PALESTINE´S “GREAT NEEDS”

by RAY FLEMING
THERE was something sickening about the sight of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wringing her hands during this week's visit to the Palestinian territories and telling President Abbas that America wanted “to do more to better address the great needs of the Palestine people”. The United States, Israel and the European Union have brought about the present appalling situation by refusing to recognise or, at least, talk with the Palestinian elected government in which Hamas predominates because of its hostility towards Israel. Dr Rice actually spoke of the Bush administration's eagerness to see a solution “in which a democratic Palestine and a democratic Israel can live side by side” without, apparently, recognising the irony that Palestine has actually had a democratically elected government since last January. The fraught situation in Gaza, where militias loyal to President Abbas's Fatah party are fighting with the Hamas government's forces is the direct result of the refusal of the West and Israel to negotiate with Hamas and of their attempt to displace its government by cutting all financial aid and withholding taxes to which it is due. In a wider context this negative result of democracy in action in Palestine will have been noted with interest by every state being pushed by President Bush to introduce a more democratic regime. America wants democracy provided that it produces results it favours, a contradiction in terms. When the wrong result is the consequence it is the ordinary people who suffer.