January 11, 2005

FREEDOM FROM FEAR:

Our Test for Abu Mazen: Peace is possible only if Palestinians are free. (NATAN SHARANSKY, January 11, 2005, Opinion Journal)

If Abu Mazen is a willing partner in this effort, his government should receive legitimacy, financial aid, territory and support for statehood. But if he is unwilling to do so, all support for his regime should be withheld. The Free World should focus on four areas.

• Dissent. Under Arafat, the only freedom of speech or press was the freedom to criticize Israel. Abu Mazen must understand that the days of crushing democratic dissent are over. If Palestinian democrats know that the Free World will not allow the PA to act toward them with impunity, then an increasing number of democratic voices will be heard.

• Education and Incitement. In any society, what is taught in public schools and broadcast on public airwaves is a good indication of the values that are being inculcated in its people. PA-run schools and the PA-controlled media have been used to poison a generation of Palestinians against Jews and Israel. The Free World must demand that this end immediately.

• Refugee Camps. A PA dedicated to bettering the lives of its citizens will immediately seek to address the miserable conditions of Palestinians who have been living in refugee camps for four generations. A PA interested only in controlling its subjects will prefer to continue to use these Palestinians as pawns in a political struggle against the Jewish State by feeding fantasies that they will return to pre-1967 Israel. The Free World should express its willingness to fund a program that provides decent housing for those living in the camps. A PA leadership that rejects such a plan is not interested in the welfare of its own people and hence not a partner for peace.

• Economic Independence. In a fear society, people are cogs of the regime. That is why one of the anchors of a free society is a middle class not dependent on government largess. With a monopoly over basic industries, and the power to decide who receives work permits to Israel and who receives international assistance, the PA has a stranglehold over the Palestinian economy. Money sent is used to fund terrorism and corruption rather than to improve lives. While I have long advocated a new Marshall Plan for the Palestinians, the success of such a plan will depend on ensuring that money is invested only in projects that directly benefit the Palestinians. That will help them re-establish the middle class that is so essential for their future.


The camps are particularly appalling.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 11, 2005 5:53 PM
Comments

But the camps are so convenient for the UN, the EU, and the rest of the Arab world - they provide a perverse sort of Potemkin theater.

Posted by: jim hamlen at January 11, 2005 6:52 PM

Well, yes and no.

More simply, the existence and proliferation of the camps indicates to all who bother to notice that the plight of the refugees is a temporary one and that one day in the future, they, in their tens of millions, will return to their homes in (at that point) the former Zionist entity.

Which is why the idea of solving "the problem" by building homes and lives for those refugees is such an obscene (if oh so useful) non-sequitur.

Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 12, 2005 3:34 AM
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