Saturday 28 January 2006

Thugocracy in Palestine

Isn't democracy wonderful. "Democracy: The counting of head regardless of content," as Bill Weddell used to say. Well, plenty of empty-headed Palestinians celebrating today at the victory by Hamas in the Palestinian elections -- a victory that puts the thugs and killers at the top table.

Disaster then? Jack Wheeler, the "Indiana Jones of the Right," is happy Hamas won the Palestinian elections. It's true, see:
I don’t think it’s a disaster at all. I think it’s an opportunity. I’m happy Hamas won...

It’s time to celebrate the end of moral goo, the end of pretending Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority were “people we could work with,” the end of all the evasion and desperate avoidance of reality. At last, it’s the End of Pretend.
There is that, I suppose.

Links: Celebrating Hamas - Jack Wheeler
Cartoon by Cox & Forkum
Cue Card Libertarianism - Democracy

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kind of hard to argue against the Israeli government view that electing Hamas equates to a de facto declaration of war by a large majority of adult Palestinians.

Obviously they don't want peace, they voted for all out war.

So, maybe the West should give them what they wish for - in spades!

Anonymous said...

And for those who think I'm being extreme: Remember, Hamas is a de facto arm of the Iranian government. The same one wanting to build nukes and wipe Israel off the face of the map...

This is looking increasingly like a case of do it to them before they do it to you.

Libertyscott said...

Well, ultimately Israel is in charge of the Palestinian Authority - it is not a state, it should have instituted a constitution for the Palestinian authority that prohibits any Palestinian government that threatens Israel.

Anonymous said...

Few in the Middle East will have heard George W. Bush’s State of the Union address without feeling exasperation and anger that this belligerent president appears to have no idea of how US policy in the region is riddled with double standards. It is now clear that this astonishingly ill-informed administration had not the slightest inkling that Hamas would win the Palestinian elections — let alone win so decisively.

Coming as it did on the eve of his big set piece speech to the American people, the election was a problem for President Bush. Here was a free and fair democratic election, a model of the political process that he has supposedly committed himself to promoting throughout the region, and it produced winners who were not what Washington would have liked or chosen.

Bush had to square the circle, so he concentrated on Hamas terrorism and its constitutional commitment to the eradication of Israel. America would not deal with the new government chosen by the Palestinian voters until it had disbanded its armed wing, given up violence and acknowledged Israel’s right to exist.

In laying down these requirements, the president demonstrated his inability to appreciate that Israel too is guilty of great violence against Palestinians and continues its program of assassinations, the latest being that of Islamic Jihad leader Nidal Abu-Saada on the very day of Bush’s speech. Israel has also yet to give concrete acknowledgement of the state of Palestine’s right to exist, preferring instead to keep its people huddled in ghettos while Tel Aviv continues to steal their land.

The murders committed by Palestinian suicide bombers who are members of Hamas or who are not members of Hamas are no more acceptable than the murders committed by Israeli security forces. Sending Palestinians to die among innocent Israelis is a terrible act which cannot be justified but can nevertheless be explained; it is the only way that Palestinians can fight back against a clever, strong and hugely manipulative occupying power.

In voting for Hamas, Palestinians were not just rejecting what they saw as the failures of the Fatah years, they were also choosing a government which they hope will stand up more strongly to Israel and produce a just and lasting peace from a position of strength.

In his address, Bush made no attempt to analyze the motives of the majority of Palestinian electors, demonstrated no insight whatsoever into their agonies and frustrations. Instead he made it clear that though they had held a free and fair election, the Palestinians had made the wrong choice and America therefore had no intention of accepting it. Yet in the very same speech, Bush trotted out his hopes for a democratic Iran and a freely elected government with whom Washington would one day be able to work.

Now at least Bush’s perverse vision of the democratic process is patently clear. A democratic election must produce a government that is acceptable to the White House. Anything else will be rejected. The democratic voice of the people will be ignored unless it is singing the song that Washington wants to hear. This astounding hypocrisy undermines everything America says it is trying to achieve in the region and everything that America once stood for

from Editor of Arab News

Anonymous said...

You know the only thing in this whole Palestine Isreal problem is Jewish control over the international media. It's like if we say anything anti-jewish you'll be labled a racist. Remember Steven Speilberg and the Isreali Government are very freidly with Japan. Japan has never given an appology for killing many millions of civillians accross asia. So there is no moral point of view from Jews, they're basically selling off the halocast to raise international sympathy for themselves. They should be ashamed of what they are doing.