|
Palestinian self-destructiveness
by Garance Franke-Ruta, The American Prospect "TAPPED" blogAvi Issacharoff reported [in Ha'aretz] that there is considerable Palestinian support for more kidnappings: Of the 1,197 respondents from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, 66.8 percent expressed support for further kidnappings of Israeli civilians while 77.2 percent backed the Kerem Shalom tunnel operation and subsequent kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces Corporal Gilad Shalit. That's a shockingly high level of optimism, when you think about it, given the unfolding disaster in Gaza -- and also a surprisingly high level of enthusiasm for further provocative actions by people who readily admit that they know better than to expect a positive result from the present one. Of course, consciously self-destructive behavior in the interest of hurting one's enemy is also the dynamic behind suicide bombings, which have found similarly high levels of support in polls of Palestinians, so plus ça change and all that. Interesting for two reasons: (1) the self-destructive mentality that advocates a course of conduct with no percieved upside (in contrast, up until the very end of WWII, the Japanese sincerely believed that kamikaze attacks and similar tactics would turn the tide of the war and benefit the country, even though they were obviously terminal for the participants) and (2) the fact that this gets noted with a clear eye by a left-of-center writer in a left-of-center publication like TAP. Posted by: Mike 2006-07-10 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=158747 |