Democrats Reject Platform Proposal Calling for 'End to Occupation and Illegal Settlements' read more

[Ken Burch]

26. The only alternative is to work with that leadership?

They're the ones with the weaponry.

It would be pointless to work with anyone else. Any agreement made with anyone else would be useless.

And it's pointless to try to change the Palestinian leadership.

The last time the Israeli government tried that(in the Eighties, when the Likud regime of that era put removing Arafat and the PLO from that position, the only thing that came of it was the rise of Hamas, which the Israelis had inadvertently triggered by encouraging and financially supporting the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas' predecessor organization-to challenge the PLO's leadership status. There was never a single moment in that era when it was ever possible that an alternative Palestinian leadership could possibly have emerged that would both have met Likud's demands that Palestinians forever give up on statehood AND been accepted as legitimate by the Palestinian people themselves(or, more importantly, could ever have gained the allegiance of those engaged in the armed struggle).

This is why, bad as the current Palestinian leadership is, it is both arrogant and futile to insist that Palestinians remove that leadership from power before the Israeli side will ease its repressive measures in the West Bank or its siege in Gaza at all.

Both sides have horrible leadership...but it is the leadership on the Israeli side that holds all the power in this situation.