Cutting off Hamas; bad decisions have consequences
Tuesday, 30 May 2006 | 182 readers so far
The Christian Science Monitor is reporting on the U.S. ending years of Gaza civic work. The article is clearly biased toward the conclusion that cutting off funding after Palestinians democratically elected Hamas is a bad idea.
“It’s not just a frustration - the money can be replaced. With the help of American money, we were proud to help develop the concept of democracy in Palestine so that elections could take place and could be fair and free,” Mr. Arafeh says.
“I understand the political complications, but democracy is democracy. Maybe it happens I am one of those who is against Hamas, but it’s our government now and we have to accept it. With the American and European attitude, we feel as if someone is deciding on our behalf who our government should be, so why have democracy? The first ones not to respect the outcome of our elections are the Americans and the Europeans.
I am in complete disagreement. First of all, I personally don’t believe in democracy. I believe in a minarchist representative republic, not mob rule. I don’t think anyone should be born with the right to vote. I think they should have to earn it.
Furthermore, I think that people who make bad decisions should understand that bad decisions almost always have bad consequences. This applies whether you live in Gaza or downtown Washington, D.C. Palestinians elected a terrorist organization to represent them. It should be of little surprise then, that other world governments do not want to send any more funds. I haven’t seen much in the news to make me think the Palestinians deserved U.S. taxpayer help prior to electing Hamas to office either.
Will Palestinians learn anything from their bad decision? That depends whether or not the rest of the world stands firm in the decision to cut off the flow of aid.
The only thing I am fairly certain of is that Palestine will remain a troublesome pimple of the face of the world until they can collectively act like adults. When Palestinians decide that they are willing to live peacefully next to Isrealis, then maybe their homeland will become something other than parasitic wellspring of corruption, fanaticism and inexhaustible turmoil.
1 May 30th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
SK says:
“The only thing I am fairly certain of is that Palestine will remain a troublesome pimple of the face of the world until they can collectively act like adults.”
I couldn’t agree with you more, except I usually place the pimple in a different location:)
2 May 30th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Dan Cameron Rodill says:
Trevor, thanks for the comment at gringoman.com, which prompted the following (not directly related to Hamas post. First yours, then mine.)
The new color schemes is looking good, but your writing may be a bit high-falutin’ for some.
Posted by: Trevor | May 30, 2006 at 06:46 AM
Trevor,
You may have a point, especially since you came in during a recent exchange with the lawyerly Phillip Wedeen, a Canadian who for years has been blasting everything American that is to the right of Michael Moore, or even Mother Sheehan in a Che Guevara tee-shirt. As a naturalized U.S. citizen from Canada, now serving honorably in Baghdad, you may have less “high-falutin’” terms for Wedeen than “weenie” and “Cana-kook” as he relentlessly (1) rants about American “racists” and “fascists” and “imperialists” and “war-mongers” (2) claims that the brave young Iraqi blogger Omar, known world-wide,(Iraq The Model) is just an American stooge who has his stuff written for him by U.S. agents, and is probably not even in Iraq. And (3) This Canadian “progressive,” Wedeen, is not even man enough to answer simple questions when I try to pin him down, as for example, Does he support the Anti-Islamist Manifesto signed by brave artists and intellectuals in Europe and mentioned here at gringoman.com on March 1, 2006.
Gringoman.com, in fact, would consider it a public service to facilitate a frank exchange between a Canadian in Baghdad and the “learned” Canadian in Ottawa (or Montreal) who seems to see himself as a spokesman (an enthusiastic one, too) for World Anti-Americanism, and who was dubbed by Alexandra von Maltzen “Phillip Weezel.” It could be in the best of USPAO tradition, or maybe even grow a new branch in that tree, a very important tree in this era of Mind Wars, no? In fact, if it would help, I could even stay out of it and let you and Wedeen have at it. With your background, you might very well have a more insightful take on this Canadian than I do.Who knows? I’ll bet others would be interested in seeing what happens when you two get “inter-active.” Cutting-edge Internet, no?
Posted by: gringoman | May 30, 2006 at 11:45 AM