The Pope - again
Interesting analysis in the Jerusalem Post from the Miracle on the Med's former envoy to the Vatican. Well worth reading in full, but this bit jumped out at me:
"Today, Europe in particular and the West in general lack a clear strategy for coping with the Muslims who live in their midst. Premier Romano Prodi and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's notion that the Palestinian problem is at the center of the crisis in the Middle East does not explain why recent terrorist acts have been carried out in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - all of them Muslim Arab countries".
And there's a contrarian take on things by Christopher Hitchens at Slate.
"Today, Europe in particular and the West in general lack a clear strategy for coping with the Muslims who live in their midst. Premier Romano Prodi and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's notion that the Palestinian problem is at the center of the crisis in the Middle East does not explain why recent terrorist acts have been carried out in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - all of them Muslim Arab countries".
And there's a contrarian take on things by Christopher Hitchens at Slate.
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The Saudis and other unimaginably rich Arab countries have kept the Palestinian question open like a running sore.
They employ hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, many of them Sri Lankans and Filippinos who are not Islamic. The Palestinians speak Arabic and adhere to the same daft religion. The oil-rich Arabs could have absorbed every single Palestinian family in those refugee camps by now. But they choose not to. It's a deliberate choice. They are using these poor people as a weapon against Israel.
The Palestinians having been living in these vile refugee camps for four generations now. What does that tell you about their brothers in islam?
ouch!
I'm always intrigued as to why what look like jerry built towns in Gaza and Judea-Samaria are always called 'camps' rather than towns. A refugee camp is a collection of tents in my book.
But yes - agreed: so much for pan-Arab solidarity. Another question I ask myself is why no attempt was made to create a Palestinian state within the post '47 borders, but rather was carved up between Egypt and Jordan. So much for a national identity.
Croydonian - when they first started out, a lot of the dwellings were indeed tents. People have taken it upon themselves to built little houses. I doubt whether they have planning permission or title to the property. (But I don't know. I could be wrong.)
The Saudis don't mind that this mess is on little Jordon's doorstep - one of the few Arab countries that doesn't have any oil and is very poor by comparison. The Saudi Arabians are contemptible in every way, in every aspect of life. Some of their little Filippina maids are never allowed out of the house. No days off. Slave-keepers. Old habits are hard to break.
"Today, Europe in particular and the West in general lack a clear strategy for coping with the Muslims who live in their midst."
I have a strategy for coping with them, but I don't think it's legal.
All this could be sorted out very easily
We take all the oil and there is nothing they can do about it, we pay them a modest stipend that allows them to do what they are good at (nothing)We make the Jews the police force for the whole of middle east and warn them that if they also step out of line then we destroy them and we dump all our sheet wearing scum back where they belong with their own kind to sit in hovels overflowing with sewage.
peter hitchens - I like your thoughtful and well-reasoned post and can subscribe 100% to your sentiments.
Given that they didn't discover oil or imagine its uses, didn't discover how to refine it, didn't invent how to market it - I think the stipend the oil country Arabs be paid should indeed be modest.
The king of Saudi Arabia could probably house at least 1,500 Palestinian refugee families in his palaces. Plus all the princes with their palaces. I think we could probably get 100,000 Palestinian families rehoused in Saudi Arabia within six months.
Don't they at least owe their Islamic brothers and sisters that much? I mean, it's the ummah and all, isn't it?
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