>>> delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU 10/17/00 07:13PM >>>
What's the goal?
Is the goal to push the Israeli's into the sea? Is the goal to kill a bunch of people or blow up a bunch of buildings? Or is the goal to convince the center of the Israeli electorate that nothing bad will happen if the Palestinian authority is sovereign over parts of Temple Mount?
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CB: The goal is more like ending Israeli repression of Palestinians and establishing Palestinian statehood and self-determination. "Convincing the center of the Israeli electorate , etc" is more like one of the means to the end.
But as to convincing the Israeli electorate that nothing bad will happen, etc. ,what exactly do they think bad will happen ? Don't they think what is happening now is bad ? And in the long run, don't they think something bad might happen if they try to keep the Palestinians in perpetual state of repression ? Something bad like, eventually they will obtain means to do a lot more damage. What's so hard to see about the fact that a People will never accept a status of permanent subordination, and on the land that their ancestors have been for a long time ? Isn't history a history of class struggles exactly because peoples never accept permanent oppression and exploitation ?