# 19 – Palestinian Democracy

September 9, 2003

Shlomo Ben Ami is not so popular now – too left-wing. We met him recently at the airport; looked very poorly. I personally like his viewpoint. On BBC radio recently (look how that organisation’s in trouble – with Israel), he said a) the international community has got to come in with force – pull us apart. (I’ve been saying that for some time). No matter who’s right or wrong, we now cannot see the wood for the trees. And he said, for such a thing to happen, there will be – has to be – an unnatural catastrophe.

Again, I agree. I call it ‘war’, although it could be just a nice bomb strategically placed….. The attack which failed yesterday to kill the Hamas’ spiritual leader might just have been that. But I think he meant catastrophic for Israel, where there would be danger of Israel ignoring her need to act ‘as a Western democracy’.

It is horrible to think (no, to know) in hindsight, that it would have been better to kill those thousands in a 2-day ‘blitz’ than in a 3-year intifada – like Syria did in Hama (1985?) against the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Jordanians did in Black September 1970 against the Palestinians. How would the World have reacted (to Israel lowering itself – or the rules – down the ‘their’ level)?

But that’s all hypothetical. Israel may be making mistakes (like any modern society – USA being the prime example), but could never bring itself to make such a premeditated action. And for that, we are in the quagmire…

Genug!

Shira’s loss of job means she spends more time with us. Her man, Kfir (means ‘young lion’) uses computer a lot, so she comes here to use Eliana’s. That’s nice for us. In fact, just had the fastest ‘restaurant food’ lunch you can imagine. I went round to pick Shira up. They called down from the window if I was interested in going to have the best hummus. How could I say no? So we hopped down to Jaffa, lined up at this extremely crowded little place, grabbed first seats available, food was practically thrown at us – and we were out in 10-15 minutes.

No coffee – don’t want clients sitting around taking up space. But have to admit, this was special. Served warm, special flavour, sideplate of hot sauce, onions, pita. Must admit it WAS special. And they are only open about 3 hours each day.

So what’s the point? This is an Arab restaurant, popular with everyone – totally mixed clientele. Yes, we do have normal life here, among the rubble.

Today, Abu Ala,aka Mohammed Koriah (?), was conditionally appointed new prime minister for the Palestinians. Why do they have to have 2 names? Or rather, why do we have to start every news items about them with ….aka…..?

‘Ala’ almost means God, which means we now ‘almost’ have ‘father of God’ as our negotiating partner.

Hanan Ashrawi loves to remind us of Palestinian democracy. She insists that US and Israel have no right to indicate their preference for one man or the other, as this interferes with that democracy. Does she not realise that if Abu Ala is not acceptable to those 2 parties, he shall gain no positive results?

Abbas’s resignation, the pro-Israeli lobby loves to repeat, is again a case of Arafat not missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Oh, I know that Israel is not perfect. I know that the assassinations of terrorists, with the sad loss of innocent lives, is politically negative. But this mess has gone so far, this seems to be the only way to reduce the attacks against Israeli citizens – and it does seem to be working.

So the cycle goes on, and we await that terrible event that will finally convince the international community to come in and pull us apart. (Continue at top of this page…)

September 9. 2003