01.26.06
power to the people
it was, admittedly, a "Hobson’s choice": side with Israel’s impulse to forbid elections in the Jerusalem, and risk derailing the "peace process"… or allow elections, even though it meant allowing Hamas to participate…
in the end, elections were allowed; spreading democracy in the Islamic world is, after all, is the reason finally settled upon as justification for ameriKKKan intervention in Iraq, so to have opposed democracy in Palestine would have called the entire Iraq intervention into question…
the gamble was that Hamas’ participation would be a calculated risk… well, now you see why i don’t gamble. NOBODY, not even Hamas, expected them to WIN…
but they did, and as the results roll in, none of the parties involved have a clue what the future will hold:
- Isreal does not trust Hamas as far as they could throw an F-16, and with good reason: this is a group that, even after the elections, maintains that the destruction of Israel is among their fundamental principles
- the current U.S. regime is between a rock, a hard place, and a sticky wicket: on the one hand, a substantial contribution to mid-east peace would be its legacy, outliving and outweighing any results in Iraq; on the other hand, there’s no way it can support Hamas as it is currently known, even if they are the legitimate leaders of the Palestinian territories; on the third hand, if the U.S. makes good of its threat to withhold the half-billion dollars of support to the Palestinians, this could contribute more to the destabilization of Israeli-Palestinian peace than any other factor
- Hamas will find that its one thing to shoot rockets and set off bombs, and something else again to function as political leaders. Despite all their "Israel must die" rhetoric, Israel must also be paid to keep electricity and fresh water flowing in the territories
much is made of the fact that Israel will not deal with terrorist, with very little mention of the fact that, from the Palestinian’s perspective, they are an occupied people, and see their violence not as terrorism, but resistance.
this is not to justify the excesses of Hamas’ brutality, but simply to point out that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter… as plausible as it is for Israel to portray itself as the victim, it belies the fact that, prior to the formation of Israel in 1948, some of their greatest heroes were considered terrorists by the same nations which are now their staunchest allies…
given enough time, all sides change… each July 4th, we celebrate our victory over England, now our #1 lackey ally… the Soviet Union Russia, the very reason we became the nuclear power we are today, is now an ally as well… so, who knows what the future may hold?
judging from the past, a gambling man would not bet on these results improving the mid-east situation, but one can always hope…
G*d only knows… let’s hope G*d knows something good, and decides to share the news sometime soon…