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Conflict & disaster

[1260] Of divided and occupied Palestine

Now, we have Hamas-controlled Gaza and Fatah-controlled West Bank. Instead of fighting for Palestinian sovereignty, both groups have turned against each other.

BY THE end of this week, the Islamists of Hamas will have either destroyed the secular-minded Fatah in the Gaza Strip, or at least shown that they can. The relative quiet after a deadly burst of violence between the rival Palestinian parties in May was broken by a series of tit-for-tat killings that quickly got out of hand. After troops from the presidential guard of Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, fired rockets at the house of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister, the Islamist party launched a full-scale attack. Hamas troops have taken control of most of the Gaza Strip and have chased Fatah forces out of their bases, while several top Fatah commanders have either fled Gaza or been killed. [The road to Hamastan. The Economist. June 13 2007]

Earlier today, a state of emergency has been declared by the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed the Hamas-led coalition government and declared a state of emergency.

Aides said the president would seek to call elections as soon as possible, after deadly clashes between his Fatah faction and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

[…]

Hamas fighters overran most of Gaza on Thursday, capturing the headquarters of Fatah’s Preventative Security force and hailing Gaza’s “liberation”. [Abbas sacks Hamas-led government. June 15 2007]

An election is useless if nobody would accept the democratic outcome. Whatever it is, at the moment, the Palestinian cause is lost.

I wonder how the election of Shimon Peres as the new president of Israel would affect the condition.

By Hafiz Noor Shams

For more about me, please read this.

2 replies on “[1260] Of divided and occupied Palestine”

Rajan,

I concur that liberal democracy involves far more than mere voting process. However, for an immature society with extremely limited experience in democracy and much less in liberalism, an exercise that demonstrates that voting is useless sets a dangerous of precedent for authoritarianism.

The problem is that a liberal democracy involves far more than the process of voting. While Hamas or Fatah may be elected, they should not be accepted even as parties for their militant and terror activities. Would the States accept a Democratic party with an armed, terrorist wing?

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