You look at the title which says “Sons of anarchy,” you look
at the subtitle which says: “Crony capitalism on the West
Bank ,” and you wonder if this is meant to equate crony capitalism
with anarchy.
That's what happens when you first glance at the editorial
that was published under that title and that subtitle in the New York Daily
News on March 18, 2016. But when you get to read the entire text, you wonder if
it was written by the supposedly professional editors in charge of the
editorial board, or by the amateur who owns and publishes that New York rag of the
tabloid format.
The amateur in question is the Canadian born Mortimer
Zuckerman who is known to stand behind every editorial that mentions the Middle East in a direct or indirect way. He must be the
one that's trying to promulgate the idea that President Mahmoud Abbas of (the
still occupied) Palestine is the anarchist who fathered two very capitalist
sons … even if their business empires are maintained with the help of the crony
connections that only nepotism can provide and nurture. That's a mouthful, eh!
Yes it is, and it is complicated too. Well, that's what you
get when you try to decipher the literary product of a New York real estate
developer whose analytic prowess is nowhere near being sharp enough to argue an
ambiguous case and have it both ways … all that without dropping the veil on a
feeble and naked intellect.
In fact, what Zuckerman is doing is tell his readers that
the Palestinians are lawless anarchists. Moments later, he forgets what he just
said, and tells the readers that Abbas and his sons are law abiding
capitalists. The proof is that they operate under the laws of Israel , which
happens to be the occupying power.
Let it be known that if Abbas or his sons were doing
something wrong, Israel (that does not hesitated to jail Palestinian “outlaws,”
and has jailed a “corrupt” former prime Minister of Israel not long ago) would
have arrested the father, the sons or all three. It would have tried them and
jailed them – something that did not happen. And this prompts the question:
What is Zuckerman trying to accomplish with that editorial?
Looking for clues, you find tidbits that can go into a
montage as follows:
“The sons are actively undermining the goal shared by their
father and Israel: a two-state solution … they enjoy sabotaging the two-state
solution with Israel that their father pays lip service to … They support a
unitary state – merging Israel with the West Bank and Gaza, which would swamp the
Jewish state, annihilating the Zionist dream … That's no future for Israel”.
Thus, we have a split between the opinion of the father and
that of the sons. Whereas Zuckerman says the sons “advocate a return to a
single state – a [majority] Arab state,” he also says: “For the U.S. and Israel , Abbas is the best worst
option at the moment … he does cooperate with the Israelis on maintaining
security and preventing terror”.
Well then, if the Palestinian father-and-sons team has
committed no violation of Israeli law or any law, and if the father shares the
same goals with Israel and America, could it be that Zuckerman considers the
sons alone to be criminals – perhaps in a non-legal sense – because they
advocate for a unitary state that will turn Israel into an Arab state, thus
annihilate the Zionist dream?
Actually, it does not look like this man's intellect has
matured enough to entertain that level of a logical argument even if he had the
right instinct. And when you look closely at his ultimate conclusion, you
realize that he considers the three Palestinians to be guilty of the most
heinous crime of all: They were born. And that's his bottom line.
Look how he ends the editorial: “An aging, nepocratic regime
does not provide any long-term stability, especially with its heirs supporting
a future outcome that will enrich themselves – and endanger the region”.
In other words, he says that what counts is not what the
Palestinians do or refrain from doing. What counts is what he – as a Jew –
feels in his gut they will do in the future. And what he feels at this point in
time is that no matter what happens, the Palestinians will do what will endanger
the region … and by extension the world.