Dear Spengler,
I'm the legitimate, internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and the prospective president of a future Palestinian state, but I get no respect. My security people got knee-capped and pushed off rooftops in Gaza when Hamas took over in 2007. Now even the Americans are talking about lifting the embargo on Gaza - not to mention the Europeans - which would make Hamas look like a legitimate representative of the Palestinians and leave me in the cold. What should I do?
Rattled in Ramallah
Dear Rattled,
You're suffering from a martyr gap with the competition. Hamas gets respect because its supporters are happy to commit suicide. As they keep saying, "You love life; we love death." The Turks sent a boat full of prospective martyrs eager to die at the hands of the Israelis, and managed to produce nine corpses. Hamas rocket attacks on Israel are designed to draw Israeli counter-attacks which produce corpses, civilian or not. The horror evoked by suicide hurts Western morale more than the fear of terrorism. Muslims perpetrated 1,944 suicide attacks between 2001 and 2008, not counting the efforts of Hamas, Hezbollah, and others to provoke Israel into counter-attacks that claim civilian lives as collateral damage. The West is founded on the notion of redemption, that is, the hope that in every human being there exists some inclination towards the good. Suicide is a real conversation-stopper. The West cringes in horror at thought that a combatant culture can field an arbitrarily large number of suicides. All the evidence in the world that the prospective shahids on the Mavi Marmara intended to die won't cure the queasiness of Western stomachs. The fact of nine corpses on the deck overwhelms the sensibilities of Western liberals, no matter how they got there. Your problem is that you don't have enough corpses to lay out for the news media. If you don't like how you're being treated, ask a few of your security people to kill themselves in front of your office every morning. If they won't do that, order them to kill some Hamas people in retaliation for all the murders of your people in Gaza. The first will get you sympathy, and the second will get you respect. If you can't persuade your people to do either, even after all the American training and weapons they've received during the past few years, you're out of options. Seek political asylum in another Muslim country - Kyrgyzstan, maybe. Spengler Asia Times |
