A nice piece of demopathy on the LATimes op-ed page by a professor of literature at UCLA. Note how, like the Bourbons, the writer has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. (Alas, his specialty is my favorite poet, William Blake. What post-colonial horrors await my reading pleasure?)

West chooses Fatah, but Palestinians don’t
They prefer Hamas, which represents an alternative to Fatah’s acceptance of the Israeli occupation.

By Saree Makdisi, SAREE MAKDISI, a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, writes often about the Middle East.
June 20, 2007

IN THE WEST, there’s a huge sense of relief. The Hamas-led government that has been causing everyone so much trouble has been isolated in Gaza, and a new government has been appointed in the West Bank by the “moderate,” peace-loving Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

I don’t anyone who feels a sense of relief, much less huge. But such a remark, as little as it tells us about reality, does tell us how Makdisi processes reality. Pathetic “Oslo Logic” snatches at Fatah straws by PCP1, register on her PCP2 screen as “huge relief.”

So why then do Palestinians not share in the relief? Well, for one thing, the old government had been democratically elected; now it has been dismissed out of hand by presidential fiat. There’s also the fact that the new prime minister appointed by Abbas — Salam Fayyad — has the support of the West, but his election list won only 2% of the votes in the same election that swept Hamas to victory. Fayyad and Abbas have the support of Israel, but it is no secret that they lack the backing of their own people.

I find it fascinating that this writer, much like Edward Saïd, thinks he can speak for “the Palestinian people,” and tell us not only what “they” think, but why. What ever happened to post-modern multiple narratives. Or, like Saïd, does Makdisi tacitly subscribe to (and appeal to) a collective “honor-shame” theory of the Palestinian people in which they all agree (with what their leaders tell them they need for their honor)?

There is a reason the people threw out Abbas’ Fatah party in last year’s election. Palestinians see the leading Fatah politicians as unimaginative, self-serving and corrupt, satisfied with the emoluments of power.

Worse yet, Palestinians came to realize that the so-called peace process championed by Abbas (and by Yasser Arafat before him) had led to the permanent institutionalization — rather than the termination — of Israel’s 4-decade-old military occupation of their land. Why should they feel otherwise? There are today twice as many settlers in the occupied territories as there were when Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat first shook hands in the White House Rose Garden. Israel has divided the West Bank into besieged cantons, worked diligently to increase the number of Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem (while stripping Palestinian Jerusalemites of their residency rights in the city) and turned Gaza into a virtual prison.

Here’s where we learn nothing about past mistakes, forget nothing about the dogmatic myths that construct the dream palaces which Arabs inhabit so violently. He, like the architects of Oslo, seems to believe that Arafat actually did try the Oslo “Peace” Process, and not the holy war he unleashed. Does he believe it? Or does he just think this is a great “trope” to hit for his Oslo-thinking audience?

And of course, true to the Palestinian victim narrative, all this virtual imprisonment has nothing to do with the vicious Jihad that Hamas launched in 2000 with Arafat’s cooperation. “We wuz just standin’ around when dese guys came and started beating up on us. Honest!”

People voted for Hamas last year not because they approved of the party’s sloganeering, not because they wanted to live in an Islamic state, not because they support attacks on Israeli civilians, but because Hamas was untainted by Fatah’s complacency and corruption, untainted by its willingness to continue pandering to Israel. Fatah leaders were viewed as mere policemen of the perpetual occupation, and the Palestinian Authority had willingly taken on the role of administering the population on behalf of the Israelis. Hamas offered an alternative.

There were civic alternatives who got virtually no votes. The idea that Hamas was chosen because they were against corruption and not because they planned an Islamic state with attacks on Israeli civilians, is not only a false dichotomy but one that either questions the honesty of the writer or the intelligence of the Palestinian people. No Palestinian could be unaware of what Hamas stood for, and it was a whole lot more than less corruption.

Here in the U.S., Hamas is routinely demonized, known primarily for its attacks on civilians. Depictions of Hamas portray its “rejectionism” as an end in itself rather than as a refusal to go along with a political process that has proved catastrophic for Palestinians on the ground.

Here we go again. Hamas’ rejectionism — burned into their identity with their charter — has been the cause of their catastrophic condition. They pushed the war against Israel in 2000 to its extremes, invited the crackdowns, and now claim that they aren’t extremists, just refusing to go along with a political process they sabotaged from the very outset.

Has Hamas done unspeakable things? Yes, but so has Fatah, and so too has Israel (on a much larger scale). There are no saints in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Wow! Self-criticism.

Palestinians, frankly, see a lot of hypocrisy in the West’s anti-Hamas stance. Since last year’s election, for example, the West has denied aid to the Hamas government, arguing, among other things, that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel. But that’s absurd; after all, Israel does not recognize Palestine either. Hamas is accused of not abiding by previous agreements. But Israel’s suspension of tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority, and its refusal to implement a Gaza-West Bank road link agreement brokered by the U.S. in November 2005, are practical, rather than merely rhetorical, violations of previous agreements, causing infinitely more damage to ordinary people. Hamas is accused of mixing religion and politics, but no one has explained why its version of that mixture is any worse than Israel’s — or why a Jewish state is acceptable but a Muslim one is not.

Well, no one you’re listening to. Just check out the Hamas charter and the Israeli Declaration of Independence and you’ll see the difference between a movement committed to civil society, and one dedicated to genocidal theocracy.

I am a secular humanist, and I personally find religiously identified political movements — and states — unappealing, to say the least.

Then why on earth are you shilling for some of the worst religious fanatics on the planet?

But let’s be honest. Hamas did not run into Western opposition because of its Islamic ideology but because of its opposition to (and resistance to) the Israeli occupation.

Wow. “Let’s be honest?” Has this man done his homework? Or is he just telling us what he wishes were true. After all, he’s against the Israeli “theocracy” — isn’t that what also drives Hamas? Is the alliance between the radical left and the Islamists based on these kinds of fantasies?

A genuine peace based on the two-state solution would require an end to the Israeli occupation and the creation of a territorially contiguous, truly independent Palestinian state.

But that is not happening. Fatah seems to have given up, its leaders preferring to rest comfortably with the power they already have. Ironically, it is Hamas that is taking the stands that would be prerequisites for a true two-state peace plan: refusing to go along with the permanent breakup of Palestine and not accepting the sacrifice of control over borders, airspace, water, taxes and even the population registry to Israel.

Embracing the “moderation” of Abbas allows the Palestinian Authority to resume servicing the occupation on Israel’s behalf, for now. In the long run, though, the two-state solution is finished because Fatah is either unable or unwilling to stop the ongoing dismemberment of the territory once intended for a Palestinian state.

The only realistic choice remaining will be the one between a single democratic, secular state offering equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians — or permanent apartheid.

Oh my Lord. This is astonishing. So we manage to get via a “moderate Hamas” taking stands that would be prerequisites to a “two-state solution.” But now that those have failed, the only solution is a single, secular, democratic state!

And who will bring that on? Why Islamic theocrats, of course.

“I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza,” said Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic outreach movement that recently announced the opening of a “military wing” to enforce Muslim law in Gaza.

Jihadia Salafiya is suspected of attacking a United Nations school in Gaza last month, after the school allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in that attack.

“The situation has now changed 180 degrees in Gaza,” said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza yesterday.

“Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public,” Abu Asqer told WND.

“Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped,” he said. “If it goes on, we’ll attack these things very harshly.”

Nah, they don’t mean it. They’re really democrats just waiting for a chance to make a go.

If we believe this stuff, we really do deserve to go under. The founding brothers talked about a willingness to die for democracy. We just have to be willing not to be terminally stupid.