X-NUPop-Charset: English Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 18:10:15 -0600 (CST) From: "Alan Spector" Sender: spector@calumet.purdue.edu Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: revs@csf.colorado.edu Mr. Heilman makes a good point. I would never say that each and every act of any Palestinian is endorsed by the Israeli government. But I do believe that the Israeli government is comfortable with Arafat, considering the alternatives. Arafat, in turn, has to maintain a militant posture against Jews in order to keep from losing his base (shrinking that it is) to the more militant elements. I see many parallels with other militant nationalists, who posture against oppression but do little to actually oppose it. Louis Farrakhan in the U.S. is a similar figure. He rails against "white" people, especially Jews. But he gets a lot of support from "white" dominated media and university trustees. I would not be surprised to find out someday that some (not all, but some) members of the ("white") corporate U.S. structure promoted and possibly even funded him. Oppressors sometimes don't mind separatist nationalists because they can divert people away from the real issues of oppression and into token, symbolic issues. An Arafat-run Palestinian state is preferable to most of the Israeli rulers to one run by Hamas or one run by genuine Marxists who reject racism and reach out to Jewish workers. Now, THERE would be a threat to both the Israeli rulers and Arab nationalists! Alan Spector