Palestine Without Illusions

[barb162]

(a somewhat strongly worded opinion from Mr Krauthammer...)

Palestine Without Illusions


By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, February 3, 2006; Page A19

Amid much gnashing of teeth, the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections is being called a disaster. On the contrary. It is deeply clarifying and ultimately cleansing. If the world responds correctly, it will mark a turning point for the better.

The Palestinian people have spoken. According to their apologists, sure, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, wage permanent war and send suicide bombers into discotheques to drive nails into the skulls of young Israelis, but what the Palestinians were really voting for was efficient garbage collection.

It is time to stop infantilizing the Palestinians. As Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said at a news conference four days after the election, "The Palestinian people have chosen Hamas with its known stances." By a landslide, the Palestinian people have chosen these known stances: rejectionism, Islamism, terrorism, rank anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel in a romance of blood, death and revolution. Garbage collection on Wednesdays.

Everyone is lamenting the fall of Fatah and the marginalization of its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. This is ridiculous. The election exposed what everyone knew and would not admit: Abbas has no constituency. Would it have been better to keep funneling billions of dollars from the European Union and a gullible United States to the thoroughly corrupt administration of a hapless figurehead? Billions that either end up in Swiss bank accounts or subsidize countless gangs of young men carrying guns?
snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020201579.html?sub=AR

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Behind the Aegis]

2. Awesome article!

Some very interesting topics he covers too.

[sabbat hunter]

6. Krauthammer

is one of the more conservative columnists. he often appears on Faux news. his is very intelligent and expresses his opinions very clearly, but he is most certainly coming at it from a conservative point of view.

[Senator Obama]

3. One look at the author and I knew...

The article couldn't possibly be objective. The American people chose George Bush. Does that imply that we want fascism and perpetual war? What real choice did the Palestinian people have?

Fatah has essentially been in power for decades and has done a miserable job of governance and the violence continued virtually unabated. Opposition forces did everything they could to capture the fancy of the people and couched their hopes to gain control by playing on nationalism and hatred of Israel. They also realized that the way to capture hearts was through stomachs, much the same as the Democratic party must accomplish. Any setbacks suffered in that region over the last six years are a culmination of the Bush Administration's gross neglect. This election to them is likely a desperate choice of personal survival, violence notwithstanding. It is entirely possible that the Palestinian people did not recognize the international reaction to Hamas and its threat to their survival. Moreover, there will never be peace in the Middle East until there is a viable solution for peaceful coexistence of Israel and Palestine. That goal will never be accomplished without the US taking the lead in an even handed fashion. Our problem now, even more so, is that we've never been seen as an honest broker. This is further complicated by the addi tonal level of mistrust generated by the Iraq folly. And after all, we are an ally of Israel...(I don't know that that's written down somewhere but it is certainly written in our actions).

Krauthammer is once again full of neocon bullshit. He discounts the effect of fear and desperation on the part of a population struggling to survive day to day and instead posits that this election was all about Palestinian desire for an escalation of the violence. I believe he nonchalantly discounts the real reasons for hatred of Fatah. He need look no further than the US to see a prime example of what fear and desperation may have on people of otherwise good will.

Fatah was and has been nothing but a corrupt government that has fostered violence when convenient to obfuscate that corruption. I would feel a lot more confident of the meaning of this vote if they conduct a separate national referendum on what Palestinians want with regards to the peace process. I don't feel we outside of Palestine have sufficient evidence that the Palestinians voted for Hamas because they are first and foremost concerned with the destruction of Israel. To the contrary, it may just be possible that their first priority is their own survival. I believe that in their minds little has changed under the leadership or lack thereof from Fatah. What they do know is that Hamas was far better at delivering outreach to the average citizen. If I were living there, all things being considered, I might have voted for Hamas as well given the two choices. What I don't understand is that given the involvement of the international community in the electoral process, that such a referendum was never proposed or that there were no attempts to effect a change in Hamas platform prior to the election. It seems to me that Hamas was in a unique position of running on a social welfare platform and could have easily eased off on their hard line on Israel as their "national security credentials" could not be challenged. But just as we see in the US, party agendas may not represent the will of the people.

Obama

[Violet_Crumble]

4. It was a decidedly simple-minded article...

And yr post in complete constrast is very well stated :)

Violet...

[cali]

5. Good, thoughtful

post. Thanks. The only thing I'll point out is that Krauthammer is an opinion writer. He doesn't do objective, and he doesn't pretend to.

[bemildred]

7. It is fatuous to say that it must be impressed on the Palestinians that

there are consequences to their choices. In the first place
one could say the same of Israelis, who have been far better
insulated from the consequences of their political choices than
the Palestinians; and in the second place, the Palestinians have
been neck-deep in the consequences of their choices for quite a
long time now. He's right that the election of Hamas is
"clarifying".