	Generational Dynamics
	Forecasting America's Destiny ... and the World's

\| HOME \| WEB LOG \| COUNTRY WIKI \| COMMENT \| FORUM \| DOWNLOADS \| ABOUT \|

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Feb-06
Former President Jimmy Carter says that Hamas will seek peace with Israel.

Web Log - February, 2006

Former President Jimmy Carter says that Hamas will seek peace with Israel.

In an interview on Monday on CNN, Carter said that he's spoken to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, and he believes that Abbas wants peace and can bring peace.

Carter conceded that many Hamas leaders are committed to destroying Israel, but said he's certain that the Palestinian people want real peace with Israel.

Carter became nostalgiac about the peace agreement that he helped engineer between Egypt and Israel in 1978. He said that Egypt had wanted to destroy Israel, but once they saw that peace was the best solution, they signed a peace agreement that's been honored to this day. He said that the Palestinians will do the same thing.

The 1978 agreement is a fresh memory to Jimmy Carter, as it is to Wolf Blitzer, the interviewer, as it is to me, in fact. I remember it well.

But neither the interviewer nor interviewee thought to make the obvious point: that the 1978 peace agreement isas relevant to most Palestinians as the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Do the math. The median age in the Gaza Strip is 15.6. The Palestinians are a society of children -- literally -- when you consider their ages. Do you think that they care what Jimmy Carter thinks, or what peace agreement was signed before they were born?

15.6 years ago was a couple of years into the Intifada that began in 1989. Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting ever since then, and that all that most of these kids have known for their whole lives. They just want to win.

What always puzzles me is how even the simplest generational concept is never even considered by these people.

For example, I discussed this with respect to the rejection of the European Constitution by French and Dutch voters, where it is clear that the population is split between the generation born before WW II and the generations born after.

Getting back to the Mideast, you can see what's happening and why Jimmy Carter is wrong just by looking at the numbers. The older generations, who grew up during the genocidal Arab-Jewish wars of the 1940s after the state of Israel was created, do not want to have another war. But those generations are disappearing fast. The younger generations have no such hesitation. To these kids, Jimmy Carter, senior Hamas leaders, and Mahmoud Abbas are just ancient babbling dinosaurs. That's what all these news interviews overlook.

Generational Dynamics predicts that the genocidal wars between the Arabs and Jews will be re-fought, and sooner rather than later. The war will engulf all the countries in the region, and will draw in the U.S. and Europe as well. (21-Feb-06) Permanent Link
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Donate to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

Web Log Pages

Current Web Log

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Feb-06 Former President Jimmy Carter says that Hamas will seek peace with Israel.

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 21-Feb-06
Former President Jimmy Carter says that Hamas will seek peace with Israel.