This Democracy of Hypocrisy

For those of you not paying any attention, Israel recently invaded Gaza (Palestine) in an attempt to cease all extremist behavior. This was after many attempts on both sides to keep the peace. The fragile ceasefire that was in effect in December ended, and some Palestinians shot two rockets into Israel. Israel responded in what can only be described as understandable frustration, and put boots into Gaza. Hundreds of civilians died in the hunt for those responsible, the Red Cross was not let in to aid the innocent, and it was generally a tense debacle.

Now, there is a new ceasefire, which will once again be at danger of shattering at any second, as one or the other side waits for the other to do something stupid. There isn't any real proactive solution, because of the fundamental problem. Religious nationalism, on BOTH sides.

This is the interesting part. America, as led by our presidents, have traditionally been extremely pro-Israel, for a variety of reasons. We condemned the Palestinians for not being a democratic society, and THEN condemned them for democratically electing someone who WE didn't want them to elect. This is a pattern through the last forty years of American foreign policy (and probably longer). You elect who WE want you to, or we will overthrow your DEMOCRATIC government to install despots who are pro-America.

Despicable, eh? Imagine this. We march into Afghanistan in the name of democracy (like we sorta did) overthrowing the Taliban. Bush proclaims a victory for liberty and democracy, and hail the elections as a victory for America. Then the Afghan people elect the Taliban back. That'd be a bit of an embarrasment, wouldn't it?! Oh wait...

So why were we there, what was the end result? All we did was force the country to democratically do the same thing they'd been doing. No difference, just a slightly more liberal society that... oh, they throw acid at girls going to school? Oops.

What if Iraq, who would greet us as liberators, had democratically re-elected Saddam? If the country had been 51% Sunni, we might have seen this happen. What a blow for democracy then! Except it wouldn't be, it would merely be a blow for Bush and America.

We need to stop equating democracy with America. We need to stop thinking countries NEED democracy when public opinion is served every day there isn't a revolution. What we're doing is turning Palestine from a nationalistic peaceful nation who just wanted their homeland to a religiously fundamental society who views the world not in borders, but in gods, at the expense of hundreds of innocents.

This is our doing. America's doing. We're responsible, and we can fix this. Not through forcing our viewpoint onto the world that won't change because we tell it to, but through diplomacy, through smart power, through people who have a passion for keeping the world from fighting.