Saeb Ereket is wondering Why Did Bush Take My Job. The answer is right in front of him. The ultimate danger of a delay and war strategy where the weaker party tries to delay final settlement and take advantage of truces to strengthen its position via plausibly deniable attacks is that the stronger party will grow so tired of this that it will impose a solution unilaterally.
Palestinians misunderstood the risks and thought that they could go on forever with this war and negotiation strategy without anybody ever changing the game. When George Bush, in his NED speech criticized past US administrations' willingness to betray US principles and promised a new course the Palestinians did not understand that this applied to them as well. They have grown so used to their own exceptionalism that they thought that it could last forever. It could not. The exceptionalism of the strong cannot last forever. Eventually the strong weaken and are taken down. The exceptionalism of the weak is not even that durable. It is outside their own control. It's now being rescinded and Palestinians will be forced to grow up.
Hopefully the resulting civil war will be as brief and as bloodless as the jewish one was at the birth of their nation.
Posted by TMLutas at April 26, 2004 09:06 AM