Does Israel want Arab democracy?

[Mycroft]

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | April 14, 2005

DURING THEIR press conference in Crawford, Texas, this week, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon referred several times to Palestinian democracy. Bush, for example, mentioned his ''vision of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side." Sharon said the Palestinians should ''choose the path of democracy and law and order."

But there was little in their words or body language to suggest that this democracy talk was anything more than lip service. An Arab Palestine in which ordinary citizens could freely criticize their rulers? In which political power wasn't monopolized by terrorist groups? In which the government didn't stoke the fires of anti-Semitism in order to deflect attention from its own corruption? In which there was freedom of speech and conscience? In which the outcome of elections wasn't predetermined? No -- that sort of genuine and vibrant democracy seemed far removed from anything that Bush or Sharon was expecting, let alone demanding, from Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.

In Sharon's case, this comes as no surprise. Like his predecessors dating back to Yitzhak Rabin, Sharon has never regarded the democratizing of Palestinian society as a priority. Quite the contrary. Believing that only an iron-fisted ruler could suppress terrorism and make peace, Israeli leaders have actually welcomed Palestinian autocracy. In a notorious comment early in the Oslo years, Rabin assured Israelis that Yasser Arafat would be able to crack down on terrorism since he, unlike Israeli authorities, wouldn't be hampered by a supreme court or human rights groups. The absence of Palestinian democracy and civil liberties, far from being seen as a root of terrorism, was hailed as a boon in fighting it.

But if Sharon has never believed Arab democracy is essential to peace and progress, the same can't be said about Bush. No contemporary political leader has championed freedom and self-government for the people of the Middle East more fervently. None has argued with more conviction that the key to ending terrorism and the fanaticism that spawns it is decent, democratic governance. None has proclaimed a more sweeping doctrine of liberation and human dignity. ''It is the policy of the United States," he avowed in his second inaugural address, ''to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

In recent months, the bubbling of democratic ferment has lifted hopes across the Middle East. In Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, even in Syria and Saudi Arabia, an ''Arab spring" is beginning to transform what has been till now the most reactionary region on earth. Sooner than anyone predicted, Bush's faith in democratic revolution has begun to bear fruit -- to seem not just idealistic, but realistic.

If that faith should have special relevance anywhere, it is in the Palestinian Authority. For it was with regard to the Palestinians that Bush first expressed the idea that diplomatic gains and international legitimacy must be linked to democratic reform. In June 2002, he declared that before there could be a Palestinian state, there would have to be ''a new and different Palestinian leadership . . . not compromised by terror." Palestinian society, he said, must become ''a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty."

But with no Israeli interest in promoting Palestinian reform, Bush's principled stand came to naught. Arafat was shunned, but Sharon embraced Arafat's longtime crony Abbas -- a PLO veteran deeply ''compromised by terror." Instead of making Palestinian progress on human rights and freedom the price of further Israeli concessions, Sharon announced that Israel would unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and expel the Jews living there. Sharon's retreat will do nothing to encourage democracy. It will simply condemn a million Gaza Arabs to the permanent despotism of the Palestininan Authority.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ed...s/2005/04/14/does_israel_want_arab_democracy/

It seems there is at least one other writer who has embraced Sharansky.

 

[CBL4]

I think the answer is clearly some Israelis do and some do not.

Clearly the long term solution is to have two liberal democracies willing to be neighbors. I am not sure if Sharon and Rabin realized this.

The real question is how to get there. My suggestion is to have all aid to the Palestinian tied to peace and freedom. For example, the EU and the US should agree to donate 100 million dollars to build and staff schools and health clinics in the 10 biggest Palestinian cities. The sites for the schools/clinics should have big signs saying "School to built June 2006."

If the city acts peacefully, they get their schools and clinics. If the city (or its citizens) does not half the money is given to good cities and the other half is put in a reserve fund which can be dispersed later. The sign on the not-to-be-built school, should say "School delayed Mahammed Jones of Hamas killed 4 innocent people on March 27th" or "Clinic delayed because Mayor Abbas does not allow peaceful protests."

CBL



The

 

[Bjorn]

My suggestion is to have all aid to the Palestinian tied to peace and freedom. For example, the EU and the US should agree to donate 100 million dollars to build and staff schools and health clinics in the 10 biggest Palestinian cities. The sites for the schools/clinics should have big signs saying "School to built June 2006."

Good idea - of course we would do the same with the aid we're giving to Israel.

 

[Rob Lister]

I think the answer is clearly some Israelis do and some do not.

Clearly the long term solution is to have two liberal democracies willing to be neighbors. I am not sure if Sharon and Rabin realized this.

The real question is how to get there. My suggestion is to have all aid to the Palestinian tied to peace and freedom. For example, the EU and the US should agree to donate 100 million dollars to build and staff schools and health clinics in the 10 biggest Palestinian cities. The sites for the schools/clinics should have big signs saying "School to built June 2006."

If the city acts peacefully, they get their schools and clinics. If the city (or its citizens) does not half the money is given to good cities and the other half is put in a reserve fund which can be dispersed later. The sign on the not-to-be-built school, should say "School delayed Mahammed Jones of Hamas killed 4 innocent people on March 27th" or "Clinic delayed because Mayor Abbas does not allow peaceful protests."

CBL



The

I disagree (I think) with all of your post. You're using a carrot/stick approach without much of a stick and, to be honest, probably not much of a carrot either (by the time the aid trickles down). Democracy isn't about that kind of carrot/stick deplomacy. Besides, democracy is always very liberal by dictatorial standards. Even a theocratic-democracy doesn't really adhear to its theocratic roots because it depends on the population being just as steadfastly theocratic as the government -- which they never are, in large voluntary groups at least. This is because you can't pick-up and change countries as fast as you can change (or truely express) your religious view as fast as you can change your vote.

I think Israel would be extraordinarily happy with democratic neighbors. Extraordinarily safer as well after about two decades. There would be not only free trade but reasonably free boarders as well. Not only diplomatic ties but true economic partnerships that would put the EU to shame.

Just my novice view. Feel free to disagree or chide: I don't mind.

 

[CBL4]

disagree (I think) with all of your post. You're using a carrot/stick approach without much of a stick and, to be honest, probably not much of a carrot either (by the time the aid trickles down).

I am not an expert on foreign aid but I think there is more carrot and more stick then might be immediately obvious.

First of all, the Gazan economy is in tatters and depends greatly on foreign aid. That increases both the carrot and the stick.

Building a decent sized school or clinic would provide jobs to many people in an area where the jobless rate is over 50% (if my memory serves me.) This influx of money to construction workers will cause many other jobs to appear. People who lose jobs are not going to be to happy with the murderers who caused it.

Also, I chose schools and clinics as examples. I think that virtually all the aid from the west should have such strings attach. Any cities that are peaceful and liberal will have a chance for prosperity (or relative prosperity). The murderous or tyrannical cities will remain impoverished. This economic disparity will become obvious in a few years.

A few other things that need to be done are provide an unbiased media to the Palestinians and provide aid directly - not through the PA. Arafat (and it seems to be continuing under Abbas) doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in patronage to his supporters and to buy off his enemies. Without this, the PA will actually have to try to help the Palestinians.

One of the reason Hamas and other terrorist groups are so popular is that they are actually charitable in stark contrast to the PA.

CBL

 

[CBL4]

I think Israel would be extraordinarily happy with democratic neighbors. Extraordinarily safer as well after about two decades. There would be not only free trade but reasonably free boarders as well. Not only diplomatic ties but true economic partnerships that would put the EU to shame.

Just my novice view. Feel free to disagree or chide: I don't mind.

Far from being novice, I think the two decade part is the key issue that people are missing. Many Israelis cannot think past two months and therefore take action that hurt them in the long term. (BTW, this is a trait shared with most politicians everywhere.)

CBL

 

[Mycroft]

Good idea - of course we would do the same with the aid we're giving to Israel.

Bjorn,

What's you're opinion of Sharansky's book?

 

[CBL4]

Good idea - of course we would do the same with the aid we're giving to Israel

To the best of my knowledge none of Sharon, Begin, Rabin or Peres took any US aid for personal use. Arafat took approximately 1 billion.

CBL