Ready for a 'state'?
Rick Richman recounts just a few of the reasons why the 'Palestinians'
just might not be ready for a 'state.'
The PA has now cancelled local elections four times. They were supposed to be held in January 2009 but weren’t. Then they were supposed to be held in July 2010 but were cancelled after Fatah “encountered difficulties” producing a list of its candidates. The PA said the cancellation was “for the sake of public interest.” In February, the elections were scheduled for July 2011 and then were cancelled “until better conditions are available” and rescheduled for October. Now they have been cancelled again. The Palestinian “High Court” ruled last year the cancellation was illegal, but has no means to enforce its order — a demonstration the PA has no effective judicial system either.
When you have an unelected “president” who rules by decree; when your “High Court” is a Potemkin one; when your president repeatedly cancels even local elections; when a terrorist group allied with Iran holds half your putative state; when you are trying to “reconcile” with the group you previously promised to dismantle; when you have been offered a state three times in the last decade, refused each offer, and won’t come to the negotiating table to receive a fourth… you just might not be ready for a state.
The good news is that American Jewry might - just might - be starting to get it.
Yesterday was the J Street “Day of Action” to rally its members to contact Congress to support a two-state solution. About 100 people showed up at a midtown rally in Manhattan to hear Peter Beinart blame Israel. The Los Angeles rally was held at Leo Baeck Temple last night and drew 25 people.
Now, if only the UN would get it. Oh wait, they do, but their goal - like the 'Palestinians' - is to destroy the Jewish state of Israel.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Palestinian elections 2011
'Palestinian elections': Why bother?
A great comment from Jonathan Tobin on this week's apparent
cancellation of '
Palestinian elections':
The fact is that holding elections in either the West Bank or Gaza would be a sham of democracy, since the competing parties — Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas — are both violent organizations that rule by intimidation, not persuasion. Any electoral contest between them would be, as it has been in the past, a test of their relative military strengths as much as one of the popularity of their ideas. So long as the culture of Palestinian politics is one in which the primary source of legitimacy is violence and shedding the blood of Israelis, the choice will always be between these two unsavory alternatives. Neither has the will or desire for a peace treaty with Israel.
Under these circumstances, the best we can hope for is a continuation of Prime Minister Salaam Fayad’s Israel-supported state-building and economic development that may someday lead to a sea change in Palestinian society. Until then, the idea of dignifying the undemocratic power lust of either Fatah or Hamas with the imprimatur of elections would be a mockery of democracy, not an affirmation of the concept.
Indeed.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian elections 2011
Abu Bluff finds excuse to cancel elections
He hasn't done it yet, but just days after calling elections,
'moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen has started
laying the groundwork to cancel them.
Presidential and legislative elections must be held simultaneously in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters Thursday, saying it was "not acceptable to hold them in the West Bank only."
At a news conference alongside President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos-Horta, Abbas said all efforts would be made to ensure that the vote could go forward by September in all of the Palestinian areas.
In January, the Palestinian Authority called municipal elections for July. When Hamas leaders in Gaza said they would not participate, the government enacted legislation making a vote in the West Bank only an alternative option. When presidential and legislative elections were called, Hamas officials maintained their refusal to participate, sparking fears of a national vote excluding Gaza.
JPost
adds:
PA President Mahmoud Abbas' term officially expired in January 2009, a fact Hamas uses to deny his constitutional authority to call elections. Parliamentary elections were set to take place in January 2010, but were postponed after Hamas made clear that it would thwart them in the Gaza Strip, which has been under its political and military domination since June 2007.
Hamas has said that elections can only be held under "national accord,” under which the two sides agree to share control of Palestinian-ruled areas. It asserted that the timing of the announcement was a transparent attempt by the PA to cover its shame following the revelation of secret negotiation documents in which it "traded Jerusalem and the holy sites, sold the nation and conspired against the warriors."
But if there are no elections, the 'American-backed government of Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad' automatically stays in charge. And if there's an agreement with Hamas (an unlikely event anyway given the current turmoil in Egypt which was the patron of such an agreement), they probably get cut off by the US anyway, because Hamas won't accept the quartet conditions to be a player at the table.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian elections 2011
Worried by Egypt, 'Palestinians' call elections
Worried by events in Egypt and Tunisia, the 'Palestinian Authority' called for
elections in September on Saturday.
The decision was announced in the West Bank city of Ramallah after a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which oversees the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, is also the chairman of the P.L.O.
...
The Islamist Hamas faction rejected the plan for national elections, saying Mr. Abbas had no legitimacy to call for them since he was serving beyond his term.
The Palestinians have not held elections since 2006, when Hamas won a majority in the parliament, leading to a year and a half of uneasy power sharing and a brief civil war in June 2007. Since then, Hamas has governed Gaza and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has controlled the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority announced that postponed local elections would be held in July, a move that Hamas also rejected.
Hamas has said it believes that elections should follow a reconciliation process between itself and Fatah, including a restructuring of the P.L.O. to include Hamas, which is currently excluded.
The authority’s announcement on national elections said: “We call upon all parties to set aside their reservations and disagreements. Let us work together to hold elections and uphold the will of the Palestinian people. As for differences and disagreements, whether in political or security matters, we believe that these issues could be resolved by the coming elected Legislative Council.”
What could go wrong?
Labels: Hamas, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian elections 2011
Rick Richman recounts just a few of the reasons why the 'Palestinians' just might not be ready for a 'state.' 
