Israel Matzav

Please wish Abu Bluff a Happy Anniversary

Please wish 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen a Happy Anniversary. Two years ago today, January 9, 2009, Abu Mazen completed his four-year term as 'President' of the 'Palestinian Authority.' But like the Man Who Came to Dinner, Abu Mazen has never left. He continues to 'serve' as President of the 'Palestinian Authority.'

Today is the second anniversary of the end of Mahmoud Abbas’s four-year term as president of the Palestinian Authority. He continues to play the role of “president” but is simply an unelected holdover, lacking the legitimacy to make the compromises necessary to produce a Palestinian state, even assuming he were willing to make them. It may be an appropriate day to reflect on the results of Palestinian democracy.

...

We are not likely to see Palestinian elections in the foreseeable future: Hamas lacks a tradition honoring the peaceful transfer of power, and Fatah does not like elections held before their outcome is fixed. A month ago, the Palestinian “High Court” ruled that the cancellation of the West Bank elections was illegal, and the vast majority of Palestinians want them held. But the court lacks the power to enforce its decision, and the “prime minister” has not yet responded to the letter sent to him about holding elections in light of it. A recent poll found that Palestinians view both Gaza and the West Bank as an increasingly police state. The “institutions of a state” the prime minister is building do not include an empowered judiciary or a free electorate.

When the U.S. endorsed a Palestinian state in 2002, the endorsement was conditional: it depended on the Palestinians first building “a practicing democracy.” Nine years later, half the putative state is a terrorist enclave functioning as an Iranian proxy; the other half is a Potemkin democracy unable even to stage elections. The tragedy of Palestinian democracy is that the obstacle to a Palestinian state turned out to be the Palestinians themselves.

But just give them a 'state' and they'll get around to holding elections... eventually.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Palestinian democracy, Salam Fayyad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:08 PM