Stop Blaming Israel And America For Fayyad’s Fall
Who lost Salam Fayyad? The resignation-dismissal of the respected Palestinian Prime Minister has provoked plenty of finger-pointing. Every Mideast pundit has a favored Western villain: it was intransigent Israel’s fault; overly-Zionist Congress is to blame; evil Bibi Netanyahu did him in; weak President Obama hung him out to dry; it was those obstacle-to-peace settlers. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, in fact, couldn’t choose just one—he accused all of the above in his April 24 column.
Such analyses are themselves evidence of a fundamental problem with Fayyad’s tenure: popular as he was in international aid circles and New York Times (and Daily Beast) op-eds—and even among Israelis—Fayyad had no democratic Palestinian constituency to speak of. (Friedman, at least, added other Arab leaders to his hall of blame.) Furthermore, Fayyad’s foreign fan club, seldom holding the Palestinians themselves responsible for anything, did little to coax the populace toward his camp.
Archie Bunker once said of then-President Gerald Ford, “He’s doing a great job for a guy nobody voted for.” However well Fayyad did, his “emergency” prime minister appointment was never ratified by the legislature or the voters.
He did face election in 2006, leading his “Third Way” party, preaching reform of corrupt security forces, clean and transparent government, and Palestinian progress toward independence not through armed struggle with Israel but through socioeconomic progress and democratic institution-building. As a finance minister with a decent record of fighting corruption (for example, he instituted direct deposit of salaries to employee accounts, replacing the existing skim-from-the-bag-of-cash system), he was already admired internationally: he was The Great Palestinian Hope.
And his party won...two seats out of 132; Fatah and Hamas won a combined 129. For the Palestinian voters, there was no Third Way.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/29/stop-blaming-israel-and-america-for-fayyad-s-fall.html
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The Left backed Chavez because he was the only presidential candidate in Venezuela who cared about the poor. None of his opponents cared about them or wanted them to have a decent life...they proved that by backing capitalism and austerity.
There was nothing that could be done about Ahmadinejad anyway. The West wouldn't put in anyone better if they overthrew him. The West proved that by restoring the Shah, who was just as anti-democracy as anyone YOU could name.
And really, why should "the West" dominate the world? The West has no greater claim to moral purity than anyplace else. The West had to be forced, from below, to be liberal and democratic. Had it been left to the elites, the West would still have hereditary monarchs or, at best, permanent control of the political spectrum by right-wing ideas(which is what "the West" is trying to impose on Greece and Spain at the moment, trying to make those countries lands of permanent austerity and no social wage, conditions that would make elections meaningless, since it doesn't matter which candidate administers permanent economic royalism).
"The West" is simply one part of the world. It's just as prone to tyranny and brutality as any other zone of the world. The fact that "The West"
and especially the "free market" types you personally support) all backed Hitler on "anti-communist" grounds in the Thirties...and didn't try to stop him until stopping him no longer mattered.
One, the Democratic party does not expel anyone; perhaps you're confusing the word "democratic" with "autocratic"? Second, you might not be familiar with Kucinich's positions on Israel and the US's relationship with that nation, and should probably do a little research on the subject before claiming he would be "expelled".
Also, you might want to let it sink through your head that popularity does not actually have any bearing on whether a position is right or wrong. If you were liberal to any degree, this notion would simply be common sense.
Similarly, if you were actually a liberal of any sort, you would have a good understanding that political parties are quite fallible institutions, due to the necessity of playing for the least common denominator in order to maximize electoral gains; political parties lag well behind popular sentiment, which in turn tends to drag well behind ethical evolution.
So, sure Zionism is a popular position with the Democratic party in 2013, and antizionism is marginal.
Just as denying GLBT persons equal rights was popular with the Democratic party in 1996, while calls for equal rights were marginal
Just as segregation was popular with the Democratic party in 1955, while integration was marginal.
Just as colonial adventurism was popular with hte Democratic party in the 1910's and '20's, while anti-imperialism was marginal
Just as suppression of labor was popular with the democratic party in the 1890's, while socialism was marginal
Just as open support for the Klan was popular with the Democratic party in the 1870's, while anti-terrorism was marginal
Just as support for slavery was popular with the Democratic party in the 1850's, while abolition was marginal
Just as genocide was popular with the Democratic party in the 1830's, while Indian advocacy was marginal.
The way I see it, David, my position is currently "marginal," but yours is ultimately the one that will be marginalized and discarded. Just like your spiritual forebears:
Funny that for all your inane yelping about the right wing, you're the one who equates all Jews on Earth with a single state, and assert all fourteen million of them are politically identical, and that those politics are the crux of Jewishness. And you've done so repeatedly.
Also you might want to read DU beyond your own posts. It's got a wider spectrum of political beliefs on it than you attribute to it. An overwhelming majority of DU posters believe the Democratic party is completely wrong about one thing or another. In fact there's a pretty sizable contingent of DU posters who are actively working to change the current positions of the democratic party. This might be hard for an authoritarian to understand - this will make the second time in one thread I've pointed it out to you - but neither the Democratic party nor Democratic Underground demands absolute lockstep adherence to everything the party holds to, and both have plenty of room for people who pointedly do not claim such total adherence.
It's called being a liberal, my friend. it's a lot more intellectually stimulating than fascism, maybe you should give it a try; we're always recruiting 
They weren't obligated to vote for Fayyad to prove that they aren't pro-dictatorship. Fayyad probably lost simply because he wasn't well-known and didn't have much of a program to offer on economic and social issues(which are always the issues that ordinary people everywhere place before the question of "democracy" as an airy abstraction).
And there are other forms of democracy besides the democracy-and-austerity(sorry, "free market economics"
with no social wage that YOU support when you, like Reagan and Thatcher, refer smugly to "Western democracy".
There is political democracy extended to economic democracy. There is social democracy. There is intellectual and educational democracy(which requires that low-cost or no-cost university education be made available to all, rather than just being kept as a privilege for the few).
There are the "community councils" that Hugo Chavez set up in Venezuela, which represent the first time workers and the poor have had a real say in the major concerns of their lives(only the rich are truly represented in conventional "representative" parliaments, which are always skewed towards control by the Right).
The current form of "democracy" that exists in the United States in Europe is far from democratic, and there's no reason we should limit democracy to that. Democracy is SUPPOSED to mean having a real say in the major questions of life...not just voting for a bunch of cynical hacks to go off in a room and do what their party leaders or(in this country)the lobbyists with the biggest checkbooks make them do.
Democracy is the freeing of the people, and the end of the age of anyone above forcing sacrifice on anyone below while avoiding sacrifice themselves(or while gaining ground themselves).
OK?
He lost because he just didn't have much of a program. It's arrogant to say that Palestinians HAD to vote for Fayyad or else be proven anti-democratic. Democracy means accepting that people have the right to vote for the parties THEY want...and, if you object to who they voted for, working to make the parties YOU wish they would vote for better and more appealing.
Fayyad wasn't the ONLY "pro-democracy" leader in the Palestinian election.
As to Western civilization, the Left doesn't believe that it's uniquely evil-just that it isn't uniquely virtuous. Western "civilization", at various points, has built itself using just as much brutality, tyranny and ugliness as any other civilization anywhere else. We don't want "the West" to disappear, just to grow some humility, lose the arrogance, and treat everyone decently and with human respect. That, at the root, is what all that the Left works for in "the West".
There have been improvements in Western civilization, but only when they were forced by pressure from below. Every movement for change in "the West" from the abolition of slavery, still incomplete, to the emancipation of women, the emancipation of labor and more recently the partial liberation of LGBTQ people)was attacked from above as "an assault on Western civilization".
Decent treatment for Jewish people was part of those changes that were forced on "the West" from below, and that still need to be forced on it, because antisemitism(as well as many other forms of hate)are still endemic in parts of "the West" and it is still the Left, more than anyone else, that works against bigotry and oppression.
It's a great thing that those changes that have improved things in "the West" come when they are made to come(and it will be even better when the changes that are still necessary come, as they must, including changes guaranteeing economic and social justice and environmental sustainability and protecting people from being economically discarded as "deadwood", a term that should NEVER be used against a human being) but such changes are not unique to "the West", and people are working for them globally, often with the forces of "the West" still working against them. And those changes, forced on "the West" as they always are, do NOT entitle "the West" and I say this as a person of the West, with what could generally be considered "Western values" to claim inherent superiority. It isn't helpful to keep saying "we're better", and the West isn't entitled, because really, nobody is. All parts of the world are made up of flawed people running flawed systems with flawed results. In all such places, change is possible, but must come from within, and can't EVER be forced from without as a spoil of conquest. The rest of the world improves itself, and will improve itself, on its own terms, but it cannot be improved by the West gloating about its own alleged superiority and looking down its nose at everyone else. And as a person who is descended from victims of Western arrogance(Hitler's era being the ultimate exemplar of Western delusions of superiority)you should be aware of how dangerous it is for ANY one part of the world, or any one nation to expect the rest of the world to accept it as the Alpha and the Omega of life.
It's just about not being overbearing, really.
Is that such a hard thing to accept?
The West has good things, as do other civilizations, it's just that it isn't entitled to expect the world to automatically view it as "the gold standard".
and what articles I have seen on this subject tend to point the finger at Abbas, but it is a valiant effort indeed
