Canada Doesn't Like The Outcome of The Palestinian Election - Undermining Democracy

It's very different to 'get the IRA involved' as some representatives in an established government vs. having a terrorist organiztion control the gov and funds.

What they'll have is an awesome amount of money to achieve their stated goal of destroying another country.

As for leverage, they're making it very clear at the moment that funding will provide absolutely no leverage. They have not even blinked at losing nearly $1B/yr.


And shall we...let al Qaeda run a country and fund it with our money so that they will suddenly change their ways?

IIRC, polls show that most Palestinians are pro-suicide bombing. I do not think your point is valid.

 

It is. You're assuming Palestinian territory has had an established government that has a history of peaceful transitions of power.

There's the possibility of corruption in any government, especially one as young as this one. That government would still be accountable for the funds we're giving them and the authority afforded to the government by the world body and Israel. As a result, "state sponsored" terrorism can be considered an act of war.

If that's their end game, Israel would have the ability to declare an official war and flatten the government and their people. The Palestinians would no longer be innocent victims.

I just believe it's easier to live without that money if you never had it than if you once had it. The more years that have that extra funding, the more their people will complain about the lack of funds because of their government's stupidity.

If Afghanis actually elected al Qaeda, we might've fought a longer war and taken more demoralizing measures break their people into never doing that again.

The Palestinians haven't had land or a government of their own. Most are still wrapped up in the war for their freedom.

Give them democracy. Give them freedom. Then we'll see if they're as blood-thirsty as your quote sounds.

Even if the idea fails, the war they spark will be upon their people. Personally, I'm getting tired of reading some random ass Muslim fanatic talking about the suffering and oppression of Palastine.

But if it works, the added prosperity would give their people something tangible to lose. You wouldn't support bombings around your neighborhood if you had a home worth keeping.

 

You deny that the Nazis came to power democratically in Germany? They were democratically elected and had the overwhelming support of the German populace.

While not wars they were most definately acts of aggressions committed by one democracy on another democratic government.

I mispoke regarding overthrow the whole Indian government. In the 70's the CIA worked on a plan called Project Bhumaputra that was designed to split some of the norther Indian States off form India.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2122/stories/20041105004903000.htm

Thank you come again.

 

thats what you get when you get arafat essentially on house arrest for years and kill fatah. incidentally encouraging hamas in the 80s dosen't help either. you can't control the voting. even though US did pressure fatah into changing the rules given the creation of a prime minister. which ironically helps hamas too.

not really. no ones has to give them cash. most of it will be spent on actual humanitarian stuff. plus you can't ask them to provide security when you dont give them enough money to pay their people. having the government go under will be catastrophic. so would having them no choice but to be completely iran's puppet.

EU can easily send monitors to ensure that the cash is being used properly and for checks. we can have stringent accounting.

also i think they've written ample editorials in western papers stating their case for why the funding shouldn't be cut. of course they aren't willing to recognize israel without similar recognition of a palestinian state. you can't possibly ask a hardline party to recognize the occupation without being recognized. thats absurd.

hamas isn't al qaida. and you know it.

i'd love to see the specific wording of the poll question.

 

No I'm pointing out that its hypocritical to not recognize Hamas as the duly elected government, recognition doesn't mean money necessarily, when GW Bush is on record as stating that the US will support democracies even if they don't agree with them.

Its not Bush's intellect its his words as the President, and thus the official voice, of the US.

 

No, that's what you get when you have rampant corruption in the Fatah gov. Sorry you cannot blame that on everyone else too.

It's not even an issue. If they cannot even denounce suicide bombing babies, then no one will give them money to make more and bigger bombs. If they become Iran's puppet, so be it. But it will be decades longer if ever before they ever have a nation of their own if all they have is Iran's support.

I assume that you avoided mentioning the UN for a reason?

From what I understand, humanitarian aid will continue but most certainly the economy will still suffer.

Has anyone a case where 'accounting' controls were effective? Pipe dream.

What are you talking about?? That's not hamas' stated and historical position. They don't just want 'recognition' of Palestine, they want Israel.

You cannot possibly ask the world to support a government that does not want to negotiate for peace and has sworn to destroy a country. THAT'S absurd.

Oh, and editorials? Is there any topic, ever, where there were not editorials arguing both sides of a debate? There were a lot of pre-WWII editorials in Britain and the US about how wonderful Nazi Germany was.

It's a terrorist organization that intentionally targets innocent civilians. I would expect that you could identify trivial differences...

Google.

 

actually we can blame a lot of people. the US pressured fatah into creating the prime minister position to lessen the powers of arafat. thus creating the possibility of hamas taking over in the parliament and actually have significant power.

secondly your right. fatah was incredibly corrupt. so why punish the palestinians for choosing to vote against corruption?

i dont disagree. but i think theres something to be said for being pragmatic.

its mostly the EU's money so they should be the ones to hold the palestinians to account. but im more than happy with the UN. i'd love for the UN to have more of a role in every international situation.

hopefully. but its also the hundreds of thousands of people that are on the PA payroll. them not getting money will have cause a huge humanitarian problem. plus the taxes that israel collects on the PA's behalf and is refusing to pay is a violation of international law. they are occupiers and as such have a legal obligation to provide basic needs for the occupied. they do this by writing the check. if they refuse to do so they are going against international law. and since we're oh so absolutist in our morality (given your all terrorist organizations are the exact same idea) why aren't all violations of international law the same as well?

the corporate world for the most part.

they have said recently that they will respect the general terms of the peace agreements. whereas sharon and company have repeatedly violated them.

you cannot possibly push for democracy and free and fair elections when a relatively moderate (fatah in terms of the palestinian spectrum) party was in power and than b**** about the results of the election and intern hurt the people who voted against corruption.

im simply saying that the lack of money has bothered hamas and they have taken a moderate position from what their stance has been in the past. and take bush's comments yesterday about putin at the freedom house event for example. saying that he believes its better to talk thru backchannels so one can have meaningful conversations instead of publically scold and hence push away putin...why isn't that logic applied here?

so are ETA and IRA. and look how they have been resolved. movements for national liberation even if they are terroristic are different. and to not realize that is having your head in the sand.

i hear they are about to offer some 5 million stocks worth 2 billion perhaps to buy up facebook to rival fox's myspace purchase?

 

Democratic on a "micro" level but not democratic on a "macro" level. Another characteristic of demoncracies is that they respect other democracies. The will of the people in one country can't simply crush the will of the people in another country. That isn't very democratic ...globally speaking.

I never said Hamas simply wants to "start a war." They want more.

Starting a war over who will control the land known as Texas is one thing. But starting a war with the stated objective of completely wiping Mexico off the map (and over religious differences to boot) is completely a different matter.

We didn't invade another democracy.

 

The palastinians are like a bum on the street, if you give them money, they will simply go out and buy alcohol and continue to hurt themselves. In Hamas case, they will simply enrich themselves at the expense of their people...see Arafat for the latest example.

I would give aid, IE build schools, food etc...but I would not give cash.

DD

 

i've always been of the opinion that on a personal level your obligation is to pay the bum on the street regardless of what your you assume his intent to do with the money is. however on a macro level i agree we should set stringent requirements as to how the money is used.

however firstly hamas doesn't enrich itself. thats well established. sorry if you meant fatah.

secondly there are justifications behind arafat's money. for the most part during the initial PLO stage you couldn't really set up an account under the government of palestine now could you? so you were basically forced to use individuals.

overall i agree but theres also the slight problem of paying for the PA payroll.

 

the west only supports "democracies" that they like or agree with, but if you're in the developing world and a govt comes to power democratically that the us doesnt agree with, you will be in the same position as iran, venezuela, and bolivia....the us actually has a lot of contempt for democracy if u look at the facts

 

Yes, shockingly we aren't particulary fond of governments that run counter to our interests, and are fond of those who support our interests. We would prefer that all countries were democracies that supported the interests of the US. If we can only have one of those things, we will usually take the non-democracy that supports our interests. Non-democracies that run counter to our interests are the ones we like the least: see N. Korea, Iraq, Iran.

 

this has been going on for years and years, funny how now notion of terrorism has brought the ability to now state your intentions out in the open.

 

I think it's well known that states are self-interested actors, but there is a difference between opposing a state politically because their policies run counter to your interests and conducting aggression, subversion, and hostile actions, which is what the US is doing and which is also illegal under international law....Also, i know people here arent experts on middle eastern politics, but many consider iran a democracy, now before you start laughing, they have legitimate elections with high degrees of contestation and participation for all their leadership positions even the so-called "mullahs" are elected, which is more than i can say for other countries in the region that are sponsored by the US and receive billions of dollars in us aid like egypt

 

Buchanan weighs in...

The Persecution of the Palestinians

by Patrick J. Buchanan

http://amconmag.com/2006/2006_06_05/buchanan.html

“Why do they hate us?” So stunned Americans asked, after 9/11, when we learned that across the Arab world, many were saying, “The Americans had it coming.”

For a textbook example of why we are hated, consider Gaza and the West Bank. There, a brutal Israeli/U.S.-led cutoff in aid has been imposed on the Palestinians for voting the wrong way in a free election.

Immediately after Hamas’s victory, Israel halted the $55 million a month the Palestinian Authority received as its share of tax and customs revenue. Israel demanded Europe and the U.S. also end all aid to the PA until Hamas renounces terror, recognizes Israel, and disarms.

President Bush, though he was conducting a worldwide crusade for democracy and had urged that the Palestinian elections be held and Hamas participate, obediently complied. For months now, U.S. and European aid to the PA, half its budget, has been halted.

The early returns are in. “Surgeons at Gaza’s biggest hospital,” says the Financial Times, “have suspended non-essential surgery for lack of sutures, laboratory kits and anesthetics.” Environmental protection agency workers have no money for petrol to monitor sewage and industrial waste entering the water supply. Some 150,000 civil servants, 60,000 of them armed security personnel, have gone unpaid for months.

Supermarkets have to extend credit to customers who have no money for food. The Washington Post relates an incident that gives a flavor of what is happening.

“In Gaza’s gold market Monday, Nahed al-Zayim stared at the wedding ring her husband, a Palestinian police officer, gave her six years ago. She had placed it on a glass counter offering it for sale, joining several other wives of public employees who had not been paid in two months.

“Her head covered by a black veil, Zayim said she needed the proceeds from her ring to buy diapers and milk supplements for her three children, including Hazem, 4, who tugged at her tunic in the afternoon bustle. ‘This is the last one, we have no more,’ Zayim, 28, said of her ring.”

Woodrow Wilson called sanctions “the silent, deadly remedy.” Its victims are always the sick, the elderly, the women, and the children.

In March, the World Bank predicted the aid cutoff would lead to a 30 percent fall in average personal incomes among the Palestinians. The bank now considers that prediction “too rosy” and expects “the worst year in the West Bank and Gaza’s recent dismal economic history.”

Already, violent clashes have broken out between Hamas and Fatah. There is a danger of collapse of the Palestinian Authority, chaos, and a need for the Israeli army to intervene anew to restore order. Finally, May 9, under European pressure, the U.S. relented and a trickle of aid began to flow.

Query: who, besides al-Qaeda and recruiters of suicide bombers, can conceivably benefit from persecuting the Palestinian people like this? Does President Bush or Condi Rice think the Palestinians will respect an America that did this to their children, after we urged this election, called for Hamas to participate, and preached our devotion to democracy?

“The aid cut-off appears to be increasing anti-U.S. sentiment here,” writes the Post’s Scott Wilson, quoting 33-year-old pharmacist Mustafa Hasoona: “The problem is the West, not us. If they don’t respect democracy, they shouldn’t call for it. We are with this government we elected. I voted for it.”

According to the Financial Times, Hamas is winning converts for refusing to buckle. Said Khalil Abu Leila, a Hamas leader, “They have misunderstood the Arab mentality. As long as the pressure increases on Hamas, the more popular it will become.”

The White House says we don’t negotiate with terrorists. But when we had to, we did. FDR and Truman summited with Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam. Nixon met with Mao in Beijing. Kissinger negotiated with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese at Paris. Bush I allied with Assad in the Gulf War. Clinton had Arafat to the White House too many times to count.

Rabin and Peres shared a Nobel Prize with Arafat. Netanyahu gave him Hebron. Barak offered him 95 percent of the West Bank.

Bush’s agents negotiated with the architect of the Lockerbie massacre to persuade Colonel Khaddafi to give up his WMD. In 2004, Bush’s men called it a victory for Bush diplomacy. Khaddafi’s regime had been at the top of the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror.

The purpose of U.S.-Israeli policy today is to punish the Palestinians for how they voted and to force Hamas to yield or to collapse its government. How does such a policy win hearts and minds for America?

Terrorism has been described as waging war on innocents to break their political leaders. Is that not a fair description of what we are doing to the Palestinians? No wonder they hate us.

 

We aren't enacting sanctions against the Palestinians, we are just not giving them money. Where is the law that says we are responsible for funding the government of the Palestinians. Beyond that, all that we are asking in return for resuming aid payments is that Hamas act like a legitimate government and renounce it's terrorist ways, not that they give us their resources or let us build bases on their land or any other substantive concession. I for one am perfectly happy to not have American tax dollars sent to terrorist organizations, and I am saddend to read that we have decided to give in to Hamas and resume payments.

 

Pat Buchanan is an anti-semite. Tiger, I have respected some of your posts, but now that you are unmasked as an anti-semite, or at least an anti-semite lover, I might have to put you on ignore.

Now, stupidmoniker, shows the type of moral clarity that is really American.

Tiger, maybe you should go back to where you or you ancestors, no matter how far back, are from.

Don't think I will for a moment believe I will believe you are Native "American." So don't try that. Besides those injuns weren't really Americans since it was before 1776.

 

This new hyper-sarcastic bizarro glynch is far more entertaining than the old one.

 

Yes, he is an anti-Semite and anti-immigrants, etc. I disagree with the fact that the U.S. somehow has to fund the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter. How does that make me an anti-Semite, again? It's an article from a far-right personality, no different than posting an article from Ann Coulter or Al Franken or Rush Limbaugh...WTH are you talking about, glynch?

LMAO! OK, not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but that was funny!

 

I think the best line of the article is this:

<I>President Bush, though he was conducting a worldwide crusade for democracy and had urged that the Palestinian elections be held and Hamas participate, obediently complied. For months now, U.S. and European aid to the PA, half its budget, has been halted.</I>

Ignoring the "obediently complied" aspect, we basically penalized the Palestinian people for voting the wrong way. I agree with what you're saying in principle - but the reality is that, while we're trying to penalize Hamas, the only people being hurt by this are the Palestinian people. The idea being that the move is counterproductive, not that it is against any law to do so.