Dreaming of Palestine ...

Prof. Abukhalil dreams about the day Palestinians take over Israel's institutions, towns, cities, malls, universities, etc etc. Here are some of the fantasies he shares with his readers:

"... once Palestine is liberated, I don't think that Hebrew poet living under a Palestinian flag (and using the renamed George Habash International Airport) should be harassed unless they harm the security of the anti-Zionist state."
" But your delusions are good for us: you won't know what will hit you in the future in response to all the war crimes that you have committed against our people. "

"And once the Palestinian refugees are returned to their homes all over Palestine, I will make sure that you get decent rents in the formerly Palestinian refugee camps because we may be a bit short of space for the occupiers then. "

If you think Prof. AbuKhalil belongs to the lunatic fringe of a pro-Palestinian constituency, you had better think again. He is only channeling the perceptions, interpretations, aspirations and revanchist revolutionary zeal that characterize the much fabled, feared, and implacably unappeasable Arab Street. However, contrary to his hopes, Israelis and their supporters are all too aware of these trends, as Barry Rubin clarified in this article:

"Did Sadat make peace because he was capitulating to pressure or because it was in Egypt’s interest to do so? And suppose — it is not going to happen but I’m trying to make a point here — the Palestinian Authority made peace with Israel. Wouldn’t that mean they were capitulating “to the dictates of the United States and Israel” and thus should be overthrown or killed?

This is, of course, the line of Hamas which is now echoed by the New York Times. And, of course, the Palestinian Authority leaders are aware of this popular view which is one of many reasons why they won’t make peace with Israel.

So did Mubarak (actually his predecessor, Anwar al-Sadat) just “sell out” or did he: get back the Sinai, bring a much-needed peace that benefited Egypt, get back the oilfields, get the Suez Canal open, and obtain about $60 billion of U.S. aid including military equipment?

Yet this is the radical cry: We gave in and got nothing! So what’s the next step? Courageous resistance! More war, more terrorism, more intransigence, more decades of conflict, more wasted lives and resources! This is something to celebrate as some proof of thirst for democracy and justice?

And what is their goal? A just and lasting two-state solution based on compromise, or wiping Israel off the map?

In other words, once again, the march toward suicidal policies is being applauded in the West while the pragmatists who sought to follow another road –not democratic but at least more practical and development-oriented — are called traitors."

Like I said in another post, AbuKhalil and his many admirers who openly dream of the day they get the keys to a ready-made flourishing country, emptied of its people, are like that madman in TS Eliot's poem, shaking the dead geranium.