I hate eminent domain as much as the next man
but I accpet the fact that without it nations would have a pretty hard time
developing domestically or using it's land as part of diplomatic deals like the
Gaza pullout.
I appreciate that no one likes to be kicked out of
the place that they have lived (some for almost 4 decades) in a peace deal with
folks that they would consider trrorists.
I understand that the Israeli settlers do not
beleive that the PLO will keep up it's end of the bargaign making the pullout a
painful exercise in futility.
All that being said I think that
this behaviour is pointless, regressive, and ultimately lacking in
enlightened self interest.
Sometimes you have to give up painful concessions to
maintain the moral high-ground. You have to shake hands with the schoolyard
bully and give him the chance to either change his ways or reveal himself (once
again) as a bully who breaks promises. This process often takes many iterations
to prove that one party is operating in good faith and the other in bad fiath
but even in international politics the process remains critical.
Eventually you may have to deal a catastrophic blow
to the bully and if that time comes you better have a large stack of ironclad
documented cases where you were the good guy giving up everything and they
kicked you in the nuts. Not everyone will beleive you of course but you are not
concerned with partisans after all you have partisans on your side too. No you
as a natiopn are concerned with the fence sitters and the fence sitters only.
The nation needs the support of these neutrals in order to check the opposing
party's partisan supporters diplomatically or in a worst-case scenario :
militarily.
Israel and it's setllers in Gaza need to portray
themselves as the selfless ones here. Not for France (who will support the PLO
no matter what happens) but for the unaligned nations of the world. Tearing down
homes out of spite won't help you 6 months down the road when the PLO is
still bombing schoolbuses full of kids (I hope the PLO proves me wrong here, I
really do). Hamas will do the same and point to the "razing of Gaza" as
"justification".
The Palestinian people are an opressed people with a
terrible burden to bear but they are not oppressed by Israel. They are repressed
by the own Arab brothers. Ask most Jordanians how they would feel if a
"Pali" wanted to marry their sister and you will get an interesting set of
racial epithets in response. Same for most Iraqis and Syrians. The Palestinians
are second or third class citizens even in Arab nations who know darn well that
keeping them as a nation of indigents on Israel's border is a great way of
giving their hated enemy a nasty problem to deal with.
There may come a day when the Israelis decide
to stop playing around with this problem and forcefully evict the Palestinians
beyond the Wall. If that day comes they need to be able to swing the opinion of
the unaligned nations in their favor to avoid a massive Middle East war that
would hurt all and benefit none.
