Bob,
Democracy (=people rule) means that the decisions are taken directly by the
people. The only democracy that is coming close to this, is the democracy
in Switzerland. The most common democracy is the indirect democracy, the
people elects trusted representatives that make the decisions for them.
Both Israel and The Palestinians have trusted and elected leaders and will
therefore in general terms be classified as indirect democracies. If you by
democracy mean that the people chose people that are approved (indirectly
chosen and liked) by the US, then it is very few democracies in the world.
Those democracies that meet the US specification, must be classified as
American democracies. (LOL) Israel have a very big and several small
question marks about their democracy, since it in its constitution have
religious discriminating elements in it.
The Palestinian people are by a true definition Israeli refugees. It is a
massive and systematic discrimination case, since they do not have the
right to return to their home land. They have been forced to flee from
their homes and then their refuge have been occupied by those who made them
flee in the first place, but they are forced to stay and be controlled in
their refugee camps. Israel cannot let them return home and get democratic
voting rights, because it would endanger the constituted Jewish democracy
of Israel. It is a case of apartheid and I am surprised at all, by what
Keith told us about the links between the old South African regime and
Israel. We have changed a nearly 2,000 years old refuge problem to a larger
refugee problem that developed during the last 5 decades.
This is the base line and everything must be judged from that perspective.
It is a dirty and ugly religious discrimination problem, little to do with
democracy or respect for human rights.
Hakan
At 02:26 17/06/2004, you wrote:
>Hi Keith/John et al,
> Thanks for putting me right on the scope of
>this group, Keith. Us newbies tend to errrors of ignorance. H'sever, I'm
>pleased. It gives me carte blanche to address John's very pertinent point
>regarding democracies as the most progressive form of government.
>Despite Churchill's view of democracy ("The worst possible form of
>government except for all the others") it is still the only way forward in a
>less than perfect world. On that basis Israel as a functioning democracy has
>the built-in capacity for the will of its people to find a way out of this
>mess whereas Palestine, while it operates under the Al Fatah regime, has
>little such ability.
>That possibly goes for all Arab theocracies. Their people can never aspire
>to change their condition under an autocratic form of government. Karl
>Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" lays out the conditions for a
>functioning democracy. His intellectual heir is Ernest Gellner who posited
>that totalitarian states had to jump the "Big Ditch" between tribally based
>thinking to an open society. Look 'em up on the web.
>In the western world the Greek city state of Athens was the first to make
>the jump. Greek ideas helped leaven Roman imperalism. But the process lost
>its way. After the fall of the Roman Empire it took Europe more than 700
>years to drag itself out of the Dark Ages and then another millenium to
>reach it its present imperfect approach to democratric government.
>That said, numerous cultures have managed it over the past few hundred
>years. As one source has it "even the Wild Welsh, the woolly highland clans
>of Scotland and the pig-ignoratnt bog Irish have achieved it." Who knows,
>post-Bush perhaps even the Americans may return to it.
>Which is getting a bit off the point re the Arab/Israeli conflict. To get a
>bit more insight take a look at David Pryce-Jones's book "The Closed
>Circle". He spent a lifetime studying Arab society. His conclusions are
>blunt, shocking and leave little hope for immediate change in the region.
>Perhaps if Bush had read Pryce-Jones before 9/11 he would not have gone into
>Iraq. The corrollary of course is that if he'd ready anything before 9/11 it
>would have helped. .
>What was that again about biofuels?
>
>Salaams,
>Bob.
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