Dan's right. The Palestinian people are currently in the hands of violent lunatics, with little or no military ability and no political goals other than destroying Israel. Has Arafat ever mentioned anything about what he would do if actually given a nation to rule? Not that I have heard. What industries would it have? What political system? Who knows?

We have mentioned many times on this board that a policy of nonviolent resistance would be orders of magnitude more effective in getting Palestinians to their goals, yet this is never tried.

The answer to this problem may be to stop killing the rock-throwers and start killing the insane upper echelons. The "home free" that Arafat keeps getting is doing more harm than good in the long run.