Hamas and democracy

[myata]

No, the statement is farcical. You're trying to make a general truism out of a tenuous single example, and even THAT falls flat on its face.

No, simply logical. Democracy = power of people which is quite hard to achieve if the real power belongs to somebody else.

I have no idea what Wiki has to say about the British Raj and its legacy, but ...

surely everybody should just take your expert advice instead?

You're trying to squirm out of your blanket statement that occupied countries can't form democracies, and in fact in many cases exactly the opposite is true. In spite of the mess Africans have made of post-colonial Africa, they were left with functioning democracies...

I think you may be in confusion about the meaning of "democracy" vs "colonial" (see #1). Who holds the power and who gives the orders?

As for Palestine, it doesn't have a strong national identity because it has never been a nation.

Quite rightly so. Because they never had been given a chance to establish one, under continous and oppressive occupation.

[ScottSA]

I'm afraid Myata that you'll have to expand your reading list beyond wiki to be able to keep your head above water here. You didn't even address the counterexamples I gave you.

[Rue]

"Quite rightly so. Because they never had been given a chance to establish one, under continous and oppressive occupation. ".

The Palestinians were given total and absolute control of the West Bank under the Oslo accord. They were given autonomous control of Gaza.

In the case of Gaza, Hamas assumed Israel's withdraw was weakness and in fact said so and immediately began missile attacks into Israel proper the moment Israel withdrew which to this day has many blaming Israel's withdrawal from Gaza as a reason Hamas escalated its violence.

As for the West Bank why don't you read and find out the amount of political power Arafat was given and what he did with it.

Your comments the PLO never had a chance to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza completely ignores that in fact they were and chose not to create a state as it would have been seen as a sell out to terrorists who see the only solution as eradicating Israel. There is a reason so many Palestinian moderates not interested in terror and violence and who want to start a state can not and it has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with their own leaders.

Mind you there is no doubt certain Israeli policies have been diasterous and have provided terrorists the perfect pretext to engage in more terror. There is no doubt for example, placing settlements in the West Bank incited as opposed to easing problems.

I am not saying Israel has not made mistakes but I am saying the off handed comment the Palastinian Authority was not given the opportunity to rule its people free of interference from Israel is just not true. As for the decision to take the billions in developmental aid and piss it away rather then build a country with it, go speak with the terrorists blinded by their hatred and who feel all their people are expendable until they eradicate Israel.

[myata]

The Palestinians were given total and absolute control of the West Bank under the Oslo accord. They were given autonomous control of Gaza...

With illegal settlements spread over and cutting through the territory (map), complete with exclusive roads and road blocks which increased in numbers while presumably "peaceful" accord was in place? Why would anybody call it "total and absolute" control, I wonder?

the off handed comment the Palastinian Authority was not given the opportunity to rule its people free of interference from Israel is just not true. As for the decision to take the billions in developmental aid and piss it away rather then build a country with it, go speak with the terrorists blinded by their hatred and who feel all their people are expendable until they eradicate Israel.

In the same way that africans were one time "given the opportunity" to build their bantustans "free from interference"?

[myata]

... You didn't even address the counterexamples I gave you.

You didn't provide any "counterexamples" other than the ones I addressed. Scattergun statements like "Africa had functioning democracy" aren't counterexamples; not even respectable statements; they're just your say. And I have no wish to go through every one of them until you can demonstrate that they have some resemblance to reality.

[ScottSA]

... You didn't even address the counterexamples I gave you.

You didn't provide any "counterexamples" other than the ones I addressed. Scattergun statements like "Africa had functioning democracy" aren't counterexamples; not even respectable statements; they're just your say. And I have no wish to go through every one of them until you can demonstrate that they have some resemblance to reality.

In other words you don't want the evidence that I'm right? This hardly takes a great deal of research...it takes a surface knowledge of colonial history. If you don't have that, then I certainly don't want to take the time to educate you on it. Did you imagine that the evil colonials just picked up their marbles and went home without setting up regimes in their wake? Did you just blindly buy into the revisionist hand-wringing without actually looking just a wee bit deeper? You don't even know the historical events of decolonization? If not, I don't think this thread is a good place for you to be arguing, do you?

[scribblet]

Speaking about apologists for terrorism, the BBC is doing what they do best --whitewashing terrorists and blaming Israel.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1554

No mention that aid to Gaza has at the very least doubled since these ‘punishing financial sanctions’ were imposed. No acknowledgement that it was Hamas’s genocidal attacks on Israel that caused these sanctions to be imposed. No awareness of the absurdity of blaming the violence on the ‘desperation’ caused by

sanctions when a) it is plainly a power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, the Palestinians were given the opportunity to turn Gaza into a flourishing society two years ago, but within hours showed how ‘desperate’ they were not to achieve this by destroying millions of dollars’ worth of greenhouses that the Israelis had left for them to make money from, and c) Hamas is demonstrably not despairing at all but exultant that it can now tyrannise the inhabitants of Gaza all the way back to the 7th century.

But what are facts when journalists have absorbed the narrative of a death cult as their own and allowed it to frame their moral compass? A listener wrote this complaint to the BBC about The World Tonight last night:

Pro-Palestinian campaigners frequently claim that the main reason Gaza is in crisis is that the economic blockade imposed by America and Israel following Hamas’s election victory has reduced the civilian population to penury. This was the essence of the argument advanced by Alvaro de Soto, until recently the UN’s special co-ordinator for the Middle East, who seems happy to blame anyone for the Palestinians’ plight except the Palestinians themselves. Ordinary Palestinians, it is true, in both Gaza and the West Bank, are suffering hardship. But this is not because of a lack of funds entering the Palestinian territories: it is because successive Palestinian administrations have made no effort to distribute the resources available equably among the population.

Hamas, on the other hand, sees economic deprivation as a form of political oppression. The World Bank reported that donors contributed about £375 million to the Palestinian territories in 2006, twice the amount they received in 2005. But since taking power, Hamas ensures any funds are spent on Islamic causes and its 6,000-strong militia, leaving the majority to fend for themselves. The bonus for Hamas is that, by forcing the majority of Palestinians to exist in dire poverty, it succeeds in attracting widespread sympathy from international do-gooders who do not understand the sadistic economic manipulation that is taking place.

[myata]

In other words you don't want the evidence that I'm right? ...

I guess from that we can safely assume that concrete evidence that countries under colonial occupation were "functioning democracies" isn't forthcoming. No wonder that in so many of those "functioning" democracies it took "democratized" years of bloody struggle and many lives to get rid of the colonial "raj"s and such.

[ScottSA]

In other words you don't want the evidence that I'm right? ...

I guess from that we can safely assume that concrete evidence that countries under colonial occupation were "functioning democracies" isn't forthcoming. No wonder that in so many of those "functioning" democracies it took "democratized" years of bloody struggle and many lives to get rid of the colonial "raj"s and such.

But wait. You said you weren't interested in "digging through" evidence. This is high school history stuff dude. Just glance in the general direction of a history book on the Raj or Mountbatten or Nehru or Jinnah and you'll have it all right in front of you. If you're not willing to even do that, and prefer to live in a revisionist haze of background disinformation and half truths, then have at 'er...but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

[myata]

No it's not forthcoming. Too bad, I was hoping for a revelation. Like, all those silly people in South Africa, or India, or hundreds of other places on this planet, should just had voted the colonials out, instead of going though the painful decades long struggle. Simply the lack of democratic education, I know.

Well, it's a very interesting discourse into the alternate history, but I've got to go. Best luck living in whatever anti-haze (and being taken seriously at that).

[M.Dancer]

No it's not forthcoming. Too bad, I was hoping for a revelation. Like, all those silly people in South Africa, or India, or hundreds of other places on this planet, should just had voted the colonials out, instead of going though the painful decades long struggle. Simply the lack of democratic education, I know.

Well, it's a very interesting discourse into the alternate history, but I've got to go. Best luck living in whatever anti-haze (and being taken seriously at that).

South africa?

They voted the colonials out in 1934

[myata]

In 1934 they probably had no notion that there was such thing as "voting". I'm talking about great majority of people of South Africa. You?

[M.Dancer]

In 1934 they probably had no notion that there was such thing as "voting". I'm talking about great majority of people of South Africa. You?

And now the people sit in a British style parliament using British common law and for the most part, act like civilized people as opposed to most of the rest of the continent......

Coincidence?

[myata]

Coincidence with what? All of Africal was under colonial occupation and only very few countries have successfully adopted the system of their colonizers. With a success rate like a few % (single digits out of some 50), it sounds like, you right, more or less a coincidence.

[M.Dancer]

Coincidence with what? All of Africal was under colonial occupation and only very few countries have successfully adopted the system of their colonizers. With a success rate like a few % (single digits out of some 50), it sounds like, you right, more or less a coincidence.

Africa was indeed all under colonial control. But nations like Portugal, spain and Italy didn't exactly leave a democratic infrastructure that could be used by the emerging nations.

Look at the map of Africa. Find a country that is democratic, even nominally and I would wager that it was a former British Colony. Like India.

Which was Scotts point. Tribal culture don't become modern nation states over night.

[myata]

Look at the map of Africa. Find a country that is democratic, even nominally and I would wager that it was a former British Colony. Like India.

That's funny indeed. Worthy of getting into the annals of the forum.

On the serious side, here's the map of British Empire. See that some places are (or recently were) the hottest conflict spots on this planet: Middle East; Northern Ireland; South Africa. Very few of those where the native population regained full power are real functioning democracies. There is simply no evidence that colonization was anything more than a quest to plunder other people's resources while alleviating domestic issues (overpopulation, unemployment). It's nothing to glorify or be proud about.

[jbg]

Yeah, I heard about this in the evening news, beyond bizzare.

As usual, your post reaks of colonialism, Zionism, imperialism, racism and whiteism. The Palestinians and for that matter Iraqis have a tender and gentle side, as I have posted (link). I admire them greatly.