Abbas speaks for the grown-ups

At MEMRI, a video of the speech in which Mahmoud Abbas announces that he is going to call an early election. What's interesting is the way he frames the basic debate. The vision that Palestinian leaders have nurtured and proclaimed for almost 60 years deceiving their followers into ever greater folly is branded for what it is: an illusion, a lie. And then he rounds on Hamas, those who fly the banner of righteousness, the pure, the enacters of God's word. I'm sure you can imagine the rhetoric they use against the less holy, the less exalted. The word he uses for their actions is surely significant: terrorism (I'm relying on the translation here). Then he calls for the separation of 'church' and state, and says that relision is for "Allah in the mosques, the churches and the synagogues". I can't help noting that his audience sounds less than enthused.

In the past, they said: "Under no circumstances will we accept a state, unless it includes all of Palestine, because Palestine is a land of Islamic endowment." Fine. This doesn’t work. I can say: "We demand all of the land," and you will applaud me. This doesn’t work. This doesn’t work. This doesn’t work. There is a reality – either you acknowledge it, or you will get crushed...

These are illusions. I hope we will be dealing with facts rather than living in illusions, believing in our own lies and start chasing these lies, like the village fool Juha...

They began to say that the government operates by Allah's decree, and that this is divine will. In other words, you are not allowed to oppose it, because nobody opposes the will of God. Does any of you oppose the will of God? Nobody opposes Allah. Don't tell me your government represents the divine will and that I cannot oppose it. Don't we have a democracy? What is democracy? There is a majority and a minority. Some support the government and others oppose it. If you want to terrorise me and tell me this is the will of God, this is unacceptable. People who go on strike are traitors, and so are people who oppose or criticise the government because they criticise the will of god. What is this? This terrorism is unacceptable and is not allowed.

They should not use the religion. The religion is for God. Religion is for Allah in the mosques, the churches and the synagogues. We all repsect it. We are all religious, by the way, and nobody should patronise us.

We have been praying and fasting since before many of them were even born. It is a disgrace to accuse others of heresy and whatever.. a guy who, two days ago, was still wearing shorts, says, 'This is an infidel'. This is a disgrace.

(via Harry's Place)

Past sins, present virtues

For those unfamiliar with him, Victor Davis Hanson is one of the major voices in the pro-war camp in the US. He's a Classics academic, firm believer in the superiority of Western civilisation and has not performed any U-turns recently. Here's what he has to say about past US policies.

The United States had been far too friendly with atrocious regimes in the Middle East. And when bloodletting inevitably broke out, either internally or between aggressive regimes, too often we cynically played one side off the other. Or we backed repugnant insurgents, with little thought of the "blowback" that would result. We outsourced sophisticated arms and training to radical Islamists fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.

We hoped the murderous Saddam might check the murderous Iranian theocracy -- and then again sold arms to the mullahs during the Iran-Contra affair. We breezily called for an uprising of Shi'ites and Kurds only to abandon them to be slaughtered by Saddam after the first Gulf war. We cynically gave the Mubarak dynasty of Egypt billions in protection money to behave. While we thought we were achieving short-term expediency, American policy only increased long-term instability by not pressuring these tyrants to reform failed governments.

I put this here because of a discussion I've been having with Wodge. He has pointed out, as have many others, that the US record in supporting dictators of Saddam's ilk is not a reassuring one. Agreed, though I don't find this as heinous as he obviously does. This is especially so in the Middle East where you choice of rulers is not of the widest. However, there is a more important point.

The alternative to the Bush doctrine of "trying to help democratic reformers" is the old 'realism' outlined by Hanson above. That is, from a range of nasties, you help the nasty least dangerous for your own interests. The alternative is not, as is often implied, leaving them all alone because that would be the decent thing to do. It would not.

The result would be, now more than ever, the growth of regimes not only antithetical to our values, but dangerous to their own people and to the rest of the world. With the Middle East on the verge of a nuclear arms race, with its unemployed, alienated masses of young men and a well-developed ideology and methodology for turning them into weapons, the prospect of the US withdrawing into itself is truly frightening.