Daniel Pipes has his say on Hamas etc

The Australian: Daniel Pipes: Region not ripe for democracy [January 30, 2006]

A short, interesting item from Daniel Pipes in the Australian today (see above) about the problem with democracy in the Middle East. The key paragraphs:

"In brief, elections are bringing to power the most deadly enemies of the West. What went wrong? Why has a democratic prescription that proved successful in Germany, Japan and other formerly bellicose nations not worked in the Middle East?

It's not Islam or some cultural factor that accounts for this difference; rather, it is the fact that ideological enemies in the Middle East have not yet been defeated. Democratisation took place in Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union after their populations had endured the totalitarian crucible. By 1945 and 1991, they recognised what disasters fascism and communism had brought them, and were primed to try a different path.

That's not the case in the Middle East, where a totalitarian temptation remains powerfully in place."

His suggested approach:

"Western capitals need to show Palestinians that, like Germans electing Adolf Hitler in 1933, they have made a decision gravely unacceptable to civilised opinion. The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians to see the error of their ways."

Not sure how that would work out.

One thing I have never understood is what is it that passes for an economy in Gaza. If they have very little economic activity there, it makes it a bit hard to exert pressure that way. It would seem to me that a solution to the arab/Israeli problem should include giving the Palestinians something with which they can base an economy. But I am not sure if that has been factored in with past suggested "solutions" or not.

And one thing about Pipe's piece: a recent post over at Neo-neocon (a very classy blog, by the way) points out that talk of Hitler being democratically elected rather oversimplifies how he came to power.