Eric Casagrande (21 June 2007)
"The Lights Are On But ...."
Hi John & All:
As I follow events in the Middle East, it never ceases to amaze me that, just when you start to believe the events and those politicians behind them couldn't possibly get any more insane, it not only can, but inevitably does.
I watched as BBC World interviewed Terje Roed-Larsen, earlier on today. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Larsen, he was the U.N. Special Envoy to the Middle East, under Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Yes, the same Kofi Annan who was inextricably linked to fraudulent activity involving the ill-fated "Food-For-Oil" program, the biggest scandal in United Nations history.
At any rate and as to be expected, the interview centered on the events of the past couple of weeks, involving Hamas and Fatah. The BBC interviewer asked Larsen if the Palestinian President Mahmoudd Abbas may have acted irresponsibly by completely and outrightly rejecting any calls for dialogue between the Fatah party, and his opponents in Hamas.
I had to laugh at the response given by Mr. Larsen, who replied that it was rather unrealistic to suggest that President Abbas should have to speak with Hamas in an effort to straighten things out, given what they did to his Fatah party in Gaza, which Larsen described as essentially amounting to a coup d'etat.
See ... here is where people have selective memory disfunction.
From 1987 through 1999, a period essentially covering both the presidencies of George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton, the nation of Israel was constantly being coerced into negotiations leading to the abandonment of their God-given land, to a people who not only never autonomously existed previously (the "Palestinians"), but whose leader (Yasser Arafat), had but one dream - the total annihilation of Israel. Did either the United Nations or the White House even once suggest it was morally reprehensible to have discussions with such a vile individual? Not once. Not Ever. Not even as the flesh and blood of Jewish men, women and children, lay splattered on the streets, the innocent victims of one suicide bombing after another.
As for Yasser Arafat, he was not only given hundreds of miilions of dollars annually by the United States and European Governments (precious little of which ever got through to the people) but who in 1994 was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.
Oh the hypocrisy of it all!
Fast-forward to the Fall of 2005. There's a new guy occupying the White House, one George "Dubya" Bush, Jr., son of the man who 18 years previously began this rush to Middle East insanity. In his second term, and now trapped in his own quagmire known as the war against terror, Bush was desperate for results, any results, to prove that his idea of democracy works. He contacted Palestinian President Abbas, and demanded that he call an election. Abbas responded by telling Bush that current polls suggested it would be politcal suicide to call an election, because Hamas was sure to win control of the Palestinian Parliament.
President Bush, however, was of the ilk that the best way to prove democracy works, is the staging of free and fair elections, and was adamant that elections be called. Despite the further voicing of his concern, Abbas gave in to Bush, and announced there would be elections for the Palestinian Parliament in January 2006. In what has always been described as extremely fair and free elections, the Abbas-led Fatah Party actually had the lead during the early hours of voting. But by the time the dust had settled, and the final ballots tallied the next morning, headlines around the world read: "POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE", as Hamas crushed Fatah, just as President Abbas had initially feared.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, President Bush, whose own trip to the White House was surrounded in election controversy, refused to accept the results, immediately suspending support payments to the Palestinian Government, and urged European leaders to follow his course. Despite the fact that all the evidence showed it to be a free and fair election, the idea of a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" was slowly disappearing from the Bush definition of responsible politics.
Now here we are 17 months later, and despite a concession by Hamas to create a unity government with the losing Fatah party, push came to shove, civil war broke out, and President Abbas declared the publicly-elected Hamas government null and void, much to the delight of President Bush, who not only legitimized President Abbas and his actions, but immediately released the previously frozen international funding -- but only to Palestinians within the West Bank.
Again, oh the hypocrisy of it all!
Don't get me wrong. Hamas is a villainous group. But equally so is the Fatah party, founded by Yasser Arafat, and now led by Arafat's right hand man, Mahmoud Abbas. Were you aware that President Abbas -- the Bush appointed peace partner -- wrote a 1983 book wherein he not only denies the idea a Jewish Holocaust ever took place, but also that no Jew ever went to the gas chambers?
Additionally, he further asserts that Adolf Hitler was not the one responsible for any Jewish deaths, instead placing the blame on the "Zionist leadership", whom Abbas alledges made a secret deal with Hitler wherein the Zionist leaders would allow both Germany and the world to do with the Jewish people as they pleased, so long as the rest of them were allowed to return to "Palestine".
Sheer lunacy. You have to wonder about George Bush, and his ever increasing beligerency towards any and all who won't accept his way as being the only possibility.
See ya in the air,
Eric