29-Apr-14: Enriching themselves via self-inflicted plight: Understanding the Palestinian Arab strategy

Mahmoud Abbas and mentor [Image Source]

The eminent historian Professor Efraim Karsh, in a paper published yesterday, asks a question that, if it were answered honestly, would go far in explaining the obsessive attachment of the Palestinian Arabs to violence and terror.

Not only that, but also why their leadership is so stable, so unchanging, so undemocratic, so able to preside for generations over close-to-zero tangible progress for their people, and so willing to do so.

Some brief extracts from "Running Away from Statehood, Again":

• The “historic” agreement of last week between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership’s commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all. 
• Not that this should have come as a surprise to anyone. For nearly a century, Palestinian leaders never have missed an opportunity to impede the development of Palestinian civil society and the attainment of Palestinian statehood.
• Why should the Palestinians engage in the daunting tasks of nation-building and state creation if they can have their hapless constituents run around in circles for nearly a century while they bask in international sympathy and enrich themselves from the proceeds of their self-inflicted plight?
• The cynical and self-seeking PLO “revolutionaries” have used the billions of dollars donated by the Arab oil states and the international community to lead a luxurious lifestyle in sumptuous hotels and villas, globe-trotting in grand style, acquiring properties, and making financial investments worldwide – while millions of ordinary Palestinians scramble for a livelihood, many of them in squalid and overcrowded refugee camps.
• The attainment of statehood would have shattered the paradise established on the backs of the long suffering public in the West Bank and Gaza. It would have transformed the Palestinians in one fell swoop from the world’s ultimate victim into an ordinary (and most likely failing) nation-state, thus terminating decades of unprecedented international indulgence. 
• Whenever confronted with an international or Israeli offer of statehood, Palestinian leaders will never take “yes” for an answer.

Some additional suggested reading:

• 3-Oct-13: The business of terror: how money-making and power impact the search for peace
• 12-Jul-12: Secret bank accounts, sweetheart deals for insiders, incredible riches for the president's sons: why would any Palestinian Arab politician ever give this up for... peace?