| American effort to build democracy in Iraq naive but we must have confidence — and bankroll — emerging ‘Palestinian’ experiment in self-rule? |
Political inconsistencies deserve examination
Posted on 09/22/2005 5:05:51 AM PDT by Tolik
|
Political inconsistencies deserve examination |
After the Israelis' recent pullout from the Gaza Strip, chaos broke out. Greenhouses that had been purchased by international agencies for future Palestinian use were ransacked by the beneficiaries. Violent fights over looted equipment escalated among squatters, the government and terrorists.
Empty synagogues were burned. Gangs and criminals smuggled weapons and drugs across the unguarded Egyptian border. An apparent bomb-making factory in a Gaza building blew up. Warlords from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed victory over the Israelis and promised to set up rocket bases for envisioned new offensives against Israel. Gunmen immediately threw up their own new checkpoints to shake down and intimidate civilians.
Meanwhile, a relative of Yasser Arafat, the former security official Moussa Arafat, was dragged out of his house and executed in the street. Taybeh, a Christian village near Ramallah, was attacked by mobs and some of its houses burned.
The reactions of most Americans to all this televised Wild-West sort of lawlessness probably will fall into three broad categories:
<...snip...>
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
SEEMS SOMEONE AT STATE SHOULD CONSIDER CUTTING THEM PALS OFF IF THEY CAN"T OR WON"T STOP THE SENSELESS HATE> The greenhouses were protected for the pals so they would have economic stability after the Israelis pulled out. Security paid for by Americans, I believe.
bttt
So then, it wasn't all bad?
..........................................
APPARENTLY? Because the Iraqis aren't infected with the Loser virus. Palestinians, like Arafat, "never miss an opportunity . . . to miss an opportunity" [Abba Eban]. Gaza will turn out to be just one more missed chance, to no one's surprise, except the appeasers (and maybe not even them).
Someone on this board (my thanks) recommended reading Leon Uris' novel "The Haj" for an insight into the Pali/Arab mindset. The book was written in the 80s but it just as well could have been today, for the depiction of these peoples' thinking has not changed, despite the disastrous results. The popular definition of insanity comes to mind.
He hit the nail right on the head for me.
I was of the opinion that the Israelis should have had a scorched earth policy when they pulled out of Gaza and left nothing but the sand for the Palestinians to claim. It appears that the Israelis saved the labor by letting the Palestinians do it for them - with the added bonus of showing the world another example of what the Palestinians are like.
Then came Oslo and substituted these more or less reasonable leaders with the thugs. Israeli Left with the enthusiastic support of the Western Left wanted to make a quick march to utopia.
The results are well known. A slow emerging understanding was replaced by radicalization of the Arab populace, their living standards fell, and de-facto self rule produced nothing for them besides vile propaganda of a death cult.
Even after the unilateral separation, Israel won't get peace. The future war is looming anyway. Plus, an inconvenient subject of Israel's Arab citizens. The radicalization of Palestinians touched them too. As far as I can judge, they on one hand would not want to live under the PA rule, but on another hand, feel no loyalty to Israel neither. How Israel can solve this problem besides the population and territory exchange to homogenize the population, I'd like to know...
Therein lies the problem, and after ten years of Oslo incitement, it'll take a generation to solve the problem.
no-nonsense hardheads will adopt a "See, I told you so!" attitude in dismissing any idea that such folk could ever govern themselves.
Reality and experience have the peculiar habit of inducing that sort of thinking.
But most in between will continue to sincerely hope for the best, while resigning themselves to the worst.
In other words, stick their fingers in their ears and go "La la la la la la la la la...".
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
American effort to build democracy in Iraq naive but we must have confidence — and bankroll — emerging ‘Palestinian’ experiment in self-rule?
Palestinian’ experiment in self-rule? FINE. I'm in favor of this....the problem is I don't see anyone in leadership that
1 want's to see democracy succeed (1 man, 1 vote, 1 time)
2 make peace with Israel
Something I'ver noticed over the years with the left (as I'm sure you have)
The USSR is the hope for the future...No I mean China....no Cuba...I meant Nicaragua....And now we have the PA.
One thing you got to say about the left, they're batting 1.000
Somehow I have no problem saying "See, I told you so!"
Its not that unilateral disengagement is wrong as of itself (it is very much debatable, and supporters of it have very good points to make). My problem with it is that the opposite side has not been forced to reciprocate in any way. Israel even continues to supply electricity and water, and did not respond on shelling from Gaza. Besides some empty congratulatory words from the "international community" nothing solid was obtained from them neither.
This is a shockingly naive piece from VDH.
"strangely seem to rule out any such optimism for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' elected government in a similarly violence-prone region."
Equating the elected Iraqi government to the supposedly "elected" government of the Palestinians is to wholly denigrate the hard fought for, with US blood and treasure, free political process in Iraq.
Their was ONE candidate for the Palestinians. The elections were not free as they were in Iraq. There were no US soldiers or any independent force overseeing and enforcing free elections. Reports of violence and coercion were rife. Abbas himself is a terrorist. His party has two miltary wings of terrorists - Fatah and Al Aqsa.
One of the foremost voices for democratizing the ME as a means to stop terror is Natan Sharansky. He has declared the Palestinian election a fraud that will not bring democratic change:
"Sharansky added the Palestinian Authority election was not “truly free, free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear. This is not the case in the Palestinian Authority.”
Other disturbing news has surfaced validating Sharansky’s election concerns. The Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported that Abbas gave at least $100,000 to wanted terrorists during the Palestinian Authority election campaign. The New York Sun reported that “one of the reasons none of the other candidates received much support is intimidation by the PA. ‘People are afraid to be seen even reading their campaign literature’ said one Palestinian; the message that the people have received from various leaders of the PA is that if they vote for a candidate other than Mr. Abbas, they will either lose jobs they already have in the PA or will not be hired by the PA in the future. (The PA is the largest employer in Judea, Samaria and Gaza).”
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza has alleged massive fraud. The independent human rights group petitioned the Palestinian courts to cancel the election results. They allege that thousands of people voted twice. The New York Sun reported that Palestinian Arab sources in the West Bank claimed that Fatah party activists were rounded up to vote in the afternoon and re-vote in the evening in order to obtain a large mandate for Abbas."
http://www.zoa.org/pressrel2005/20050111a.htm
"INDEED, WHILE ABBAS'S election as PA chairman last January is commonly mentioned in the same breath with the Iraqi elections and, now, the Lebanese struggle (as well as President Mubarak's -- as yet untested -- promise of genuine multicandidate elections next September), the party over Abbas's "election" was one Sharansky did not join. Telling the Jerusalem Post last January 10 that this election was not "truly free," he explained: "Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear. This is not the case in the Palestinian Authority....there was no other candidate [than Abbas]..."
He went on to say it was a "shame" that, as Post reporter Herb Keinon paraphrased him, "the world uses the same words for completely different types of processes in different governmental systems, thereby making moral equivalencies that don't exist." Sharansky added in his own words: "This election can be the beginning of the democratic process only if we don't have illusions that democracy is already there, and that all we have to do now is give them independence. If that is what we do, then we will find that we have given independence not to a democratic state, but to a terrorist state."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17286
Sham elections do not bring democracy. They encourage represssion.
thank you.
I will modify and send.
Can anyone honestly believe, looking at a map of this thing, that those Palestinians who wanted to leave could not be accommodated by their supposed Islamic brethren? Sorry, not allowed. Their role is fixed - they are the permanent victims, the ones in whose name a permanent state of war is justified and never mind the fact that it isn't in their interests. It is in others' interests.
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