Nermeen Murad

Two regional “democracies” have pulled the region into a destructive war that will not only lead to the unnecessary death of hundreds of innocent victims but, more importantly, is the worst example of what happens when political participation is allowed/encouraged in our region.

I honestly feel that if what we are watching in Gaza is indicative of the outcome of democracy, then perhaps we should reconsider our continued calls for the widespread uptake and institutionalisation of democratic practices and representation.

Hamas is the product of “perhaps the most democratic elections in the region” (as CNN’s Cristiane Amanpour reported from the occupied Palestinian territories while commenting on the Israeli invasion of Gaza); Israel, on the other hand, has for decades insisted that “it” is the “only” democracy in the Middle East.

And if the “will of the people” in both Israel and Gaza is, as it appears to be, to follow leaders who convince them that they derive their legitimacy from absolute religious dictates, then the mess we are watching today is not only a sad example of political participation but also a damnation of the mixing of religion and state.

Since its creation, Israel has based its legitimacy on religious arguments and age-old scriptures, thus providing an apparent example of how religion can be used to entice followers and serve political ambitions. By setting such an example, it encouraged its “enemies” to follow suit, thereby creating the clash of “political religions” that we see between Israel and Muslims, and which has grown to divide the world as Muslims on the one side and “others” on the other.

The state of Israel, by claiming to champion Western-type democratic values, was able to gain the sympathy of Western democracies which, over time, turned an increasingly blind eye to the fact that Israel’s democracy was selective in its choice of recipients, basing it on religious considerations and systematically annihilating the rights of the people whose land it occupied and who have become unwelcome refugees on their own lands.

Both supporters and detractors of Hamas argue how the Islamic movement was the choice of the Palestinian people in a democratic election, but what people forget is that when the Palestinians trusted Hamas to lead the nascent Palestinian Authority, they were expressing their hope for an era of corruption-free governance based on respect for all citizens and the tenets of a tolerant religion.

The most unfortunate outcome, however, is that Hamas appears to have translated this mandate into carte blanche to taunt the Israelis into conflicts that only serve to bring death and destruction on the Palestinian people.

From the ensuing scenes of death, it manages to fire the imagination of the Arab masses to continue their support for its continued leadership, regardless of the human price or the destruction to infrastructure, land or services provided to its citizens, repeating the philosophy championed by Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006.

Neither Israel nor Hamas has shown long-term commitment to a stable and productive system of governance that serves the interests of the people they represent by building on peace moves, on tolerance or on any sort of stability. Both have concentrated, instead, on furthering their own narrow political interests and wrangling over the seats of power in their respective political systems.

Israel claims that its war on the Palestinian people is a defensive measure designed to protect its innocent citizens when, in reality, its war is aimed at gaining political ground before the February elections and protecting its occupation of a land that doesn’t belong to it.

I have had letters from American Jews and Israelis insisting that Israel, as a sovereign state, has the right to protect its citizens from Palestinian missiles. Beyond them is the fact that the Israeli state that opted to occupy another nation for decades hasn’t earned the right to the kind of security it says it needs.

Hamas claims that it is holding on to power in response to the will of the people who elected it, but having failed to provide the people of Gaza with any credible administrative leadership, it appears to have resorted to a policy of creating a need for its existence by inviting Israel to tighten its hold on the Palestinian people, thereby deviating attention away from its own failure to become a rational ruling party.

Both sides understand their common language and they both feed off and need each other for political survival.

What we are left with are the victims: the Palestinian people who are losing their lives, the Israeli people who are losing their humanity, the Arabs whose hopes and future have been squandered, and an international audience that has become numb and inured to the scenes of dead Palestinian children.

The long-term victims are the hope for democracy and the respect for a tolerant religion in our region.

NermeenMurad@gmail.com