Arab democracy is exposing the blind spot of US policy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1715957,00.html
The resurgent Palestinian rejectionism of Hamas can only be halted by
checking the persistent rejectionism of Israel
David Hirst
Thursday February 23, 2006
The Guardian
So, with Hamas taking control of the Palestinian Authority and its
institutions, the destiny of the Palestinian people is once more in the
hands of a party that believes in the dissolution of the Israeli state
and in violence as a way of achieving it. Israeli, American and in good
measure European governments remain appalled and perplexed at this
political earthquake. Indeed the Israelis, who are now applying the
first of their economic sanctions, and Americans - planning the same -
hardly disguise their ambition to subvert it. This is despite the fact
that, retrogressive though it may have been, it has impeccable
democratic credentials. It comes, as Ghassan Charbel put it in the
pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat, "from inside the logic of the new world
order". That is to say, from the very democratisation that is the
central mission of the Bush presidency, from its "war on terror" and
all those sicknesses, such as despotism and religious extremism, which
nurture it. This democratisation is also meant to contribute mightily
to that other strategic US purpose, Arab- Israeli peace, because
democratic states are said to automatically make good neighbours of
other democratic states.
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