Peas in a Pod

It's interesting to note the similarities between the playbook applied by two rouge regimes—the North Koreans and the Palestinians. In fact, the Palestinians and the NoKos are peas in a pod.

Both are violent, both use propaganda to control and subjugate their impoverished populations, both extort money from the West and use it not to help their people, but to enrich their leaders. After performing bellicose acts to gain worldwide attention, both are perfectly willing to enter "negotiations" that a destined to fail because they are not conducted in good faith, but are quite effective in raising further "aid" from feckless Western leaders.

It should come as no surprise then, that the Palestinians were among the few countries that wished the NoKos well after recent UN sanctions were levied on the regime. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday congratulated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his country’s annual Liberation Day celebration amid increased tensions between Pyongyang and the United States.

In a telegram, the PA president said that the Korean people made “the greatest sacrifices for the sake of its freedom and dignity,” according to Wafa, the official PA news site.

Hmmm. I suppose those "sacrifices" might be starvation of their people, public executions, and other human rights atrocities.

But no matter. Both the Palestinians and the NoKos make the claim that they are perpetual victims, set upon by forces they cannot control and "oppressed" by countries that do not respond well to outright aggression (the the case of the Palestinians) or threats of it (in the case of the NoKos).

"Russian puppet" (I jest, but the charge is so patently ridiculous it's fun to write), Jared Kushner, is in Israel in a vain attempt to restart peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. Roger Simon comments on that and the similarities between the NoKos and the Palestinians mentioned earlier:

... the Palestinians and the Norks do have much in common. They create crises and threaten to blow up the Middle East and/or the world in order to extort as much money as possible from the West, including the ever-generous Uncle Sam, only to knife him in the back and start all over again.

So what are Messrs. Kushner and Greenblatt to do? At minimum, start over, don't repeat the Oslo pattern, and heed the words of H. L. Mencken who famously said, "When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money." And, boy, this is about the money.

Cut it off.

The Palestinians will, of course, scream. They will wail about their poor, suffering people, Gaza, etc. Kushner and Greenblatt should tell them to sell their fancy suits and Mercedes and empty their Swiss bank accounts if they're really so worried about the poor Palestinians. That will shut them up fast.

And if they threaten violence, which assuredly they will, rattling on about a third -- or is it fifth -- Intifada, just shrug. The IDF exists for a reason. What these people need is some "tough love," and if the "love" aspect is difficult with these folks, which it admittedly could be, keep the "tough." That's the important part.

Of course, the elites in Washington will tut tut, arguing that "tough" is hardly a way to win friends and influence people in the Middle East or on the Korean Peninsula. After all, those same elites, seasoned diplomats all, have tried anything-but-tough for decades and decades and have failed to achieve meaningful results. So of course, it seems perfectly reasonable to continue that demonstrably failed strategy. Or is it?