The Mideast Democracy Scorecard

by Ariel Natan Pasko
June 5, 2003
http://www.frontpagemag.com

Scorecard: Israel 1, Arab States 0. That about sums it up. 
Israel had elections at the end of January 2003 and three Arab-led 
parties won 9 seats in the Knesset - Israel's parliament. Democracy, 
I was told when I was growing up, meant majority rule with respect 
for minority rights. Israel, more or less qualifies. Let's take a 
look at a few other examples.

Iraq while still under Saddam Hussein, had elections in October 2002
and guess what, Saddam - running unopposed - was elected by 100% of
the electorate. Even people in the hospital, 'deep in coma' came 
out to vote for him. Same thing for Syria's Hafez Assad a few years 
ago, running unopposed, he garnered 99% of the vote. Gee, they sure 
love those Arab despots, don't they?

Take Lebanon for example. Poor thing, they 'invited' Syria in to
'help' them during the civil war in 1976, and it never left. 
Sort of like an obnoxious guest who overstays his visit, not sensing 
when its time to leave. The Christians in Lebanon feel that way. 

That's Syria, well-known 'champion of democracy,' respected member 
of the UN Security Council, and rapacious occupier of Lebanon in 
violation of UN Resolution 520 - telling them to get out - I might 
add. Syria, that's that country run by the Alawis - a heretical 
offshoot of Shiite Islam - of which Bashar and the rest of the 
Assad clan are members. Although they make up only 10-12% of the 
population, about the same amount as Christians, and far fewer 
than the about 75% Sunni Muslim majority, they rule with an 
'iron fist.' The Sunnis might be the majority, but when the now 
deceased Hafez Assad destroyed a town (Hama, 1982) killing 
20,000 people, to root out his political opposition - a few 
hundred members of the Muslim Brotherhood - well hey, so who 
cares about being a majority, right? Although about 90% of the 
population is ethnically Arab, with the remainder Kurd, Armenian,
and a mix of others, Alawi affirmative action proves, minority 
rights are doing fine in Syria.  Democracy is democracy!

Iraq wasn't much different before Saddam's ouster. It was run 
by the Tikritis. Sons of the town of Tikrit, as most everybody 
whose been following the Iraq adventure probably already know. 
Saddam Hussein, his advisors, top Baath party leaders, and most 
military and security leaders all come from there, a town of 
about 200,000 out of a country of 23 million. Talk about a 
company town, this one was a town-run country. Saddam and his 
cronies are Sunni Muslims, that make up only about 35% of the 
population, in contrast to the about 62% Shiite majority of 
Iraq. Minority rights win again.

Or look at Jordan that well-known 'modern' Middle East kingdom.
Parliament was suspended and political parties were banned for 
over three decades. Political parties were first re-legalized 
in 1992. After years of promised 'creeping democratization' 
under the now deceased King Hussein - friend of Yitzhak Rabin, 
friend of peace' and former builder of latrines in Eastern 
Jerusalem out of Jewish gravestones - his son the enlightened, 
western educated King Abdullah II (who became king in 1999), 
suspended parliament in June 2001. Elections have been 
postponed ever since. Over 100 emergency regulations - i.e. 
anti-democratic laws - have been enacted, including the 
suspension of press freedoms. But don't worry; everything's 
been done according to the constitution. Right?
The ruling Hashemite Dynasty I remind you, decedents of 
Abdullah I, are natives of the Hejaz not Transjordan. 
The Saud family booted them out in the early part of the 
20th century. So, they moved to the Palestine Mandate area 
and under British perfidy established a new kingdom in 
Transjordan.

Then there's Egypt, a nice place, as long as you're not a 
Coptic Christian. For over 50 years, Egypt has been ruled by 
only three presidents. Nasser and Sadat were members of the 
Free Officers Movement revolt of 1952.  Mubarak was Sadat's 
vice president from the National Democratic Party that Sadat 
established in 1977. In Egyptian 'democracy,' the president is 
nominated by the NDP-dominated People's Assembly, and then 
ratified (unchallenged) by popular referendum.
Mubarak was re-elected in 1999 by about the same amount, 95%, 
as he's 'won' by for three previous 6-year terms. Surprised?
Elections might not be all that free in Egypt, but there is 
plenty of media freedom. That is, for anti-Semitism and 
Israel-Bashing, all in violation of the 1979 Peace Treaty 
with Israel. But what can you do, democracy is democracy.

Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, and several North African 
states don't even try to pretend. They are honest in their 
opposition to western-style government. Usually taking the 
position that democracy, pluralism, and tolerance is alien 
to their Arabic cultures and Islamic inclinations.

All joking aside, with the war over, the United States is 
promising a democratization process in Iraq. The Bush 
Administration wants to promote democracy throughout the 
Middle East; it dedicated $145 million to a project called 
the Middle East Partnership Initiative in December 2002. 
President Bush for example has called for democratic reforms 
in the Palestinian Authority before statehood. Taking the cue
before the war, Syria publicized a withdrawal, 'cosmetic 
redeployment' to some, of troops in Lebanon. Even Saudi Arabia 
hinted that after another Gulf War, reform is on the way. 
We are still waiting to see any real changes in the region. 
But for some thinkers in the US, the real question being 
debated is whether the US should forcibly export democracy, 
to the Middle East, instead of waiting for the Arab regimes to 
institute it on their own.

There are plenty of minorities in the Arab world, North Africa 
and the Middle East, that await real democracy. There are 
Lebanese who suffer daily occupation under a vicious Syrian 
regime. There are Kurds throughout the Middle East and Assyrians 
in Iraq, who aspire to independence. There are Berbers - the 
pre-Arab indigenous population - in North Africa who after 
11 centuries, still resist Arabization. There are Christians 
in Egypt who are attacked by Islamic radicals and persecuted.  
There are Christians and Animists in the Sudan who resist
slavery or Islamicization.  And so on and so on, all are 
non-Arab or non-Muslim minorities, who long for the United 
States to bring regime change to their area too. 
See, "Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and 
Self-Expression" by Mordechai Nisan, and "The Dhimmi: Jews and 
Christians under Islam" by Bat Ye'or, to get a bettersense 
of the problems.

Which brings us to the most serious measure of how committed 
to democratic reform in the Middle East anyone is, the
Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Quartet - United States, EU, 
UN, and Russia - is promoting a 'roadmap' to peace, with the 
promise of Palestinian statehood. In February 2003, their Task 
Force on Palestinian Reform met in London, but only the US 
demanded any real democratic reforms in the Palestinian 
Authority, and only half-heartedly, at that. The Europeans 
seemed to be more interested in financial accountability for 
their aid money than democratic political reform in the PA. 
They did call for the appointment of a prime minister to 
limit Arafat's power. Hand picked by Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud 
Abbas - Abu Mazen - is a founding member of Arafat's 'Fatah'
and has been Arafat's second-in-command for almost five 
decades. 

Arafat putting Abu Mazen in charge is like putting the kid in 
charge of the cookie jar. That's Abu Mazen Holocaust denier. 
He received his PhD in history at Moscow Oriental College. 
His doctoral dissertation claimed the number of Jewish 
victims in the Holocaust was less than one million, rather
than six million, and that they were victims of a joint 
Zionist-Nazi plot. In 1983, he published his dissertation as 
a book, "The Other Side: Secret Relations Between Nazism and 
the Leadership of the Zionist Movement". In 1984, he added 
an introduction to this book in which he raised doubts that 
gas chambers were used by the Nazis for the murder of Jews 
in World War II.
That's Abu Mazen financier of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre.
According to the mastermind of the Munich attack, Mohammed 
Daoud Dudeh - Abu Daoud - Abu Mazen provided the funds to 
carry out the 'Black September' (a Fatah group) terrorist 
attack. Daoud made that charge in his 1999 French language 
memoir, "Palestine: From Jerusalem to Munich," and again in 
an August 2002 interview, with Don Yaeger of Sports Illustrated 
magazine.
That's Abu Mazen, who in a March 3, 2003, interview with the 
Arabic language Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper - just before 
being appointed prime minister - called for the killing of 
Jewish 'settlers.' Four days later, terrorists murdered Rabbi 
Eli and Dina Horowitz in Kiryat Arba. Recently Mrs. Bernice 
Wolf, Dina Horowitz's mother filed a complaint with the 
Israeli police against Abu Mazen, charging him with incitement 
to murder.
To prove his credentials as a 'moderate' and democrat who 
didn't want to exclude any group from political involvement in 
the PA, Prime Minister-designate Abu Mazen, called on the 
terrorist group Hamas to join the authority. He offered two 
cabinet positions to them, including control of the Ministry 
of Education, meaning that Hamas would have controlled what 
is taught to all the children in Palestinian schools. Maybe 
they would have started teaching suicide-bombing 101? 
They turned him down. So much for those who thought 'moderate' 
Prime Minister Abu Mazen would bring an end to incitement 
against Israel. So much for a changing of the guard at
'Terror Central'!

But the Quartet has accepted Abu Mazen as a democrat and 
moderate. Even Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has met with him. 
After another wave of bombings recently, that murdered over 
10 people and injured over 50 within a few days; the new line 
heard in some quarters in Israel and coming out of capitals 
around the globe is that Arafat is 'blocking' Abu Mazen's 
attempt to stop the terrorists.  Everyone is waiting for 
Abu Mazen to rein in the terrorists already. According to the 
text of the 'roadmap' released by the State Dept. on April 30, 
2003, "The government of Israel immediately dismantles
settlement outposts erected since March 2001. Consistent with 
the Mitchell Report, the government of Israel freezes all 
settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)."

During Phase II -The Transition - June 2003-December 2003, 
an international conference is to be convened by the Quartet 
for the "Creation of an independent Palestinian state with 
provisional borders...As part of this process, implementation 
of prior agreements, to enhance maximum territorial contiguity, 
including further action on settlements..." What 'action' 
exactly?

According to reports, the American CIA will be used to see to 
the implementation of the 'roadmap'.  There will be a 'Special 
Operations Committee', whose main purpose is to see that 
'settlement' activity is 'frozen' and 'outposts' are 'evacuated' 
- i.e. expel Jews, including American Jews from their homes. 
Speaking at a recent American Israel Public Affairs Committee 
conference Sec. of State Powell blankly stated, "Settlement 
activity is simply inconsistent with President Bush's two-state 
vision," quoting the latter's recent statement, "as progress 
is made toward peace, settlement activity in the Occupied
Territories must end."

According to 'global common knowledge', Jewish 'settlements' 
in Judea and Samaria - the 'West Bank' and Gaza - will have 
to be abandoned, and Jews transferred, voluntarily or forcibly, 
back to the new borders of the State of Israel.
I ask a simple question, WHY?

Ethnic cleansing has been condemned throughout the 1990's. 
Bosnia's power sharing government is a case in point. After the 
breakup of Yugoslavia and the war that followed, the EU, NATO 
and the US did not help to establish an exclusively Muslim 
state in Bosnia, but one where Croats and Serbs were included. 
The 4th Geneva Convention - meant to protect residents from 
forced expulsion - was adopted after World War II, with the 
Holocaust in mind. How could the US or Europeans be thinking 
of making parts of the historic Jewish homeland JUDENREIN?

If the Palestinian state in the making is to claim the mantle 
of DEMOCRACY; no better test of its tolerance of minorities 
would be the granting of citizenship to Jews who would choose 
to remain in their towns, villages, and homes in Judea and 
Samaria - the 'West Bank' - and Gaza. Without extending full, 
equal rights and privileges to Jews in Palestine, including 
the possibility to be elected to parliament and serve in 
the Palestinian government - rights Arab citizens of Israel 
have - democracy and peace become empty expressions.

So what will it be? Are we going to stop hearing calls for the
closing down of Jewish 'settlements' - i.e. Jewish cities, 
towns and villages - as called for in the 'roadmap'? Are we 
going to stop hearing calls for the expulsion of several 
hundred thousand Jews from their homes? Or will we now know, 
that 'regime change' and DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST are 
just empty slogans bereft of all meaning?