	Generational Dynamics
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Aug-05
Israel withdraws from Gaza amid hopes for peace and fears of instability

Web Log - August, 2005

Israel withdraws from Gaza amid hopes for peace and fears of instability

Here's what you should watch for in the weeks ahead.

As of Monday, Israel has declared that all Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip are illegal. All Jewish settlers must withdraw by Wednesday or be removed by force. Resistance by Jewish settlers so far has been peaceful, and Palestinian militia groups have remained peaceful as well.

The optimistic view of the future is that the Palestinians and Israelis will now begin to settle down into a pattern for peace, leading to side-by-side Palestinian and Jewish states.

However, Generational Dynamics predicts that that won't happen. The easiest way to understand this is via the concept of "attractor" that I introduced in Chapter 4 of my new book, Generational Dynamics for Historians, and to contrast the situation in Palestine with the situation in Iraq.

Palestine and Israel are in a "generational crisis" period. This means that the millions of random, chaotic political acts that occur every day are "attracted" increasingly to war. This happens because of generational changes that have been occurring, based on the fact that the last crisis war was the genocidal crisis war between Jews and Arabs in the late 1940s.

Iraq is in a "generational awakening" period, since only one generation has passed since the genocidal Iran/Iraq crisis war of the 1980s ended, and the random political acts are "attracted" to peaceful but tumultuous political conflict. That's why there's been no civil war in Iraq, even though journalists, pundits, and high-priced analysts have been predicting a civil war in Iraq for two years. As I've explained a million times in the last two years on this web site, a civil war has never, throughout history, occurred within one generation from the end of a crisis war.

Despite the repeated attempts by well-funded terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to instigate a civil war -- mainly by importing suicide bombers from Saudi Arabia and Jordan -- he's failed completely to do so. There are no Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish armies fighting with each other. Instead, their leaders are all locked in a room arguing over the form of the new Constitution. That's how the "attractor" concept works. No matter what the provocation, the millions of political acts are "attracted" to peaceful political confrontation, not war.

But in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the millions of political acts are "attracted" to increasing violence. A new major genocidal crisis war between Jews and Arabs will occur with almost 100% certainty within a few years, and it's more likely to occur sooner, rather than later.

That's why the region will not settle down into a pattern of peace. The region is not "attracted" to a pattern of peace. The cockeyed optimists who are hoping for that are deluding themselves.

There may be brief periods when peace seems to be taking hold. One of these occurred in January, when Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian Authority president, and promised to negotiate with Israel and bring peace. But the events that occur in a generational crisis period, the "attraction" to a new genocidal crisis war, are completely out of control of any politicians. The new war will come from the great masses of people, driven by the younger generations, impatient for change. Politicians can no more stop such a war than they can stop a tsunami.

The same "attractor" principles are true if some minor armed conflict begins. In Iraq, a minor armed conflict between Sunnis and Shi'as would extinguish itself fairly soon; but a minor armed conflict between Palestinians and Jews might well spiral into full scale war.

A brief period when peace appears to be taking hold is like a heat wave in New York in November. The fact that a heat wave occurs at that time doesn't mean that winter isn't coming.

With all that in mind, here are some things to watch out for in the next few weeks and months:

Will the Jewish settlers' protests remain peaceful, as they've promised?

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has been holding its fire, pending the Israeli withdrawal. Will they continue to hold fire after the withdrawal is completed?

Will Mahmoud Abbas be able to keep his promise of stopping Hamas violence after Israel withdraws?

Or will Hamas take complete control of the Gaza Strip, either by force now, or in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January?

Will the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah also continue to hold fire after the withdrawl?

Will Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon be able to grant further concessions to the Palestinians, in view of the Jewish opposition to the Gaza withdrawal?

If not, will Hamas and Hizbollah resume full-scale violence against Israel, on the grounds that Israel has not retreated to its 1967 (or 1948) borders?

In fact, will Israel really withdraw completely from Gaza, in view of the need for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) to strike back at Hamas for its violence? Or will the Palestinians say that the whole withdrawal process was a sham?

Each of these questions has a "peaceful" alternative and a "violent" alternative. Generational Dynamics predicts that events will be more "attracted" to the violent alternative, and that eventually the violent acts will spin out of control into a new genocidal crisis war that will engulf the entire region. (16-Aug-05) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Aug-05 Israel withdraws from Gaza amid hopes for peace and fears of instability

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Aug-05
Israel withdraws from Gaza amid hopes for peace and fears of instability