A CONCRETE PROPOSAL
HB MOUNTAINMAN
First of all as an ecumenical gesture, I would suggest to the Presbyterian leaders who have voted to divest from any company dealing with Israel, to use this freed up and untaxed income to invest in cement factories which deal with Hamas. This cement-millions of cubic feet of it- that Hamas has purchased using donations to Gaza has not been used to build schools, hospitals, recreational facilities or factories. Instead, it has been used to construct dozens of tunnels through which Hamas terrorists-some of them dressed as Israeli soldiers- go through into Israel in order to kill civilians.
While they are at it, the Presbyterians and many others who are sympathetic to Hamas might either invest in or make a direct group purchase of Kalshnikovs, rockets and other ammunition that Hamas regularly stores in schools, hospitals and private homes. When you are getting sympathy and money as victims, perhaps you might want to invest that in things that will actually help your people. Since that won’t happen, perhaps Hamas sympathizers could convince some enterprising munitions factory to make grenades in the form of small textbooks and rocket launchers in the form of hospital beds.
The Palestinians are indeed a poor people. First they had a leader like Arafat who had the opportunity to create a state when, in Oslo, Israel agreed to withdraw from a large swath of the West Bank and from East Jerusalem and recognize an independent Palestine. Instead, Arafat incited the intifada, embarked on an unprecedented spree of terror and carnage throughout Israel and promised his people that they would get all of Israel. In retrospect his reasoning was logical. A stateless people would continue to get donations, from which Arafat could and did take hundreds of millions of dollars .
He wisely salted it away in European banks. His photogenic widow now sits on almost a billion dollars which had been intended to help the Palestinians but now helps her live a nice life in Europe.
Hamas uses its money to make perpetual war but then complains about living conditions in Gaza. Fortunately for Hamas, it has rags like The Guardian in England and many publications in the US calling it a “militant” group instead of savage terrorists. At a certain point, “victims” whose only purpose is to victimize others and , in the process, victimize their own people should have lost the confidence and support of their people.
In Gaza, however, hatred trumps self preservation. Instead of being self imposed victims, the people of Gaza would do well to have the leaders of Hamas permanently embedded into their precious cement. Is that a concrete enough proposal?
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