Arguments 4 Israel

21 January 2012

MAZAL TOV, PRESIDENT ABBAS

(Part ONE)

Solidarity With The Palestinians

Earlier this month, a momentous occasion passed for the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas - he began the eighth year of his four-year term as President. But instead of a tsunami of congratulations from the world's leaders for this popular figure on such a remarkable anniversary, the occasion has been almost universally ignored.

The absence of elections for the Presidency is not the only feature of Palestinian democracy to be ignored by large sections of the world's political leaders and media. They have also ignored repeated cancellations of the Palestinian local elections. Likewise, the disappearance of elections to the Palestinian Authority has been greeted by silence. This is not an oversight. There is a pattern and the pattern is clear.

The Palestinian leaders, in both Gaza and the Disputed Territories, jettison democracy – and a host of other human rights – with scarcely any rebuke, challenge, adverse reaction, sanction or demand for its restitution. Anyone would think it a small or unimportant matter.

22 January 2012

MAZAL TOV, PRESIDENT ABBAS

(Part TWO)
x

Lenin, Abbas & the UK Deputy Prime Minister
x

Lenin is credited with having coined the expression 'useful idiots'. By this is meant the service provided by innocent and ideologically blinded western politicians and reporters who defended the young Soviet state and did their best to deny, excuse or shield its totalitarian savagery from exposure.

In other words, the useful idiots served a totalitarian, anti-democratic and anti-liberal purpose. In reality, by defending revolutionary totalitarianism instead of supporting the democrats and liberals, who were being wiped-out by Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and Stalin, they became dangerous idiots.

To look at this from another angle, the only people who are fooled by useful idiots are the liberal democrats who fail to see that their own liberal-democratic way of thinking and behaving is far from being shared by everyone. The liberal-democratic view that thinks disputes should be settled on a win-win basis without violence is fine when dealing with others who share a similar outlook. When reinforced by well-established and agreed structures, limits and laws the advantages seem obvious.