I dug out my copy of Shelby Foote’s Masterpiece The Civil War a Narrative after that first post and in the first Volume on pages 58-59 there is a speech by Sherman on pages that could have been made to the Palestinian authority:
You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it
Substitute “Israel” for North and either “Arabs” or “Palestinians” for South and read it again. The next statement says something profound about the Arab world
Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors.You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, … If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
The Arab world is blessed with oil wealth yet hey have done nothing but emasculate their own people with it. Even in Gaza, the Israeli’s left greenhouses an infrastructure intact. The Palestinian authority has been given hundreds of millions in aid from the west and Europe and where has it gone?
How do you think Arafat his wife and his boytoys managed to get so rich? If just half of the money was spent on improving the lives or promoting industry the Palestinians would now be prospering.
I could be dead wrong but my gut says that if it was up to the avg. Joe there they would rather just live their lives. Given the chance they could live them well. (Even if hey still wanted to go to war they would have their own wealth and infrastructure to help support it.) The rest of the Arab world and at the moment Iran prefer the Palestinians to remain a tool to threaten Israel and a distraction to their own peoples. That is why there were never absorbed. The other Arabs don’t give a damn about them.
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