Gaza: making an example or creating a model?

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Most of the analysis that I am reading about the Gaza situation seems to ignore what for me the major fact: Gaza is not under Israeli control nor under the control of anyone who bows their head to Washington. That is a revolution.

Washington and Jerusalem would like to starve Gaza into submission, but in today's news environment that is not an option, so there will be bread and lentils. Gaza is not Beverly Hills, the Gazans are tough as boots.

The next idea is to shower beneficence on the West Bank to create support for Fatah, but experience tells us that the Fatah's leaders will steal most of it... That's why the party of Yassir Arafat lost the elections to Hamas in the first place. Fatah is divided and corrupt, that is why despite better weapons they were so easily routed by Hamas in the Gaza fighting.

Prediction: In Gaza, the first thing that Hamas will do is install Sharia, which means orderly life in chaotic societies. They will clean up the streets, literally and figuratively. They will shoot the drug dealers and end price gouging in the markets. They will run the schools and the hospitals without stealing and before long the people of the West Bank will be longing to live like in Gaza, with honest leaders and no Israeli checkpoints or settlers. DS

World moves to support West Bank - BBC News Abstract: Hamas was and is boycotted because it does not accept the Quartet's conditions for engagement - recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous peace agreements. The aim is to revive the fortunes of President Abbas and Fatah (the main element in the PLO and once the arch-enemy of Israel but now seen as its negotiating partner) in the hope that he will be able to show that moderation is a better way forward for the Palestinians than extremism. The problem with this scenario is that it has been tried so often before and has failed because it has not delivered the state the Palestinians desire. The Israelis used to predict that moderate pro-Jordanian factions on the West Bank, the old families that prospered under King Hussein's rule there, would see off the radicals of Fatah. Now Fatah, rejected by Palestinian voters in January 2006 as corrupt and inefficient, is seen as the moderate grouping and the effort is on to push Hamas into a corner. The possibility now is that the West Bank will be favoured and Gaza be left to wither. At some stage, though, there will have to be new elections. These should show if the Western approach bears fruit.(...) Mouin Rabbani, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, told Reuters: "My suspicion is that Gaza is going to come under an even stronger siege than before. "What the international community will try and do now is turn Gaza into hell while helping the West Bank, to show what you get when you elect people we like."(...) Israel itself has nearly $600m it owes the Palestinians from tax revenues and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is in Washington for talks with President George W Bush on Tuesday, says this will be released. Israel, he said, would "empower the moderates". The moderates will want more than direct cash aid. Mr Abbas wants greater freedom of movement on the West Bank, the release of Palestinian prisoners, especially the leading Fatah figure Marwan Baghouti, and beyond that, a new effort to get peace talks going. How far Israel goes in that direction remains to be seen.(...) Internationally there might be a policy divergence between the EU and the US. Washington might see in this the chance of trying to crush Hamas, and through that, to diminish one of its supporters, Iran.(...) But an EU official said: "The question is whether it is positive to distinguish between the good guys on one side, and the bad guys on the other. We want to avoid partition." Russia takes the same view. READ IT ALL

Fatal American error in Somalia

"In the Cold War, "our son of a bitch" — the local anti-communist strongman — could be counted on to impose a brutal kind of order. Now, in the war on terror, the United States would rather see a country torn apart by multiple sons-of-bitches than ruled under Sharia law." Niall Ferguson

David Seaton's News Links

In their rush to demonize Islam, those who attack the world's second largest and fastest growing religion, neglect one of its greatest practical virtues: its ability, proven since the days of the Prophet, to create order out of barbarity, and chaos. The Sharia is particularly effective where there is little or no state structure or where it is hopelessly corrupt... certainly a fitting description of post colonial Africa, or where tribal loyalties mean that no "majority rule" will ever be seen as equitable. In Rwanda, for example, (quoting Wikipedia)

"Muslims in Rwanda during the genocide were composed of both Hutus and Tutsis but their common identity was religious, shaped by their shared faith in Islam, and not racial. This absence of racial identity is what led to Muslim Hutus not attacking their fellow Muslim Tutsis but also actively engaging in acts which saved the lives of Christian Tutsis."

And as the Washington Post stated in an article about Rwanda,

"Islam has long been a religion of the downtrodden. In the Middle East and South Asia, the religion has had a strong focus on outreach to the poor and tackling social ills by banning alcohol and encouraging sexual modesty

The Sharia is like an "civil order kit" that can be quickly unpacked and installed and which immediately establishes an easily understood and practiced universal system of justice and best practice, one that does not depend on any distant authority for its force and prestige. Its advantages are obvious in a situation such as Somalia. Globalization is a powerful solvent of local customs and cultures and corrupter of third world elites. "Everything solid dissolves into air". As everything else in those areas is failing, the rise of Islam in many parts of the developing world is probably inevitable and seen from a human, if not a business perspective, not at all a bad thing. Certainly it should be supported and engaged by everyone that would like the "ungovernable" parts of the world to find some measure of stability. To harass Islamic law indiscriminately is to drive it irremediably into the arms of Al Qaeda. DS

Niall Ferguson: Promoting disorder in Somalia - Los Angeles Times

Abstract: Long before the arrival of European imperialism, Somalia was a country plagued by warfare. There were recurrent attempts by Ethiopia to subjugate the Somalis. There were also frequent feuds between the various Somali clans themselves, like the Hawiye clan, which has its base in Mogadishu. The new prime minister is in fact a Hawiye, but has forfeited much credibility by acting as an Ethiopian puppet. In the eyes of many Somalis, recent events are just the latest of many wars with Ethiopia. That is why the recent rout of the Islamists is unlikely to be the last act in the Somali tragedy. The Islamists offered Somalia order; not a Western order, to be sure, but order nonetheless. Under their rule, the price of an AK-47 in the Mogadishu markets slumped to $15, a sure sign that the warlords were being forced to downsize their militias. Young men no longer roared through the streets in the Mad Max-style vehicles known locally as "technicals" — trucks mounted with antiaircraft guns. Some were returning to school and university. Others were getting jobs with private electricity companies and airlines. Internet cafes were beginning to displace militia training camps. Kalashnikovs were being traded in for mobile phones. Now, with the Islamists gone, the most likely scenario is a return of the warlords. Worse, the Islamists may now revert to the tactic of suicide bombing to destabilize the new government. As has happened in Afghanistan, the overthrow of an Islamist government will be followed not by a new order but by the old disorder.(...) At least in the Cold War, "our son of a bitch" — the local anti-communist strongman — could be counted on to impose a brutal kind of order. Now, in the war on terror, the United States would rather see a country torn apart by multiple sons-of-bitches than ruled under Sharia law. But the more U.S. foreign policy promotes anarchy instead of order, the stronger the Islamists' appeal will be. And the darker the shade of mischief that will ensue. READ IT ALL

Allowing everything but the veil - Editorial - Los Angeles Times

David Seaton's News Links
I have a German musician friend, a Berliner, who plays in the Eindhoven symphony orchestra in Holland, but commutes to work every day from Antwerp in Belgium. He says he prefers to live in Belgium because the Dutch have taken tolerance to the point of fascism: they are hysterically tolerant. Certainly they have chosen the wrong people and the wrong moment. A significant part of the problem with Muslims today is that they feel (with some justification) that their identity is under attack. This veil business is like the Czarist army in Russia forcing Jews to eat pork. I really can't see any difference. DS
Abstract: Same-sex marriage, euthanasia, drug use, prostitution — in the Netherlands those are perfectly fine. But the one thing the Dutch apparently will not tolerate is what they perceive to be intolerance. In defense of their cherished tradition of gedogen — which loosely translates as "to live and let live" — the Dutch are ready to force the assimilation of conservative Muslim immigrants, who are deemed intolerant of fabled Dutch tolerance and must therefore no longer be tolerated. Got that? Five days before a national election, the Netherlands' center-right government announced that it would introduce legislation to ban the wearing of burkas, veils and similar garments in public places. Should it pass, the most famously accepting country in Europe would have the most restrictive anti-Muslim laws on the Continent.(...) If anything, the proposed law, which is being justified on security grounds, could backfire by encouraging more immigrants to reach for their veils. And it risks further victimizing women by forcing them to stay indoors. A tiny minority of the roughly 1 million Muslims in the Netherlands are conservative enough to be affected by the proposed ban, but the message to all of them is loud and clear. And menacing. Dutch anxiety about immigrants' rejection of Western culture is understandable. The nation is still traumatized by the 2004 killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who made a film critical of Islam. But to force assimilation is to fight intolerance with intolerance. The ban would undermine the very culture — Dutch culture — it seeks to protect.(...) Part of Dutch identity, since the Netherlands welcomed Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, not to mention our own Pilgrim ancestors fleeing England, has been tolerance. By outlawing a religious and cultural practice they fear, the Dutch would be sacrificing some of their own identity. READ IT ALL