The terrorist attack on Israel should be repelled before the world would be able to develop a new strategy vis-à-vis the Middle Eastern crisis, but some reflections on the recent events might – and should – already be made.
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In recent days we have seen a real terrorist state's action – it was not a mythical Islamic State presumably existing in Syria and Iraq: it was a quasi-state structure, recognized by 138 sovereign nations that attacked Israel in the name of Jihad exterminating more than a thousand innocent civilians. This "state" has been assisted by numerous governments and non-governmental organizations from around the world, and I cannot say who should be condemned more: Iran and Qatar who did this because of some (geo)political reasons, or the European liberal authorities who funded its structures because of sheer "humanistic" aspirations. Whoever they were, the result looks obvious: two million people were fed and funded without doing anything useful for at least two generations.
The Palestinian "state" is something that several experts use to call not a state, but an "ungovernable chaotic entity", a state created without "taking into account the minimum prerequisites for its governability", and "recognized as sovereign, but paradoxically remaining in need of international aid in order to survive" (Rivero, Oswaldo de. "The Myth of Development. The Non-Viable Economies of the 21st Century", London, New York: Zed Books, 2001, pp. 186, 19). Such entities exist in many parts of the world, but rarely there is so great contrast and disparity between them and their successful neighbors (Israel's GDP is 130 times bigger than that of Gaza in current prices while the country is less than 6 times more populated) – and there is not any single case of turning them into stable and developing societies. Therefore, the case of the Gaza Strip should set off alarm bells for many backward societies that cannot go forward on their own. It's a big mistake to believe that the Palestinians would prosper if they were allowed to create their "functional" state in their "historic" lands: Everyone may see how the Jews succeeded in this enterprise, and how the Palestinians failed. After 80 years spent fighting, and not working, any hopes for change look like pipedreams.
The intention to continue the assistance of the Gaza Strip, already voiced by the governments of Spain and France, is misleading. Such assistance might be delivered only on the conditions of full disarmament of this enclave, eradication of all the militant groups now present in it, and dismantling of its sovereignty. The global community of nations should recourse to the United Nations Charter, more precisely to the articles from 73 through 91 which address the "non-self-governing territories" and argue about the system of Trusteeship. The Gaza Strip should be made the first territory being put under the UN mandate for a significant period of time – at least for a couple of decades – in order to restore its economy, to educate and treat its children, to return the Palestinian refugees scattered around the world to their homeland and to turn this wretched piece of land into a home for an orderly and functioning society.
The international community cannot pretend any longer that the Palestinian lands consist of a "state" as its "President's" powers, not too uncontested from their beginnings, had expired ten years ago; as the major part of its budget comes from charity flowing in from different parts of the world; and as its people mostly work abroad since there is nothing to do inside its borders except to train to kill innocent bystanders. The best thing that can be done these days concerning the Palestinian society is to build up a wide international coalition being able to fund and govern this land for the sake of its people, investing in its infrastructure and development. The Palestinian society had never existed – it was born as a kind of a military organization aimed at destroying Israel which it had tried to do ever since. Such an activity is incompatible with any concept of people or/and nation – and if the leaders of the Palestinian tribes and clans have no other ideas for leading them, the civilized world should intervene.
The revoking of Palestinian sovereignty and rebuilding of this land under international control appears to be the only existing chance not only to save millions of lives but to draft a totally new way forward for those proto-nations that are now falling into chaos of ethnic and civil conflicts and wars. I understand perfectly well how the Europeans and Americans want to get rid of those "White man's burden" they carried for centuries and have good reasons to apologize for – but it seems that the time has come to once again, with all the morale and values of the 21st century, to make another civilizing attempt. The mistake made by the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan should not be repeated: The mission of the international society shouldn't be nation-building in the places where nations never existed – it should be to organize a decent life where it has never been organized. Sovereign state isn't the one and only form of human society – and only taking this into account, the world can bring peace to the lands of ancient Judea, and to deliver a decent life to those who now inhabit it.
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