u235

Well there's hardly a dull moment in politics, mainly because someone always has lots of ambition and very little patience. Right now is particularly fascinating because two sides of seemly eternal conflicts have decided on drastic changes to their established positions. This leads me to consider - precisely what happens in a tug of war when one side just lets go.

In our first case, Israel has decided to withdraw from a portion of disputed land and suddenly the Palestinans get a chunk of turf that they've said they wanted. Israel is now being lavished with praise, and even Arab countries are raising an eyebrow and giving them the time of day.

On the flip side the Palestinans, further destabilized by the sudden windfall, can't seem to decide how to manage it. Anarchy seems to be a good word however. With people flooding back and forth into Egypt, destruction of truly useful resources - like greenhouses, there seems to be virtually no real authority. Sure there's a figurehead government, but they don't appear to have any control over the men with the guns. Score: Israel 1, Palestine 0.

I'm pretty confident that even the Israelies were astonished by the magnitude of the chaos. If they wanted to firmly put the ball in the other court and the spotlight on their opponents, well Israel certainly has done that... no one is talking about Palestinan death tolls any longer.

In our second case, the IRA has decided to disarm. Poof - just like that. The inspectors involved have confirmed that the weapons are now gone, zip, lock stock and ... barrel (??they had surface to air missiles - wtf??). Again it's another Bad-boy come clean story. After the recent slamming for murders and bank robberies, IRA associates are now the ones being praised by politicians. And the Protestants? Well now that they got their wish suddenly they're the ones seeming like assholes by declaring that disarmament isn't enough and no they WON'T share, regardless of the situation. No, no, no.

So what happens when the wind is suddenly reduced from the sails of an entrenched position? It appears that unless the opponent is prepared to accept the change, and modify their position in return, the good/bad public opinion labels can be flipped in an instant. There's no question that it's hard to change, especially when you've been entrenched for so long. And there's also no question that the first to change might be motivated by deciding that giving up an inch they can grab the international spotlight and maybe a Nobel. But the question remains - if you've been tugging at what you want for so long, and if the rope suddenly lands in your lap, are you prepared to accept the consequences?