PCG's Richard Palmer Suggest Throwing Muslims into Ghettos

So a murderer took a truck and murdered about 84 innocent people in Nice, France. In response PCG's Richard Palmer wrote an article discussing the deadly and dastardly attack. (Nice Attack: ‘We Should Learn to Live With Terrorism’, July 15, 2016.)

Let's see what he has to say.

What more can France do? How do you stop a man from killing people with a truck? Have police patrol every truck or every crowd?
France has just about exhausted its non-radical options. ...
But France cannot simply just put up with this. No nation will just accept that families and young children will be mowed down every few months. ... the nation has not really been on a war footing—not in a way that affects the everyday lives of ordinary people.

So what is Palmer suggesting?

France has now reached the end of that road. Its options are now clear: accept continued attacks, or move on to a real war footing.

What would this "real war footing" look like?

Armed guards and security scanners will not be enough. It would not have stopped this attack—it has not stopped terrorist attacks in Israel. There the nation had to physically wall off the majority of Muslims in the region and set up secure checkpoints before there was a substantial reduction in attacks. These are the only kinds of action that can end this.

Even now, that is anathema to modern Europe. But this is the direction it will be forced in. A couple of hours’ drive from Nice, the city of Marseilles is one-third Muslim. The same is true for many big cities in Europe. Walling off these populations would not be easy, and it would prove much harsher to local Muslims than Israel’s West Bank barrier.

There's a lot to get through so let's break this down a bit.

Armed guards and security scanners will not be enough. It would not have stopped this attack—it has not stopped terrorist attacks in Israel. 

France is not like the State of Israel. Things are very different there. It is not a useful comparison.

There the nation had to physically wall off the majority of Muslims in the region and set up secure checkpoints before there was a substantial reduction in attacks. 

Most of that Wall is not in the actual State of Israel. It is mainly in the West Bank which the State of Israel acquired after the Six Day War of 1967. No sovereign nation on Earth recognize the State of Israel's right to rule over the West Bank and East Jerusalem (except the State of Israel). They recognize the State of Israel as having the right to only rule its 1949-67 borders. Those governments view the West Bank as territory occupied by the State of Israel. Furthermore the State of Israel never even annexed the West Bank instead placing it under the rule of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) which is a part of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. As far as every government on Earth (except Israel) are concerned the West Bank is not a part of the Sate of Israel. This includes the United States and Britain. That is why the US Embassy is located in Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.

Also many Palestinians in the West Bank happen to be Christians. It is very misleading for Palmer to portray the Palestinians as just being Muslims. While it is true that the majority of Palestinians happen to be Sunni Muslims many are also Christians. Indeed the book This Burning Land reports how the Wall went through a vineyard belonging to a Palestinian Christian. That wall is not directed against only Muslims as Palmer misleadingly insinuates. It is directed against Palestinians regardless of whether they happen to be Muslim, Christian or secular.

These are the only kinds of action that can end this. 

Really? Since October 2015 about 30 Israelis have been killed in attacks largely committed by individuals. Some Israelis have been killed in attacks in which a vehicle of some kind was used as a weapon. The Wall did not stop those attacks or save those Israelis. How could it work in France? Only a political solution to the crisis can end such violence.

Even now, that is anathema to modern Europe. 

Palmer should listen to them instead of casually assuming that he knows better. Also the Wall was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. One year later, as the State of Israel chose to disregard that legal ruling, numerous Palestinian organizations issued a call to boycott, divest and sanction the State of Israel. The Wall gave the State of Israel an international boycott campaign.

Furthermore it would probably be illegal to build a wall in Europe anyway.

But this is the direction it will be forced in. A couple of hours’ drive from Nice, the city of Marseilles is one-third Muslim. The same is true for many big cities in Europe. Walling off these populations would not be easy, and it would prove much harsher to local Muslims than Israel’s West Bank barrier.

What an abominable, racist thing to say.

Essentially Palmer is advocating imposing Apartheid in Europe. When the regime of Apartheid began to be implemented in South Africa from 1948 onward the cities were segregated and people who were classified as belonging to certain racial categories (white, black, Indian, etc,) were forced to live in the areas assigned to them based on the government's racial classification. This racist system did not bring peace to South Africa. Instead the majority of the population were forced to endure constant racial oppression by the Apartheid regime and they resisted in various ways until the racist system was finally brought to an end in 1994. Shamefully PCG tends to portray Apartheid South Africa sympathetically so it is no wonder that one of their own would have no shame in presenting a similar idea.

Furthermore did the Wall really provide security to Israelis? In early 2005 an agreement was made with the Palestinian Authority and this agreement is often viewed as the end of the Second Intifada. The Palestinians were exhausted after five years of severe conflict in which about 5000 Palestinians had been killed in 2000-5. So can we really be sure that the Wall even stopped those attacks in the first place or was it the agreement in 2005 or the exhaustion after five years of severe conflict?

Again Palmer misleadingly insinuates that the Palestinians in the West Bank are all Muslims when in fact many happen to be Christians. He also ignores the fact that the Wall in the West Bank has had a terrible economic impact upon the Palestinians by the Wall. One Israeli academic notes that in Jerusalem alone the Wall has caused about $2 billion in economic losses, mainly to Palestinians, in 2000-9.

In total, the Wall in Jerusalem causes US$194 million in damages per annum. In the years from 2000 to 2009, it has already caused more than US$1.94 billion in income loss. These figures must be updated to account for the natural growth of the population, and will therefore increase further and continue to accumulate at an accelerated rate until the Wall is removed. (Shir Hever, The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation, Chapter 6, p. 127.)

It is safe to assume similar economic losses will be inflicted upon everyone if Palmer's ridiculous idea is ever implemented anywhere.

But ultimately this is the choice France faces—accept attacks or take radical action against all Muslims, even the vast majority who are completely innocent. As this attack shows, the France authorities have no way to target just the ones who will kill.

In other words Palmer insinuates that maintaining justice and not punishing the innocent can be thrown away.

Also one of the big lies that extremists like Al Qaeda and ISIL like to say is to insist that there is a "war against Islam" when in fact there is no such thing happening. But talk like Palmer's could easily be exploited to make this misleading claim seem more realistic.

And shouldn't he have said "French authorities" instead?

This is a radical change away from the modern, pluralistic, multicultural Europe that we see today. The rise of the far right and the political turmoil show that Europe is already moving in this direction. 

Even if Europe is moving to the right they did not make Palmer make this ridiculous, racist and bigoted suggestion of throwing innocent people who just happen to be Muslim into walled off ghettos.

These terrorist attacks are changing Europe. Austria came within a hair’s breadth of electing a president from a political party once considered beyond the pale. Progress toward a European military is moving faster than ever before. But the attack in Nice shows Europe must go much further if it is going to stop these terrorist attacks.

Throwing innocent people into walled off ghettos will provide security to no one and in all likelihood would break a countless multitude of laws if such a thing were actually to be done. Such a thing is illegal now anyway.

Also Palmer ignores the fact that several of the victims of the massacre in Nice were Muslims. It is grotesque to slur some of the victims of this massacre and suggest throwing them behind a wall.

It is terrible that Palmer should dare to suggest throwing innocent people into walled off ghettos just because of their religion. This is an extreme and racist idea. Palmer has no business telling people he knows how to solve these problems. Proposing such a ghastly, horrific, abhorrent, discriminatory, racist and (quite likely) legally unenforceable idea shows he is not worth listening to. It is good that he is not in charge of public affairs.

But what can one expect from one who in 2011 dared to minimize the Srebrenica massacre as merely "a crime of passion"? What can one expect from one who works for an organization that has an infamous "no contact" rule against ex-members and members of the other COGs?