Thursday, January 20, 2005

(Hear no evil see no evil speak no) Evil Dr Clam said

To bend your analogy a little, you will recall that in my original spiel I laid the blame for the Palestinian situation firmly on the parents- the neighbouring Arab states, which have continued to encourage the delinquent's bad behaviour. By getting out of Gaza (and in the fulness of time, the other Palestinian population centres) the Israelis are trying to get the delinquent out from under their roof and sending him back to live with his parents. After the Israeli withdrawal, Gaza will be Egypt's problem.

We're getting somewhere here : To continue stretching this analogy, this delinquent is also getting paid to do some cleaning up around the building (they may as well do something) but as punishment for their bad behaviour, the job is given to someone else and the delinquent is now a poor delinquent, with nothing to do except plot the next violent outburst - I hardly think the delinquent is the only loser in this exchange! Closing borders and limiting arab workers movements is one of the things taking Israel the furthest away from their goals the quickest, at least until alternative employment is available. It's like making massive job cuts and importing alternative employees and then saying tutt tutt - striking is illegal, so sorry. No Large company in their right mind would ever consider it (Well, I know Chris Corrigan did it anyway, but unemployment was low, plenty of alternative industries to work for and generous unemployment benefits all softened the Union's counterattack). The Israeli situation is made worse by the effect of deterring good behaviour (working for money - liasing with jews somewhat cordially), and encouraging the ethnic hatred intrinsic to such barriers to movement.

Thinking that the Israelis don't lose out when considering labour mobility is like only looking one move ahead in chess. If you don't take into account how the other side will react to your move and whether that is good or bad for you, you're a very cynical player.

1 comment:

Dr Clam said...

Do you think that exposure to a culture and people you have been raised to hate is more likely to dispose you favourably to them, or make you hate them more? Think of how many of the notable Islamofascists of recent times spent considerable time in Europe or the United States. I know I would have discounted much of the stories about the evils of the West as propaganda if I did not live here...