ENOUGH MARTYRDUMB:

Some shunning the Palestinian hard stance (Thanassis Cambanis, September 6, 2005, Boston Globe)

After his 12-year-old son died in a hail of bullets in 2000, Jamal al-Dura became the public face of Palestinian suffering as the second intifadah began. He traveled across the Arab world, standing as a symbol of perceived Israeli brutality and growing wealthy from the largesse showered upon him.

Nearly five years later, however, Dura says he has tired of mouthing the counterproductive mottos of Palestinian hard-liners. Instead, with Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last month, he has turned to building a grand new home for his eight surviving children and he has forbidden his eldest son from joining any militant movement, at least until he finishes university.

''One martyr from this family is enough," Dura, 43, said at his home in Bureij.

He's only the most famous of a minority of Gaza Palestinians who are rejecting the all-encompassing culture of intifadah, jihad, and martyrdom that has turned camps like Bureij and Jabaliya into locomotives of the Palestinian militant factions.

These Palestinians believe Gaza has reaped few results from decades of war and militia leadership; now, these disenchanted Palestinians say, it's time to replace calls to arms and total victory over Israel with real improvements for Palestinians, like better education, housing, and jobs.

Palestinian leaders face the moment they've been trying to avoid since Oslo, actually having to improve the lives of their own people and run a functional state.

MORE:
Egypt vows to build a Palestinian Gaza (John Phillips, September 6, 2005, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif has pledged to help make the Gaza Strip the foundation of a Palestinian state "in every sense" and urged other countries to join Cairo in the push for Middle East peace.

"If we want Gaza to be the basis for a new Palestinian state long term, we have to provide [the residents] with homes and jobs, with security," Mr. Nazif told The Washington Times.

"A lot of effort has to go into rebuilding the infrastructure, not just in the political but in the economic sense."

Mr. Nazif said Cairo will make sure that Gaza has access to the outside world through Egyptian seaports and airports "to prevent the strip of territory being a prison" for its residents.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2005 8:55 AM