It seems like upsets are the political event du jour - Hamas is now the official ruling Palestinian body, after more than 40 years of the late Yasir Arafats Fatah party. If you put in French people to play the Isrealis, and Martin to play Arafat, Harper to play Mahmoud Zahar... we could call Hull the West Bank, and you've got Canada. Fiddler on the Roof with coureurs de bois and you've got yourself a deal.
Unfortunately, this puts a political party regarded as a terrorist group by Isreal, the United States and the European union in a very volatile position. While Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' position is left unchanged by the outcome, his relationship with Isreal has just hit the proverbial fan. Ehud Olmert, Isreals acting prime minister (remember, Sharon is still in the hospital - otherwise he'd be spinning in his grave) has cut off talks. With any portion of the government under Hamas, he refuses to entertain the idea of peace talks. I imagine it would be like shaking a hand with gangrene and attempting to deal solely with the mind of the person - eventually, the gangrene will effect the entire body - governing or not. Olmert now has to contend with a government with a gangrenous terrorist arm - a faction who's initial raison d'etre is the extraction of all Isrealis. And that's putting it delicately.
Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas - faces an interesting dilemma. While he was voted in on the basis of many promises for social change- exactly how is he to implement this change when the majority of the money coming in from Western nations... now consider him a terrorist? We don't support terrorists, correct? Even if they're democratically elected, under our encouragement for free, full, and fair elections?
I'm not really joking when it seems like drastic political change is au currant. Is this cyclical, that the stagnancy of governements demonstrated over the past years has finally come to a breaking point? We're changing out governments, left, right and center, but it appears we're doing it in extreme measures. Are there no intermediary parties, that aren't terrorists or conservatives?
I'll wait and watch. While Hamas flies their green flags and Palestinians show us their democratically blue thumbs - lets remember who helped print the ballots...and who will print the money.
Unfortunately, this puts a political party regarded as a terrorist group by Isreal, the United States and the European union in a very volatile position. While Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' position is left unchanged by the outcome, his relationship with Isreal has just hit the proverbial fan. Ehud Olmert, Isreals acting prime minister (remember, Sharon is still in the hospital - otherwise he'd be spinning in his grave) has cut off talks. With any portion of the government under Hamas, he refuses to entertain the idea of peace talks. I imagine it would be like shaking a hand with gangrene and attempting to deal solely with the mind of the person - eventually, the gangrene will effect the entire body - governing or not. Olmert now has to contend with a government with a gangrenous terrorist arm - a faction who's initial raison d'etre is the extraction of all Isrealis. And that's putting it delicately.
Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas - faces an interesting dilemma. While he was voted in on the basis of many promises for social change- exactly how is he to implement this change when the majority of the money coming in from Western nations... now consider him a terrorist? We don't support terrorists, correct? Even if they're democratically elected, under our encouragement for free, full, and fair elections?
I'm not really joking when it seems like drastic political change is au currant. Is this cyclical, that the stagnancy of governements demonstrated over the past years has finally come to a breaking point? We're changing out governments, left, right and center, but it appears we're doing it in extreme measures. Are there no intermediary parties, that aren't terrorists or conservatives?
I'll wait and watch. While Hamas flies their green flags and Palestinians show us their democratically blue thumbs - lets remember who helped print the ballots...and who will print the money.
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