The Democracy Pandora's Box

News-First Class (Hebrew) reports (translated by Daily Alert):

Islamic movements throughout the Middle East are lifting up their heads after Hamas's election victory.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan is demanding "true democracy" from the Jordanian king in order to win in elections there, and is threatening a popular uprising if the government continues to ignore "the will of the people."

Here is another case where the President's mantra of "democracy" is boomeranging on him. The Egyptian elections were purposefully rigged, seemingly with the support of the US, to limit the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood; Jimmy Carter is enthusiastically supporting the new "moderate" Hamas; and now Jordan is in the sights of Islamic fundamentalists, using "democracy" as the argument.

It isn't democracy that is needed; it is freedom. If these Muslim states can live for a decade or so with a truly free press, equal rights for women, and the ability to criticize without fear, and then they decide they would rather live in a Shari'a state, that's democracy. Pushing democracy on people who are clueless about freedom is counterproductive and could be tragic.

Freedom should have been the stated goal all along, because now the US just looks hypocritical.

UPDATE: I saw this article after I posted:

Wednesday's Palestinian election, hailed by the world for passing without incidents of violence, was not the same as democracy, Likud Knesset candidate Natan Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post outside the Knesset on Sunday.

Sharansky, who wrote the influential bestseller The Case For Democracy, said that there should have been a process of democratization in the Palestinian Authority that culminated with an election, instead of holding an election that he said came instead of real democratic reforms.

"Democracy isn't hocus-pocus; it's a process," Sharansky said. "An election between a terrorist organization that wants to destroy the state of Israel and a corrupt dictatorship that does not care about helping its own people is not democracy. The results of the election were clean but it has nothing to do with democracy."

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The Arafatization of Hamas

Hamas is starting down the road well-worn (and successfully managed) by Arafat.

Until the Islamic 'ummah is self-sufficient, it requires the West and it needs to speak soothing words to the West. The West, especially the media and the EU, is so starved to hear the words it wants to hear that it will happily and uncritically listen to whatever the terrorists say. And the terrorists, in turn, have learned what key words they need to say to feed the insatiable desire to feed the "peace at all costs" cult of the West. If they lie enough, more and more people will believe it.

This week's Newsweek International amazingly and disgustingly gives an uncritical and uncommented forum to a terrorist, paving the way for European pressure on Israel in a few weeks or months to reward the "moderation."

"Just Be Fair With Us"
By Muhammad Abu Tir

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - My message to the West—to America, to Europe, to everybody—is this: Hamas wants peace. We hate bloodshed and killing. We don't want to fight. There is a verse in the Qur'an that says whoever kills one soul kills all souls. And whoever brings life to people brings life to a nation.

Our problem is with the Israeli occupation. Israelis are killing our children. The West has been oppressive, too. You are biased toward Israel. You support Israel. You are capable of telling Israel, "Enough." You are capable of telling Israel to withdraw. Why is the West concerned about the security of Israel and not concerned about our security?

Stop your support for Israel. Stop calling us terrorists. This policy creates a feeling of oppression. The feeling of oppression can lead to disaster. I don't want to reach that stage. If the United States were occupied, would the people put up with such a situation? In World War II, when the Japanese planes hit Pearl Harbor, America was not quiet. It reciprocated by hitting Japan with a nuclear bomb. Just be fair with us.

The European Union and America should cooperate with us. We have ways of creating understanding among our people. We are facilitators, helpers, aides. The presence of Hamas is a guarantee of safety and stability in the region. Any money that is given to us will be channeled to the correct path. It's better than giving your money to greedy people. The poor have never seen that money whatsoever; it goes only to the swollen bellies. We are honest people. Whatever money we receive, it will go to that purpose. We would use it for education, for social work, for establishing infrastructure, for health institutions, for poor people, for orphans. It would go to the lower levels of society.

Don't be afraid that we'll use the money to buy arms. We can always find arms on the black market. It is obvious that we have built our military infrastructure in that way. Our weapons are the only guarantee of our existence. If a proper Palestinian state were established, then all the militias would melt inside the Palestinian Army.

We are open to the world. But the PLO has negotiated with Israel for 30 years. And what did Israel do? It did not reciprocate. Shimon Peres has said that if Hamas gives up its arms, we will negotiate. They have said the same thing to the PLO before. Does Shimon Peres want another 30 years for us to negotiate with them? We would be happy to work under the Irish model. But is Israel prepared to respect our political wing? Is Israel ready for such a formula?

The West has nothing to fear from Hamas. We're not going to force people to do anything. We will not impose Sharia. Hamas is contained. Hamas deals only with the Israeli occupation. We are not Al Qaeda.

ABU TIR is a former militant who ranked No. 2 on the Hamas list of candidates in last week's elections.

What kind of a "news" source gives a terrorist an unfiltered opportunity to manipulate the morons of the left? Only one that subscribes to the same agenda to an extent.

How can any self-respecting "news" organization do such a thing? No follow-up questions. No pointing out the obvious lies. No irony in its description of Tir as a "former militant." Nope - let him talk about fairness when he wants to utterly destroy Israel, let him talk about children when he indoctrinates them in hate, let him talk about how he hates fighting when his charter glorifies it, let him talk about how he has no problem with the West when he celebrates 9/11, let him talk about orphans when he created hundreds of Jewish orphans, let him talk about a "feeling of oppression" when he sends rockets to communities in Israel and human bombs into pizza shops, let him talk about not being al-Qaeda when both organizations sprang from the same Muslim Brotherhood and they share exactly the same goals.

Don't bother interviewing him - just let him write his own news. Newsweek will be happy to publish it. Because Newsweek is fair, doesn't believe in oppressing him, and supports the orphans. Because Newsweek would occasionally allow someone who is against wiping Israel off the map to write an article. It's only fair, right?

Already we are seeing articles where Hamas obliquely proposes a temporary "truce" with Israel as long as Israel capitulates completely to the Islamic 'ummah. These articles don't mention suicide bombings or rocket attacks - that is so 2004. We need to be fair with the terrorists, give them a chance, surely they will reform, they're just like us. Except for Bin Laden - he's still bad, because he didn't limit his targets to Jews.

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The cult of the "Peace Process"

Rarely has there been a real-life doublespeak term as egregious as "the peace process." Just in Googling the news from only today, I see 248 entries using that term - invariably without the scare quotes.

Hamas' win "casts a pall" over the peace process, we read.

What exactly is the "peace process"?

It is, bluntly speaking, the process where Israel dismantles itself "piece by piece" in exchange for empty Palestinian Arab promises. Israel concedes land, outsources its security to third parties who don't care about Israel's security, and is asked to arm those who want to destroy it. In response, Israel gets vilified that it hasn't done nearly enough and it gets rewarded with more international pressure to give more and more in exchange to a people who cannot even stomach a map of Israel anywhere on their territory. Occasionally, Israel does get some temporary diplomatic benefit as a result of a concession - but never any from the supposed "peace partners." )

There is nothing remotely peaceful about the "peace process." It directly led to more Arab bombs and more terror than before. It emboldened terrorists to kill Jews. It also led to more Palestinian Arab deaths than before this "peace process" started.

Any process that causes thousands of deaths can hardly be called "peaceful." Any objective observer would see immediately that the life in the disputed territories and in Israel proper were much more peaceful in the 12 years before Oslo compared to the 12 years since, including the first intifada - both for the Palestinian Arabs and for the Palestinian/Israeli Jews.

And yet the world drinks from the Kool-Aid of the supposed "peace process" and is up in arms at the realization that the Palestinian Arabs freely elected a slate of candidates who have no interest whatsoever in peace, or even in pretending to want peace (which would be enough to further the charade.)

Here's where the cognitive dissonance kicks in. Since the only hope for peace is the peace process, the reasoning goes, we need to find a way for a bunch of murderers and thugs and terrorists to pretend to moderate a little bit so we can get the process of Israel giving up more land to them back on track.

The Fatah-led PA was enthusiastic about the "peace process" as long as it doesn't involve any actual peace for any Jews that happen to live in the neighborhood. That was enough for the world - they were on board with the agenda.

But now we have people who not only reject Israel's existence (like the PA) but also reject the hallowed "process", too! What a shame! What a tragedy! Only Jewish "extremists" act in such ways!

There are many potential problems with Hamas leading the Palestinian Arabs, but the death of the "peace process" is not one of them. It has caused nothing but grief and pain to thousands of people on both sides.

Real peace agreements involve real, tangible, and irreversible concessions on the part of both parties. Real peace, itself, more often than not is the result of a crushing defeat in a war and an imposed solution to the vanquished.

The "peace process" was always a farce, a triumph of wishful thinking over reality, a willfully blind denial of truth. And if its adherents would be honest with themselves, they would realize that it would never end until Israel doesn't exist any more.

Hamas poses great threats to Israel's and the world's security. But we should not mourn the death of the fake "peace process."

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JIB jab

OK, I have not once asked for votes for the JIB awards and I'm not going to start now, despite this blog's abysmal performance in the voting for Best Designed Blog.

But to see Cross-Currents in first place in this category?

I just asked the esteemed Daughter of Ziyon her opinion of the CC design, without telling her that it was in first place, and she said, "Honestly? Ewwww."

It is plain, it is boring, and worst of all - it has ugly ads tacked on to the side.

It is certainly readable and it is far from the worst blog designed out there, but, come on, people! Vote for a blog that actually deserves the award, like Jewlicious or The View from Here!

Not that I would complain if you want to tell DoZ how much you like her design....

(I am not kvetching about the awards themselves, of course, but how could I resist that title?)

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The day's best pun: ותמלא הארץ חמס

Thanks to Blog HaMincha, which is an excellent pun as well.

(To those who don't understand Hebrew: It is a quote from Genesis 6:11. In English it is translated as "and the earth was filled with violence." The Hebrew word for violence in this verse is "Hamas.")

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Interesting Holocaust article on alt.muslim

A flawed but illuminating article from a Muslim perspective about what the author claims represents the Muslim role in the Holocaust:

By Mas'ood Cajee, January 27, 2006

Six decades on since the slaughter of World War II and the Nazi holocaust, we hear extremist voices alternately exploiting or denying the Holocaust for political gain. By warping our memory of the Shoah (the Hebrew word for the Holocaust), both exploiters and deniers miss the stark, vital message of the Holocaust and its heroes - those who displayed uncommon moral courage in the face of evil.

Holocaust exploiters

A growing chorus of voices which exploits the Holocaust for political gain has been trying to smear Muslims - and Arabs in particular - with grand accusations of complicity in the Holocaust and support for the Nazis. These voices serve hawkish interests in Israel and the United States who wish to justify and legitimize continued war, violence, and yes - even genocide - against Muslims and Arabs. Identifying Muslims with and as Nazis eases the task of selling continued bloodshed to war-weary publics. Reading the books and op-eds of the smearers, one could almost conclude absurdly that the Nazi holocaust was an Arab Muslim and not a European Christian project. As evidence, the smearers usually trot out the pro-German Mufti of Jerusalem Amin Al-Husayni and the Bosnian Muslim SS "Handschar" division.

What these smearing Islamophobes don't like to tell you: the "Mufti" was actually an appointee of the Jewish administrator of British Palestine who completed one measly year at Al-Azhar and betrayed the Ottoman Sultan to join the British. The much-vaunted "Hanschar" SS division - disbanded after a few months due to mass desertions - was the only SS division ever to mutiny. Because they are allied to the power establishments in Israel & the United States, the Holocaust exploiters generally keep mum about American, Jewish, and Zionist complicity in the Holocaust. They aren't currently touting the cruel, forced 1939 return from Miami of the Jewish refugee ship SS St. Louis to Nazi Europe. Or that elites in the Anglo-American sphere widely admired Adolf Hitler throughout the 1930s - George Bush's hero Winston Churchill first condemned Hitler only five years after he came to power. Or that elements of the Jewish and Zionist leadership collaborated with the Nazis - as documented by Hannah Arendt and other Jewish historians (who called their actions "the darkest chapter of the whole dark story"). Or that today, Israel ironically dangles the specter of Holocaust - in its Nuclear avatar - over the mostly Muslim peoples of the Middle East.

Holocaust deniers

On the other side, too many Muslim and Arab intellectuals and leaders continue to fail in adequately addressing the Nazi holocaust and its implications for today in meaningful, humanitarian terms. Two recent examples include the Muslim Council of Britain's daft refusal to participate in Britain's annual Holocaust Memorial Day and the public indulgence in Holocaust revisionism and labeling of the Nazi holocaust as "myth" by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood chief Muhammad Akef. Deep-seated, knee-jerk anti-Zionism and the continuing occupation of Palestine have unfortunately blinded many Arabs and Muslims to the historical reality and legacy of the Nazi holocaust.

An intelligent and compassionate regard for the victims of the Nazi holocaust - Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, the disabled, and others - on the part of contemporary Muslims is critical for preserving ethical and communal integrity, for a just resolution of the Palestinian question and for the future - if there is to be one - of Western Muslims. Instead, the Holocaust remains a historical blindspot in Arab and Muslim discourse, and as a result it has become a potent political weapon to be exploited at will by those who view Palestinians and Muslims as enemies.

Holocaust heroes

In their perversion of memory, Holocaust deniers and exploiters share another moral ugliness. Both insult the memory of the countless Muslims who risked or gave their lives to rescue Jews threatened with extermination by the Nazis. The stories of the Muslim rescuers of Jews are largely unknown and unpublicized. Only in the past fifteen years have Holocaust researchers brought a few to the public's attention.

Several Muslims (whose stories of heroism and courage we know) have since been honored by Yad Vashem and other Holocaust memorial groups as Righteous Gentiles. They include: the Bosnian Dervis Korkut, who harbored a young Jewish woman resistance fighter named Mira Papo and saved the Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the most valuable Hebrew manuscripts in the world; the Turk Selahattin Ulkumen, whose rescue of several dozen Jews from certain death at Auschwitz led to the death of his wife Mihrinissa soon after she gave birth their son Mehmet when the Nazis retaliated for his heroism; the Albanian Refik Vesili who - as a 16-year-old - saved eight Jews by hiding them in his family's mountain home.

Most Holocaust historians would agree that Muslim Europe - Albania, Bosnia, and Turkey - responded courageously and righteously, especially in comparison to Christian Europe. While there were Muslims who collaborated with the Nazis, they were the exception and certainly not the rule. In addition, in North Africa the Sultan of Morocco, the Bey of Tunis, and the Ulema of Algeria all lent support to their beleaguered Jewish countrymen.

Continental Europe's only independent Muslim country - Albania - was also the only European country to have a larger Jewish population at the end of the war than at the beginning, according to Miles Lerman, a former director of the US National Holocaust Museum. Harvey Sarner, a Jewish American in awe of the Albanian Muslim response, penned the telling book "Rescue in Albania: One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from the Holocaust".

There were many Bosnian Muslims, especially in Sarajevo, who saved the lives of their Jewish compatriots. Indeed, the Jewish community in Sarajevo owed its very existence historically to the centuries-old Ottoman Muslim policy of providing sanctuary to Jews fleeing European Christian persecution.

Republican Turkey thankfully followed that same Ottoman tradition of rescue and sanctuary. Due to its neutrality during most of World War II, and its unique geographical proximity to both Europe and the Middle East, Turkey and Turkish diplomats living abroad played an important role for European Jews in danger during World War II and the Holocaust, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Muslim-majority Turkey rescued over 15,000 Turkish Jews and over 100,000 European Jews.

Like their Christian counterparts, the Muslim men and women who rescued Jews during the Holocaust are among history's true heroes, whose stories we should be telling our children and grandchildren. They represent the best of the Abrahamic and Islamic tradition and spirit. May He grant us true moral courage like them in the face of hardship and adversity. May God - the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful - free us of denying or exploiting the suffering of others.

Of course I have to strongly disagree with his characterizations of "Holocaust exploiters." The author minimizes the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem, the enthusiasm with which the Islamic world accepted German-manufactured anti-semitism, and he ignores the fact that the Arab world recruited Nazis to finish their job when Israel was born. This is not to accept his strawman that the Muslim world was a critical or even major component in the Holocaust; obviously the Nazis and willing European anti-semites didn't need any Muslim help in their quest for the utter destruction of all Jewish men, women and children. His points about European and American indifference to Hitler are well-known and utterly irrelevant in his attempt to minimize Muslim Jew-hatred.

It is also beyond obscene to characterize anything Israel does as "genocide", making the author guilty of his own accusation of exploiting the Holocaust.

It is a sad commentary to the Muslim world that even with these problems, the author is about as reasonable as one can find in the Islamic world, and the thrust of the article is an important one.

His points about Albania, Turkey and the Muslim "righteous gentiles" are well taken and do indeed deserve to be publicized to a wider audience. I was not aware of many of these details and they are an important chapter in the history of Europe during the '40s.

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The nightmare Hamas scenario

My initial lack of concern over the Hamas victory may be premature. I had forgotten one of my own recent blog themes.

There is a way for Hamas to refuse to talk to Israel, ignore Western economic pressure, stay true to its Islamist roots and to appear to help the Palestinian Arabs in their day-to-day lives.

And the answer is Iran.

Iran would be overjoyed to have an Islamist fundamentalist terror statelet right next to Israel. It will provide more than enough money to offset the shortfall from any chance of the EU refusing to give aid to a terror group. It would increase Iran's influence and further its goals of being the world Islamist power. It would help Iran's popularity among the faithful, and it will solidify Iran's leadership role as the major threat to the West and eventual Islamist world domination.

As long as the world is willing to pay huge amounts of money to Iran for oil, the world will end up subsidizing the Hamastan terror statelet. For only a billion petrodollars a year, Iran can replace the EU, UN and US funds. (And the European twisted logic will then continue to find ways to give money to Hamas as a way to "maintain influence" over a bunch of thugs.)

Iranian missiles in Gaza could reach all of Europe.

Ultimately, Iran views Hamastan as the perfect delivery vehicle for nuclear weapons - an entire "nation" that would happily vaporize itself to destroy Israel.

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"Hamas without veils"

Emanuele Ottolenghi makes my points far better than I made them.

Contrary to initial responses, Hamas’s projected victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections is a positive development. Not, as its apologists claim, because the proximity of power will favor a process of cooptation into parliamentary politics, and therefore strengthen the pragmatic wing of Hamas. There is no pragmatic wing in Hamas, and all differences within the movement — the armed wing and the political wing, Palestine Hamas and Hamas in Syria — are arguably tactical differences. No, the reason is, as Vladimir Ilich Lenin would put it, "worse is better."

Hamas’s favored outcome was not victory, but a strong showing that would leave Hamas with the best of both worlds: It would remain in opposition (or would be invited to join a coalition as a junior partner) but would impose severe limitations on the Fatah-led government on how to manage its relations with Israel. Hamas could thus claim to reject Oslo, decline to recognize the Palestinian Authority and its commitments under the Oslo accords and the roadmap, and continue to use its rising political clout and its military strength to sabotage any effort to revive the moribund peace process.

What victory does to Hamas is to put the movement into an impossible position. As preliminary reports emerge, Hamas has already asked Fatah to form a coalition and got a negative response. Prime Minister Abu Ala has resigned with his cabinet, and president Abu Mazen will now appoint Hamas to form the next government. From the shadows of ambiguity, where Hamas could afford — thanks to the moral and intellectual hypocrisy of those in the Western world who dismissed its incendiary rhetoric as tactics — to have the cake and eat it too. Now, no more. Had they won 30-35 percent of the seats, they could have stayed out of power but put enormous limits on the Palestinian Authority’s room to maneuver. By winning, they have to govern, which means they have to tell the world, very soon, a number of things.

They will have to show their true face now: No more masks, no more veils, no more double-speak. If the cooptation theory — favored by the International Crisis Group and by the former British MI-6 turned talking head, Alistair Crooke — were true, this is the time for Hamas to show what hides behind its veil.

As the government of the Palestinian Authority, now they will have to say whether they accept the roadmap.

They will have to take control over security and decide whether they use it to uphold the roadmap or to wage war.

There will be no excuses or ambiguities when Hamas fires rockets on Israel and launches suicide attacks against civilian targets. Until Tuesday, the PA could hide behind the excuse that they were not directly responsible and they could not rein in the "militants." Now the "militants" are the militia of the ruling party. They are one and the same with the Palestinian Authority. If they bomb Israel from Gaza — not under occupation anymore, and is therefore, technically, part of the Palestinian state the PLO proclaimed in Algiers in 1988, but never bothered to take responsibility for — that is an act of war, which can be responded to in kind, under the full cover of the internationally recognized right of self-defense. No more excuses that the Palestinians live under occupation, that the PA is too weak to disarm Hamas, that violence is not the policy of the PA. Hamas and the PA will be the same: What Hamas does is what the PA will stand for.

Continuing to pursue a violent path will automatically switch off all international aid. Perhaps Hamas intends to offset the resulting loss of revenue by hosting Holocaust-denial conferences in Gaza and terrorist training camps in Rafah, but it will still have to explain to the Palestinian public why it’s better to renounce public aid to wage war.

Read the whole thing.

As Daled Amos points out, and I did too, it is too optimistic to think that Hamas will not follow the PLO footsteps and blame all new terror attacks on the "more radical" groups. Nevertheless, this will present Hamas with the problem of how to deliver on a better life for Palestinian people while not allowing itself to coordinate anything with Israel.

Unfortunately, there is a possible answer....(see next article)

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Davos apology - interesting but flawed

YNET reports:

Organizers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are working on a new conference booklet after the initial draft containing an article blasting Israel caused uproar.

The head of the Forum publicly condemned the incident and apologized on behalf of organizers.

The apology is nice, but this is hardly the first time such things happened at this "prestigious" event:

Yasser Arafat himself, at the 2001 world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, shocked his distinguished audience by insisting in front of Israeli Foreign Minister, Peres, that Israel was using depleted uranium and nerve gas against Palestinian civilians.

And here is a lovely example of liberal tolerance from the 2003 conference:

I don't know what newspaper called this a "peace demonstration."

So it is nice and somewhat unexpected to see an apology, but it is not surprising that such pure bigotry can emerge at a conference which has tolerated it for so many years.

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Backgrounders on Hamas

It is interesting to see how media outlets are writing their background, color articles on Hamas.

Somehow, suicide bombs and attacks against civilians are now relegated to minor side points. Here are links to articles that are backgrounders on Hamas and which paragraph they mention attacks against Israeli civilians:

Times of London: paragraph 7.
BBC - paragraph 5.
Xinhua - paragraph 11 (barely)
AP - paragraph 4

On the contrary, the Jerusalem Post printed parts of the Hamas charter, and Arutz Sheva listed major terror attacks by Hamas.

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Hamas' spiritual forefathers

It is worth reposting a link to this article from the Palestine Post about the origins of fundamentalist Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas and al-Qaeda were born.

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Why Hamas won

I have mentioned before that there are two very consistent patterns that explain the entire Arab/Israeli conflict for the past century:

1) Israelis want security.
2) Arab leaders want to destroy Israel.

Essentially every political and military move done by both sides since before 1948 can be remarkably explained by those two concepts. There are rare exceptions, perhaps Jordan is one of them, but on the whole it is a very good rule of thumb that can be used both to understand history and to understand current events.

There is a third consistent pattern as well:

3) Arab people just want to raise their families with dignity and pride.

The entire brief history of the Palestinian Arabs shows this to be true. The ones who lived in Palestine in the 1800s didn't care that they were under Ottoman rule, they didn't crave independence. After the Jews started coming in serious numbers and the economy boomed, many (I believe most) of the ancestors of today's Palestinian Arabs moved into Palestine from Syria and Jordan, because that was how they could best provide for their families. More moved in under British rule than under Ottoman rule, because economic concerns were far more important than political concerns.

If "independence" was the uppermost concern of Arabs, then why do over a million choose to stay in Israel rather than move to PA-administered areas? As the Clinton team famously observed, "it's the economy, stupid."

The people who have screwed the Palestinian Arabs the most have always been their "leaders." It was their leaders who decided to force them to boycott Jewish goods to their detriment, it was their leaders who kept them in "refugee" camps, it was their leaders who forced them to fight losing battles against the hated Zionists.

The "golden age" of Palestinian Arabs was during the "occupation" - this was when they had good paying jobs, when Israel built them an electrical and safe water infrastructure, when the Zionists used their devious Jewish expertise to dramatically increase the Palestinian Arab life expectancy and slash their infant mortality rates. During Oslo, tens of thousands of Jordanians moved illegally into the West Bank so they could raise their families in the comparative paradise that Israel built for the Palestinian Arabs.

The ordinary Palestinian doesn't care who his leader is or about Zionism or occupation or terror or democracy as long as his basic needs are met.

This is the background needed to understand the Hamas victory.

The Palestinian Arabs did not vote for terror or to destroy Israel. They just voted for the party that actually has a chance to improve their day-to-day lives. The party that actually has social programs and builds schools and hospitals. The party that is not headed by "leaders" who live in expensive villas.

The average Palestinian remembers quite well that only a few years ago, they had jobs and they had their pride. They know that Israel treated them better than any Arab leader ever has. Certainly they are subject to brainwashing from the constant incitement against Israel and Jews in their media, but fundamentally their main concern is how to provide for their families with pride, not Israel. It was clear that Fatah would not ever do anything for them. This was highlighted by the chaos in Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal and the PA's incompetence at actually leading.

So, ironically, Israel helped elect Hamas. Also ironically, in what was perhaps the first free election the Palestinian Arabs ever had, they decided to kick out the leaders who screwed them over. And the final irony is that the US and EU backed the leaders who were screwing the Palestinians, which will not help world influence in the future.

The interesting part is that for all of its anti-Israel positions, Hamas will have no choice but to deal with Israel in some capacity, or else it will fail the people who elected it. If Hamas refuses to work with Israel at all, the Palestinians won't be able to cross the border at all, and vital services like water and electricity will end up disappearing. Nothing moderates like pragmatism. Terror will still continue and be supported indirectly by Hamas but if Hamas wants what is best for its people it will have to work with the enemy.

From Israel's perspective, it should emphasize the fact that it has no problem with Palestinian Arabs themselves and it will do anything possible to help them as long as it doesn't jeopardize Israel's own security. At this point Hamas needs Israel much more than Israel needs Hamas but since there is now a working democracy in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas has to be much more careful as to how it acts, both in relations to the people and to Israel.

A major danger to worry about is that Hamas will demolish the democratic process and create yet another Islamist theocracy. If that is their aim, things are much less predictable.

As far as the peace process goes - there never was a peace process, just a process where Israel keeps giving concessions in exchange for nothing. Stopping such a "peace process" is a very desirable outcome from these elections, and detente is much better than a "peace process" punctuated by daily terror attacks.

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Anti-semitism, courtesy of the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum happening now in Davos, Switzerland, included a booklet that included an anti-semitic and anti-Israel screed of the types normally only seen in fringe websites. Every delegate got one.

Excerpts:

Boycott Israel

Mazin Qumsiyeh

Global civil society ought to boycott Israel until it ends its apartheid-like treatment of Palestinians, says Mazin Qumsiyeh

Millions of activists have come to see an organic link between the occupation and colonization of Palestine and diverse and pressing global issues ranging from the war on Iraq to global poverty.

Those who advocate political Zionism cannot defend it on its own merits, so they focus instead on diverting attention and distorting reality. The best example of this is ignoring the cause of the disease and focusing attention on one of its many symptoms – violence of the natives against the colonial settlers, but not the vastly more deadly violence of the colonizers on native people. The idea is that if we vilify the natives and make them look subhuman, we will not be criticized for killing them and taking their lands.

This is an old strategy to justify the pillaging. It was used by the French in Algeria, by European colonizers in the Americas, by apartheid South Africa, by the Americans in Vietnam and in hundreds of other places where western economic and colonial interests came into conflict with the rights of indigenous people.

Israeli apartheid

Zionism not only supposes that Jewish people, including converts, enjoy ethnic, national or historical rights to Palestine, but also that these rights are superior to the rights of the native population. Unlike in South Africa, where black labour was needed, Zionism wanted the natives out. Simply put, the goal of Zionism was to create a state by, for and of “the Jewish people everywhere” to the exclusion of most of the native people and then to ensure that the minority that remained at all odds is not treated equally.

Zionism represented a colonial British venture later taken up as one of many possible responses to discrimination in Europe. Other responses to discrimination such as socialism and humanism were available and had at least equal strength.
Zionism can be seen as the 19th century-style chauvinistic, ethnocentric – mostly Ashkenazi (central European Jewish) – nationalistic response to prevalent European chauvinistic ethnocentric nationalisms. It is in that sense an attempt at assimilation by some Jews following a now outdated European colonial model.

It is not, therefore, surprising that the Zionist lobby has been pushing America into a neo-colonial perpetuation of these outmoded forms of human relations. In a society that values equality and separation of church and state, a concerted media campaign justifies “pre-emptive” invasion of other countries, religious apartheid, sectarianism, ethnic cleansing and putting walls around ghettoized “undesired” people. Zionist apologists support equality in America and Europe, but tolerate discrimination and exclusion of Palestinian refugees in Palestine/Israel for being not Jewish. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by groups ranging from the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “think-tanks” in our nation’s capital to promote such bankrupt ideas.

The relentless efforts of many to defend apartheid and separation can only be described as symptoms of cognitive dissonance at best and racism at worst. In their Orwellian world, occupation becomes “security”, a relentless war of colonization and occupation becomes “advancing democracy”, an apartheid wall becomes a “security fence”, being anti- or post-Zionist is morphed into being anti-Jewish, and “moderation” becomes a code word for shredding international law and basic human rights.

Our demands

In July 2005, more than 170 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a historic document. It articulated Israel’s persistent violations of international and humanitarian laws and conventions and called upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era”.

The call stated that “these non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194” (which the Arabs never accepted - EoZ)

We propose that global civil society take this call seriously and build a coalition open to all people for a global Movement Against Zionism or a global Movement Against Israeli Apartheid. This would bring peace with justice to all people regardless of their religion or ethnicity. It would also contribute to exposing American government-led programmes of domination and hegemony in the Middle East, most aptly revealed by its support of Zionism.

CV Mazin Qumsiyeh

Mazin Qumsiyeh has served on the faculties of Duke and Yale universities. His latest book is Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle. He is involved in many campaigns supporting Palestinian rights.

I didn't notice anything in this article about the discrimination of non-Muslims in Arab countries, about denouncing Palestinian terror, about the plight of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, about the overwhelming desire on the part of the Arab world desire to ethnically cleanse the Middle East of Jews.

Must have been an oversight, because, after all, the writer cares so much about human rights. I'm sure he's written other articles about Saudi apartheid or how the Lebanese treat Palestinian Arabs, and calling for economic boycotts against Yemen for expelling its Jews.

UPDATE: SoccerDad found that he was indeed an instructor at Duke - of genetics.

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The root cause

A senior Iranian official threatened that Tehran may forcibly prevent oil export via the Straits of Hormuz if the UN imposed economic sanctions due to Iran's nuclear program, an Iranian news Web site said on Monday.

This is the first time an Iranian official makes military threats in a public statement on Tehran's recent disagreements with the West.

I hope it happens.

It has now been over four years since 9/11. Analysts and politicians have been falling over themselves looking for the "root causes" of terror. The real, practical root cause is obvious but uncomfortable so people naturally veer away from admitting it.

The root cause is a combination of the fact that Islamism is a political ideology that wants nothing less than world domination, together with the fact that oil revenue gives the Islamists the power to actually influence world events.

The fact that Islamism is a political movement makes people uncomfortable because it clothes itself as a religious movement, and no one wants to restrict religion. The fact that petrodollars fund terror makes people uncomfortable because any disruption of the flow of oil from the Gulf would cause worldwide economic chaos.

What we needed, immediately after 9/11, was an energy-independence Manhattan project. I hope it is not too late to start it.

The money to fund it should come from the massive defense budget. Putting only a few high-tech weapons projects on hold for a few years would pay for it without much effort, and eliminating our dependence on Arab oil is solidly a self-defense initiative.

If there were no oil revenues there would have been no Saddam, no Saudi madrassas, no al-Qaeda, no Iranian threat, no Hamas, no Hezbollah. Islam would just be a relatively harmless religion.

Since such a Manhattan project is not going to happen anytime soon without a major external event, I think that the world would be better off if Iran indeed stops the oil supply (or, as is feared, they end up contaminating the entire Gulf with radiation from an accident.) This would wake up the US quickly. More importantly, the free market would kick in, because alternate fuels would fast become economical.

It would hurt, no doubt. But in a few years we would be seeing clean and safe fuel sources emerge, reducing pollution, helping the environment and incidentally saving the world from Islamic terror - if it is not too late.

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Reviews! I feel so important!

At least three blogs have reviewed the blogs nominated for Best Design in the JIB awards, and while there is a snowball's chance in hell that this blog would win anything it is still nice to be reviewed. Luckily, most reviews aren't vicious.

Ezzie started off during the first round with this:

ElderofZiyon's header is okay, though I don't like the fade all the way to white. I also am not a fan of pure white backgrounds, though it actually looks decent on his blog. Fonts and font colors are good, links are well organized. The message board is a nice addition, though appearance-wise it's kind of ugly.

In response, I realized that my tagboard colors were indeed ugly and changed them to match the blog colors.

After I miraculously made it to the finals, I got an extensive review from Chaim of Life of Rubin:

This is a site I do check out from time to time. It’s a good site, and I’m a fan. As far as design goes, this is another “simplistic” look. The white content color is always a good choice. This enables people to read the actual posts without any squinting or eyes glare afterwards. I’m sorry, but if you have a blog with a black color content background, I don’t usally read your blog at your site. If it’s a blog that I like, I read it through blogines. The white on black just kills my eyes.

I like the header, good choice of image, but I can’t tell if you left some of those blogger html DIV headers there because you wanted to or because your not sure how to delete them. If it’s the latter contact me, I’ll help you, since my own blog is a reworked version of that blogger template.

I like the sidebar, it has a very good source of information and all the links are divided up into through categories. I’m not a fan of the embedded chat. It slows down loading time, and honestly who really uses them that often. The other thing I don’t like is the block quote box/form used. For a blog that quotes often from other articles etc, it should have a less noticeable background. It sticks out at you too much, it’s the first thing you notice when you load the page. Overall, I like the design, it pulls off simple but neat at the same time.

I appreciate the thoroughness of the review!

To address the points made:

• I like the dividing lines even though they are the default Blogger ones. I think I even used them in places beyond the default, if I recall correctly.
• I always hope that people would use the tagboard more. I worked hard to find one that looks decent and doesn't cause pop-up ads. (I used to have a much busier sidebar, along with scrolling news, but the pop-ups and CPU utilization became crazy. But I want to keep the tagboard. Its main problem is that it cannot handle apostrophes.)
• I actually like the background color for the quote boxes. It matches the template well. I've noticed on some browsers/monitors it is more noticeable than on others.
  
• I agree that white on black is hard to read, but I am pretty sure it is how teenagers ensure that their parents aren't reading their blogs.
  

But thanks again for the kind words!

Jewlicious, which is an extremely well-designed blog itself, also weighed in:

The Elder has clearly done as much as can be done with a blogspot blog. The side links are good an chock full o’ links. The color scheme seems to be meant to reflect the color of the Kotel in the header while still maintaining that whole “this blog contains many serious and important ideas” look. Love the name too but how far can one really push a blogspot template?

Good question! I never thought of this blog as pushing the limits of Blogspot, and perhaps this review is an overanalysis, but it sure makes me feel "serious and important" to have people spend so much effort reviewing this.

SoccerDad weighs in:

It's a shame that Elder of Ziyon didn't get more support in other categories. He undertakes the important task of making sure that his readers learn from history. Much of what is happening now, has happened before. Still I've always loved the design of his blog.

Which makes me feel guiltyfor not having done any Palestine Post-ings for a while.

I appreciate all the kind words!

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