From CNN:
The Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which has said it favors the destruction of Israel, won an apparent victory in Palestinian legislative elections, officials said Thursday, reshaping the political landscape of the Middle East.
“We have lost the elections; Hamas has won,” said Saeb Erakat, a Palestinian lawmaker with the ruling Fatah Party. He said Fatah, which has held power since the creation of the Palestinian Authority, will now be the opposition.
During a White House news conference Thursday, President Bush—whose Middle East policy includes support for emerging democracies—said he would not deal with Hamas unless it renounced terrorism.
“We don’t have a government yet, so you’re asking me to speculate on what the government will look like,” Bush told reporters. “I have made it very clear, however, that a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal.”
“I don’t see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform.”
[My emphasis]
Man. The Palestinians must really like Benjamin Netanyahu to agitate so impressively for his imminent electoral victory. And they clearly are not ready for democracy—which, as has been noted a million times—goes beyond the easy mechanical process of elections. “Palestine”—for all the recent (canny) good will shown it by Ariel Sharon’s Israeli government and the deference of the Bush administration—was not prepared for any such shift in ruling philosophy. They are a culture raised primarily on hate (via schools and TV) and a sense of deferred entitlement, all of which has been consistently reinforced by an international press hostile to Israel, and by a leftist academic ethos that for years has excused the barbarism, corruption, and obvious (and directed) scapegoating of the Jewish state under the guise that victim politics and the absense of whatever pet utopian theory of workable social and geopolitical organization they’ve in their minds knitted together from the various fraying strands of hardcore fundamentalist religion, soft marxism, grievance marketing, and a particularly pernicious brand of identity politics has yet to swaddle the region in a magic blanket of peace and rapprochement.
The best that can come of this electoral disaster, from the perspective of the US and Israel, is that Hamas is forced by Israeli hardliners, a determined US President, and Palestinians truly committed to the idea of statehood and coexistence with Israel, to approach the coming engagements in good faith and with the idea that stability between the two “countries” can be reached and maintained. Otherwise, the dream of a viable autonomous Palestinian “state” will almost certainly be doomed by an Israel no longer forced to act under the pretext of a hope for reconciliation (see the Hamas charter, for instance, here)
Which, given that one of the governments involved is dedicated, as a matter of organizational principle, to the eradication of the other, doesn’t exactly set things off on the right foot.
Writes David at Israelicool.com
The neo palestinian people have spoken. It is a resounding ‘yes’ to Israel’s destruction.
For my part, it’s like my Uncle Izzy always said: “Give a group of ‘occupied’ quasi-Joradanians an inch, they’ll ask for a foot; give them a foot, they’ll ask for a yard; give them a yard , and they’ll build a squalid refugee camp atop its poorly-planned, amateurishly-constructed infrastructure, then elect a vicious, anti-semitic terrorist group to “govern” the thing, even as they waste all of their international ‘aid’ monies on chic bandanas, bomb-making factories, and text books calling for the annihilation of the filthy filthy Jews pigs.”
Uncle Izzy. What a character that guy was.
(photo link courtesy Allah)
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See also, Dread Pundit Bluto, The Washington Note, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Stop the ACLU, Michelle Malkin, All Things Beautiful, Sister Toldjah, Don Singleton, The Uncooperative Blogger, The Political Pit Bull, Gribbit’s Word, and GOP Vixen, American Digest, Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred, Below the Beltway, Gateway Pundit, Outside the Beltway, Vital Perspective, Atlas Shrugs, Belmont Club, A Blog for All, The Moderate Voice, Publius Pundit, Memento Moron, Oxblog, Laurence Simon, Daimnation, Clive Davis, sisu, and PoliBlog.
And of course, LGF, Ace of Spades, Roger Simon, Balloon-Juice, Captain’s Quarters, Powerline, Jihadwatch, Austin Bay, Debbie Schlussel, and Link Mecca.
Big roundup from Pajamas Media here
And the UN—ever the arbiters of a lasting and universal world peace through paperclips and tailored suits—had this to say, through the office of its urbane, comfortably “provided for” Secretary General:
The Secretary-General telephoned President Mahmoud Abbas to congratulate him and the Palestinian people on the peaceful and orderly conduct of the legislative elections. He expressed his appreciation of the work of the Central Election Commission, which received assistance from the United Nations for the preparatory electoral work. The Secretary-General views these elections as an important step towards the achievement of a Palestinian State. He looks forward to the publication of the results of the elections over the coming days, and to discussing them with Quartet partners.
Ah. Well played, Mr. Annan. But Mr Holmes is not quite buying it, I’m afraid…
(UN h/t L Simon)
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update: BREAKING: Israeli government says it will not negotiate with Hamas leadership (via FOXNews)
I liked Cliff May’s comment over at the Corner that Hamas has now really stepped in it.
Arafat used to be able to say one thing in English as a “politician” or “diplomat” and another in Arabic as the defacto head of a terrorist organization.
Now, the terrorists are the politicians. The politicians are the terrorists. Any atack on Israel is an act of war (rather than a criminal act) and allows Israel, when it so chooses, to unleash the fury of its army against the Palestinian leadership.
TW – force; Damn that thing’s good.
If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the vast majority of Palestinians. They’re saying “Kill the Joooos!”
Here’s a question. What would happen if both Palestine and Israel were wiped off the map?
I’ll have better take on things when the Hamas leaders don’t have that klieg-light-effect-on-pupils-holy-crap-we-won stare going.
When you’re an outlaw organization you can say all kinds of shit. When you are a duly elected representative of a polity, you face an entirely different set of imperatives. Hamas finds itself exactly where Fatah was prior to Oslo, except Hamas has competition and Fatah didn’t.
It’s probably true that a majority of Palestinians would like to see Israel gone. But it’s also true that a majority of Palestinians want a state, and this desire is actually within the realm of possibility.
Kadima is going to be swept into office in Israel in March, and they are going to present the Palestinians with an interesting choice: either negotiate in good faith for a Palestinian state, or be stuck with the one that Israel leaves you. Sharon’s genius with the security barrier and the pullouts was to find a way around the status quo, depriving the Palestinians of a “peace process” to hold hostage. With Israel out of the territories, the Palestinians are also deprived of any claim of self defense which they had when Israel occupied them. Hamas being elected may turn out to be in the best interests of Israel if it results in Hamas having to reform to keep power instead of Israel having to kill them one rocket at a time.
Then again, I could be completely wrong.
yours/
peter.
Your Uncle Izzy was a master of the bon mot.
By the way, where’s Jimmy Carter to certify that this election was fair, or was he too busy campaigning for Hamas?
I had a friend who was a Palestinian Christian.
He abhorred Israel. I listened politely, countered with fact, he countered with experience. He was no friend of Muslims, but neither did he have any love for the Israelis. He was a good guy too, he worked with the Coalition to stand up Arabic speakers in Iraq and involved me when I got out of the Corps.
For a brief, shining moment I became agnostic on Israel…yeah, they’re dickheads but…until I came home and turned on CNN.
I became livid, so unimaginably angry at Israel. They had been bombing a neighborhood relentlessly for some 8 hours by that point.
“This is too much. What the fuck are these guys thinking?”
Then they showed the armored vehicle destroyed by a bomb. I sympathsized with them; I’m a veteran. Payback is a bitch.
“But it is still too much.”
And then they showed Palistinians grabbing the pieces of the soldiers, wrapping them up in rags and celebrating. The announcer said the Israelis would continue bombing that area until they got every piece of their soldiers back: The terrorists wanted to use the remains to bribe the Israelis to release prisoners.
I realized what was going on and I immediately wrote my Congressman.
I didn’t want the Israelis to run out of ammunition.
I’m sure the focus will be on education and health care now. I can almost see the new Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, which will be at the corner of Ghandi Avenue and Thoreau Drive.
Almost…
It’s hard not to get depressed by this, and hope that Yasser Arafat has a warm cozy spot in the ninth layer of hell to call home for the rest of eternity. More than anyone, he’s responsible for this mess. (Though he had lots of help from people all over who should have known better.)
If there are upsides, they are these:
1. It’s not clear that Hamas won primarily because Palestinians wanted Israel wiped off the map. The PA has been rife with corruption, with much of the benefits of foreign aid going to a few corrupt Fatah and PA officials. From the Palestinian in the Street interviews, it does seem like an awful lot of folks for this reason.
2. Hamas wasn’t expecting this, and will now have to figure out how to form a government with a platform that just isn’t a governing platform. If they refuse to change, they will not be able to deliver on any of their promises. Expect help from Israel? Try to get anywhere without the help. Expect help from Israel without renouncing violence against it? Good luck.
There goes the neighborhood. And all this “Hamas has screwed themselves by becoming an officially elected government, so now they’re obligated to play nice” bullshit is just that. Take a look at Iran and Ahmadinejad; what makes you think Hamas is going to approach a negotiating table when they’ve already got encouragement in the region? I say they’re all fucked.
Can we thank dubya for spreading democracy throughout the middle east? No. Because we don’t like this result.
How does that saying go?
“Be carefull what you wish for”
Good bye Palestine…….
Maybe it wasn’t taken that way but, my question really was serious. What would happen if both Israel and Palestine were gone?
Look, after the last 10 years of Fatah being in charge, would you vote to re-elect or to throw the bums out?
Thanks, actus.
For a moment there, we had almost forgotten that everything is Chimpy’s fault.
Your grasp of anything more complicated than a paddle-ball is yet to be seen.
Politics is hard. Politics in other countries is harder. Politics in the Middle East is obviously beyond your ability to analyze at a level other than a bullshit troll lob.
Shank,
The Iranians have oil billions to support them. The PA, not so much. Hamas is going to have trouble in the governance department in the absence of some kind of accommodation. Am I predicting an accommodation? No, but the room for maneuver here is kind of narrow and the options are dichotomous.
actus, you dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden, elections do not a democracy make.
The blogfather said it best: Democracy is not an event, it’s a process.
Only the things that work out. Like Lebanon.
Peter Jackson wrote:
It’s probably true that a majority of Palestinians would like to see Israel gone. But it’s also true that a majority of Palestinians want a state, and this desire is actually within the realm of possibility.
Was it Golda Mier who said that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity?
Yes, the Palestinians want a state: one that occupies the space currently occupied by Israel! And yes, the Palestinians want peace. But what they really want is victory!
They know exactly how Hamas stands on the question of a negotiated peace with Israel, because Hamas has been very honest about that . . . and the Palestinians, in an open and apparently fair, democratic election chose to support the position articulated by Hamas.
There cannot be any reasonable doubt about the intentions of the Palestinian people any longer.
One word: oil. Hamas is not going to be able to buy the complacency of the Palestinians in the same way that Iran has been able to, a task that even with their oil, is getting harder and harder.
The Palestinians will demand economic results, and going to war against Israel ain’t gonna to bring anything more than a whole lot of dead Palestinians. That might work for Hamas for a few months, but folks do have a habit of getting tired of dying for no reason.
Silver linings? This is Hamas’ last chance to become respectable. Though, honestly, and sadly, I don’t see them succeeding.
*you dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden*
Shrek reference ? Actus = Donkey ?
Of course Carter was there, blessing the result: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinian_election_carter_1
As if we didn’t know.
Silver lining for anti-state Jews (and there’s, like, eight of us now, so look out): we can soon add one more redundant evidentiary entry in our “democracy=dead Jews (eventually)” cut-n-paste argument file.
That’s always fun.
Yep, that was a Shrek reference (and a veiled way of calling actus an ass).
Plus, I’ve always wanted to slip that into a discussion (and mean it) and actus was kind enough to provide me the opportunity.
And the countdown to the U.N. condemnation of Israel begins. . .nnnnow!
Actus,
Did you ever find out whether the folks at KOS and DU think the PA is friendly with terrorists?
Well, as far as the democracy thing goes, this is one that is very much a wait-and-see. Essentially, Hamas winning is not a good thing – but it may well be that this does co-opt them or results in a series of actions culminating with an Israeli smackdown. The fact, however, that this is occurring suggests a certain amount of mutability in this and future Palestinian governments. The open question is how many times they’re going to beat their head against the wall before they either push too far, or learn to quit pushing. So by that standard, the election is good as it does break the stasis and deadlock.
A good model to think of is the elections in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Wall. They didn’t elect good leaders right off the bat, but it allowed formation of a civil society over time.
Expect the same thing throughout the democratizing middle east.
Found elswhere…
“No one can make any excuses for the Palestinians now that they’ve elected a bunch of terrorists to lead them. They will be just as responsible for any future terrorist acts as their democraticly elected terrorist leaders. ”
..all said without any apparent sense of irony…..
There you have it, folks! You heard it here first. actus hath spoken, and McChimpy will be impeached on the morrow for crimes against humanity.
Because “we” don’t like this result.
Actually, actus, I read the general consensus on this thread as that “we” don’t like Hamas, and the results are as yet unknown.
Or are you using the Imperial “We”, and forgot to capitalize?
Because there is no irony…..unless you refer to a trollish comment posted by a self-proclaimed malignant growth.
Netanyahu? After this, the Israelis will probably make Dick Cheney their next Prime Minister.
Go to the neo-con source.
Cheney a neo-con?
A neo-conservative is a former liberal. I don’t think that’s true of Mr. Cheney.
Tapeworms.
I thought a neocon was a Jewish ex-liberal.
I don’t really disagree with anything you say here, but now that they’ve been elected it no longer matters what Hamas wants, it matters what Palestinians as a whole want.
First, it’s not like Fatah was blown out of the water. And currently it’s Fatah that holds sway within the Palestinian bureaucracy, the actual levers of power. Most of the polls I see of Palestinians, around half usually say they want to see the destruction of Israel when asked while three fourths typically poll in favor of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
We’ve seen this all before. Arafat and the PLO took the same position as Hamas does now, right up to the point they were transformed from a renegade group in Tunisia into the “Palestinian Authority.” Then, with a dog in the hunt, they moderated. Hamas will endure the same pressures except worse. They have a domestic competitor in the form of Fatah, and Israel’s disengagement has allowed them to extricate themselves from a stalemate that allowed extremists like Hamas to bang the victory drum. Now every day Hamas refuses to renounce their goal of Israel’s destruction and negotiate a final status is another day Israel gets to build its fence and unilaterally dictate what that final status (and the map of Palestine) will be.
yours/
peter.
Mr. Jackson was kind enough to respond to my point.
I don’t really disagree with anything you say here, but now that they’ve been elected it no longer matters what Hamas wants, it matters what Palestinians as a whole want.
How else are we to interpret what the Palestinians as a whole want other than to look at the people for whom they have cast their votes?
Most of the polls I see of Palestinians, around half usually say they want to see the destruction of Israel when asked while three fourths typically poll in favor of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
Well, we now have the opinions of 125% of the Palestinian people!
Perhaps you meant to express that a bit differently. But in any representative democratic system, the will of the people is expressed in the policies of the people elected. ABC News had a brief feature this evening on one of the newly elected Hamas representatives, the brave mother who has given three of her six sons in martyrdom to the cause of jihad for the Palestinian Waqf.
Our friends on the left, of course, will expect the Israelis to negotiate in good faith with the people who have pledged to destroy them.
Charlie from Colorado said:
I thought a neocon was a Jewish ex-liberal.
Well, I agree with most of their positions, but I’ve never been a liberal, and I’nm a cradle (and continuing) Catholic.
Nuh-uh, a neocon is like a neonazi, only like, sneakier and richer.
1. Thanks for your account, Vercingetorix. Very edifying.
2. According to JPost, Hamas rules out talks with Israel. Can we get a UN resolution condemning the Palestinian Authority now?
3. Elections a democracy doth not make. Democracy also includes such elements as civil liberties, civil rights, minority rights, the rule of law, and due process (to name but a few elements). Any state without these elements – regardless how many elections it holds – is not a democracy.
Alternatively, 25% of the population really don’t know what they want, or were jerking the pollster around.
But, hey, maybe they are learning to vote the graveyard!!
Paradise. Absentee, of course.
Hmmmm… one gathers the virgins are disenfranchised. Perhaps what’s needed is a Virgin Suffrage movement.
Regards,
Ric
The genius of democracy is that it empowers the will of the people. If they want peace, they can truly live in peace.
But if they want war, they can have it. And it will continue until the Palistinians no longer want it.
An act of war indeed, and if citizens of America and Israel are spared no mercy, the Palistinians might find themselves in the middle of their dream, staring into the sea, but with the Israelis behind them, pushing them forward.
Well, we can all hope, right?
The counting up of actions. Not just votes. I’m familiar with my hippie-talk lets all get into the streets and protest.
Can’t wait till we start counting up the actions of Hamas, of the rest of hte middle east.
Actus, you haven’t answered my question. Do your fellow travellers on the left feel that the Palestinian Authority has terrorists in it?
“Yes, the Palestinians want a state: one that occupies the space currently occupied by Israel! And yes, the Palestinians want peace. But what they really want is victory!”
I have used that theory from time to time, and I think this election has refuted it.
My favorite theory of the Palestinians is now that they want to die, and they are going to force Israel to accommodate them.
Mr Schwartz suggested that this vote was a call for “suicide by cop.”
I’m trying to think of a good argument to refute his point; maybe I’ll have something by next Thursday.
The problem with your counting actus is you only see the negative numbers. You only see the bombs in Iraq, not the schools being built and the people creating jobs and trying to build a normal life. You only see the corruption in Palestine and not the people cowering amid the rubble wishing it would all just stop and they could go into Israel peacefully and get a job. Like most of the anti-war left you are so eaten up with Hate and Envy you have lost the ability to see positive actions or even think positive thoughts. Progressive my ass.
Yesterday I read somewhere that some percentage of the Palestinian vote was considered to be a protest vote against the corruption in Fatah – can’t remember where, and I don’t think there was an estimate of how much of the vote was so considered. But wouldn’t it be ironic if the protest votes were what put Hamas over the top, and all those people who did it were like Perot protest voters back in the day – “Holy crow, what did we do?”
TW: It is indeed a quandary. Praying my little rosary beads off for peace in the Middle East, as usual.
See what I mean?
By the time the cloud of nuclear fallout that is the remains of Iran, Israel, and Palestine travels far enough from the middle east that it darkens American shores, it’ll hopefully be weak enough that we won’t suffer any consequences.
TW: time. As in, what time do the betting pools open on who fires the first rocket?
Shank:
Doesn’t look like the odds are posted yet, but here’s my calc –
First launch (Nuclear)
Iran (MRBM) – 5/2, even
Israel (SLCM) – even
Pick ‘em.
Uh, could we like temporarily relocate Iraq someplace else until this all blows over?
Stuck in middle. Sad.
“Do your fellow travellers on the left feel that the Palestinian Authority has terrorists in it?
I have no idea what my fellow travellers feel. Isn’t one of their frontmen in jail in Israel for killing kids? Does that count?
“You only see the corruption in Palestine and not the people cowering amid the rubble wishing it would all just stop and they could go into Israel peacefully and get a job. “
I see those people. Those are the people I previously commented about when I said the arab world needs liberalism and feminism to stamp out its religious hatred, violations of civil liberties, and other things that get in the way of the enlightenment.
I take it that means you aren’t willing to ask?
Who am I supposed to ask? At the next ‘fellow travellers’ meeting? Anonymously on the comments section of a blog, but leftist? You can’t do that?
So much for democracy in the Middle East.
Lemme see, hmmm
(1) Iran, a democratically elected nut-job running amuck; soon to have a nuclear weapon.
(2) Palestine, a democratically elected group of nut-jobs intent on destroying Israel
(3) Egypt, the election of a large number of the Muslim Brotherhood; folks not exactly in favor of democracy.
Poor Neocons–things just never turn out their way.
***
Definition of democracy in the Middle East: One man, one vote, one time….
Yep goss, sounds like it’s time to just go back to the murderous dictators. Hey, at least mass graves makes bodies a little easier to find. Besides, with dictators, everything is just so damn predictable. Who can beat that!!
Or one demonstration in lebanon. If its not hizbollah, but instead a ‘cedar revolution.’
I could, I suppose. I’m just curious as to why you won’t.
Is it just me, or have our pet trolls completely lost the ability to communicate in complete, coherent statements.
college-> might be a solution, might be the cause
Carl,
I have to give you credit. You have argued quite vehemently in favor of facism. That sort of make you a supporter of faicsm doesn’t it…at least when it applies to brown people anyway. Congratulations.
They’ve certainly become enamored of facists as well.
60’s Democrats: “Make love, not war.”
00’s Democrats: “Give ‘em nukes and let Allah & Yahweh sort ‘em out.”
That’s a pretty progressive stance, alright.
00’s Democrats: Dictatorship = population control = way too many of those “brown people”
So you’re curious as to why I don’t go to left leaning blogs and anonymously ask in the comments whether people believe there are terrorists in the palestinean authority? I guess because I already know the answer: yes. There are.
Wow. Talk about revisionism. Who was making war during the 60’s?
Actus, I’m not critising your judgement regarding the Palestinians. You’re right. However, I can’t help thinking you don’t want to hear the answer you’de get if you asked a question regarding terrorisim and the Palestininas at Kos or at DU, or for that matter, at The Guardian. Still, the fact that you recognize what so many on the left refuse to see shows you may not be a lost cause.
Mr Goss wrote:
Well, I guess that we could support the maintenance of the status quo ante, one of ruthless dictators. Perhaps you see that as a better thing.