In Gaza: Democracy And Its Discontents By Ramzy Baroud 30 December, 2006 Countercurrents.org
It’s all too convenient for the BBC website to describe the ongoing bloodshed between Hamas and Fatah supporters in the Gaza Strip as “inter-factional rivalry”, and it’s equally fitting for the Washington Post to narrate the same unfortunate events - which have left many Palestinians dead and wounded - as if they are entirely detached from their adjoining regional and international milieus. Also puzzling are calls made by “leading moderate Arab leaders” to fighting Palestinian factions to convene in this Arab capital or that to settle their differences and to achieve an increasingly elusive ceasefire, as if they, the Arabs - who cowed to US pressure to ensure the success of the debilitating sanctions imposed against the democratic Palestinian governments - haven’t contributed, actively and knowingly to the unfolding crisis in Palestine.
This is all but atypical, where Palestinians will be gently or harshly reprimanded for failing to sort out their differences in a more civilized manner, where they will be taught a lesson or two by some self-righteous American commentators about the true meaning of democracy, where they will be reminded that they are “their own worst enemies” and that they never “miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Nonsense.
