Palestinians and Their Enablers

Dr. Phil became famous by offering people a reality check in the form of a question: How’s that working out for you?

The same applies to what is called the Palestinian cause.

Evelyn Gordon sums up what the Palestinians have accomplished since the first Intifada in 1987:

After 25 years of fighting Israel in every possible way–“popular resistance,” suicide bombings, rockets, diplomatic warfare, boycott/divestment/sanctions efforts–all the Palestinians have to show for it is 25 years of steady decline. Indeed, the facts bear out Ashour’s assessment: Despite massive international aid, Gaza’s per capita GDP has remained virtually flat, totaling $817 in 1987 and $876 in 2010. Unemployment, which was generally under 5 percent in the 1980s, had soared to 45 percent by the end of 2010. And to add insult to injury, neither the terror nor the diplomatic warfare succeeded in preventing Israel from flourishing over those 25 years.

For the record, the Israeli GDP is well over $30,000.

How do the Palestinians survive? Why do they continue the fight? Simple: they are wards of Western governments and international aid organizations. Apparently, they feel no shame  being a dependent, even a beggar state.

And they believe that their cause is being sustained politically by sympathetic Westerners.

Gordon explains that Western enablers are perpetuating Palestinian misery:

Yet if Palestinians are primarily to blame for their addiction to such counterproductive tactics, the international community has played a crucial role as enabler. First of all, the massive international aid–more than four times as much per capita as any other nation receives–has cushioned them from the consequences of their bad decisions. Gaza’s situation may not be rosy, but it’s better than that of many other countries: As Michael Rubin noted, Gaza outranks more than 110 countries worldwide in terms of both life expectancy and infant mortality. And as long as international aid is keeping them relatively comfortable, Palestinians feel little incentive to change their tactics.

Far worse, however, is that by offering the Palestinians almost unstinting diplomatic support while relentlessly criticizing Israel, the world feeds Palestinian fantasies that these tactics will someday succeed–that eventually, the world will force Israel to its knees. 

She concludes:

For all its vaunted concern for the Palestinians, it seems the international community would rather let them suffer another 25 years of steady decline than try to wean them from their failed strategies.

I find it difficult, even impossible, to believe that these policies are based on anything other than the rankest form of anti-Semitism.