At this point I am not even sure you can have one independent Palestine either (think East Pakistan and West Pakistan). Seems to me that Gaza and the West Bank are headed separate ways. I think that's right. Ideally the Palestinians should give up their claim to Jerusalem in exchange for visitation rights and accept a sovereign but demilitarized state on the West Bank. I doubt very much that either the Arabs or Jews will make that deal. As for Gaza - I'd like to give it back to the Egyptians and let them administer it but I doubt that they would want it. Sadat knew what he was doing when he did not include Gaza in the Israeli withdrawal :) Absolutely correct. Anwar Sadat didn't want it, and neither does Hosni Mubarak now. A future Muslim Brotherhood government might, but I doubt that Israel would then want to cede it. |
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