Rubbish
JINSA is a strong believer in consensual government in the Arab/Muslim world. We supported the free elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and encourage conditions that will permit free elections elsewhere – readers know what they are. When terrorists call themselves a “political party,” and institutions dedicated to the eradication of a member state of the UN are on the ballot, calling the result an “election” is an abuse of the word and the government of the United States should not sanction the perversion of a treasured institution.
JINSA is a strong believer in consensual government in the Arab/Muslim world. We supported the free elections in Iraq and Afghanistan, and encourage conditions that will permit free elections elsewhere – readers know what they are. When terrorists call themselves a “political party,” and institutions dedicated to the eradication of a member state of the UN are on the ballot, calling the result an “election” is an abuse of the word and the government of the United States should not sanction the perversion of a treasured institution. We therefore read with alarm the rubbish below from a momentarily nameless U.S. official:
Holding free and fair Palestinian Legislative Council elections on January 25 represents a key step in the process of building a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state. The Quartet has previously stated its view that armed groups have no place in the democratic process. It remains the view of the United States that there should be no place in the political process for groups or individuals who refuse to renounce terror and violence, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and disarm.
Development of a Palestinian democracy based on tolerance and liberty is a key element of the Roadmap. To participate in a peace process of Israelis and Palestinians, the Palestinian partner must at least accept Israel’s right to exist. To implement agreements on movement and access for the Palestinian territories, the Palestinian partner must be committed to preventing violence. In short, the Palestinian partner must be committed to peaceful development.
As President Abbas has said, democratic elections can be the prelude to laws and policies embracing peace, excluding the advocates of terror and violence and implementing Roadmap obligations to dismantle the infrastructure of terror.
“Free and fair” have nothing to do with this fraud. Armed anarchy reigns in Gaza and not a single normal precondition for consensual elections exists there. For starters, if “armed groups have no place in the democratic process” why are two of them on the ballot?
Most distressing is the acceptance by an American government official of Abu Mazen’s “belief” that “elections can be the prelude to laws and policies embracing peace…” No they aren’t and no they can’t be. And since when does the U.S. government accept Abu Mazen, a semi-reformed terrorist and non-reformed Holocaust denier, as a political philosopher whose views can form the basis of democratic policy making?
A few years ago, maybe a political lifetime ago, President Bush read Natan Sharansky’s A Case for Democracy. He talked, as Sharansky wrote, about the role of morality and the rule of law in democratic evolution, or democratic revolution. We understood that those principles would be the underpinning of American policy toward countries attempting to move from dictatorship – whether secular or religious, left or right – to a normative state where democracy could flourish.
What are we supposed to understand now?
Oh, we didn’t name the official. Can you?