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Election Cart, Social Horse

y

ou can't have a democracy with-
out having elections, but elec-
tions alone do not a democracy

make.
It is important to remember the dis-
tinction as we think about the possibili-
ty of the voting that is scheduled to
come next month in the Palestinian ter-
ritories and Iraq. America will make a
serious mistake, of great consequence to
itself and to Israel, if it treats either one
a sufficient evidence of progress toward
a healthy government for either the
Iraqis or the Palestinians.
The temptation in both
cases will be for the Western
world to declare the voting a
victory, as it has in
Afghanistan, and to turn its attention to
other issues while the real problem, the
lack of an adequate social infrastructure,
festers and eventually erupts in a return
to corruption, dictatorship and intoler-
ance.
As ABC-TV's This Week commenta-
tor Fareed Zakaria points out in his
compelling book The Future of Freedom,
Americans tend to conflate a lot of ideas
when they say "democracy." What they
mean is a combination of social struc-
tures, including capitalism with a thriv-
ing entrepreneurial class, a rule of law, a
respect for free speech and a free press,

Greenberg's View

religious tolerance and a commitment
to the individual above the state. The
process of voting in free and fair elec-
tions is to select a government of, by
and for the people.
The necessary conditions for a
Western-style society do not generally
exist in the Arab world. While some
A HANUKKAH MIRACLE
A HANUKKAH MIRACLE
of these countries make a pretense of
WE
CELEBRATED
WE COULD USE NOW:
democracy — Egypt has elections for
FOLLOWING ARAFAT'S veATAI
IN
BIBLICAL
TIMES:
local and national officials, for exam-
I /
tAoPERATES
ple — none have the other necessary
\ '
A VIAL OF
WILL LEW TRE
attributes. Elections, after all, can
OLIVE OIL,
PALE5TIII*6
hardly express a popular will when the
EMOUGI4 Fog JOST
Totagp k
only information available to
OtE tkilatry
REM_ PEACE
most citizens comes from a
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Elan-
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rigidly controlled media.
Laws in these counties pro-
tect the government and "society," but
Setevetvgereatvinwroin 4.44.1.9resleSenpzeteom
zoo,/
not the individual who is the key to
00,40,
democracy.
tion of Mahmoud Abbas to replace
human rights activist and Israeli minis-
As we saw last week in Ukraine,
Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestinian
ter for diaspora affairs, correctly noted
regimes with no current history of free-
that "free elections are never the begin-
Authority leads to a genuine shift in
dom will try to steal elections so they
ning of the democratic process but one
West Bank and Gaza opinion about the
can retain power — perhaps a forebod-
future
of
Israel.
But,
trying
to
prop
him-
of its crowning achievements."
ing of where Russia may be headed as
Liberal democratic governments are
self
up
with
the
"street,"
Abbas
is
President Vladimir Putin tries to roll
possible
in Iraq and in the Palestinian
already
proclaiming
his
commitment
to
back the advances of the previous
"right of return" and other formulations
territories, just as they are anywhere else
decade. And election results may not be
that avoid telling Palestinians about
in the world. But to think that they will
what we would hope for; the likeliest
come into being before the other insti-
their need to move into the 21st centu-
result in Iraq will be a Shia Muslim gov-
tutions of democracy are firmly ground-
ernance with little patience for a lot of
ry.
ed in either place is dangerously wishful
In
a
recent
opinion
piece
in
the
secular and humanist ideas.
Jerusalem
Post,
Natan
Sharansky,
the
thinking 1
It would be nice if the coming elec-

EDITO RIAL

.

Hypocrites With Cameras

W

here have you gone, Tokyo
Rose? You could have been a
star.
If only something like Al Jazeera had
existed during your day, your smiling
face could have lit up every American
home; telling us what butchers our sol-
diers were, slaughtering innocent civil-
ians and bombing peaceful towns. You
were just born too soon. The wrong war
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Our Iraqi-American neighbors in
Dearborn have the Arab TV network
pegged right. When some of their
"reporters" turned up at the celebration
over Saddam Hussein's overthrow, the
Iraqis cursed them and refused to be
interviewed.
They understood that Al Jazeera is the
propaganda tool of every anti-American
organization in the Arab world. It exists

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews.com

was savagely executed by terror-
ists.
When asked why they didn't
for the sole purpose of foment-
show it, an Al Jazeera
ing hysteria in Cairo and
spokesman explained in fluent
Damascus and any other capital
gibberish that it was different.
that believes Islamist terrorists
I'm sure of that.
are doing holy work. Any con-
In related news, Detroit's
nection to actual journalism is
ABC
affiliate, along with several
GEORGE
purely coincidental.
others, refused to air a Veterans
The network repeatedly ran the CANTOR
Day showing of Saving Private
tape of a U.S. Marine shooting an
Reality
Ryan. It claimed that the rough
apparently wounded and unarmed
Check
language in the film, including
man in a Fallujah mosque. It neg-
repeated use of the f-word,
lected to mention that dead bodies
might cause the FCC to slap it with
had been booby trapped by insurgents
fines, as it did with CBS over the over-
and that every soldier going into corn-
exposure of Janet Jackson at the Super
bat is warned that a wounded adversary
Bowl.
remains highly dangerous.
As anyone can see, the cases are
The implication, too, is that Arab sol-
remarkably similar.
diers would never do a thing like that.
The Detroit Free Press'John Smyntek
Of course not.
wrote that these stations made more
While Al Jazeera did not hesitate to
money from airing local ads instead of
show the impact of bullets in this case,
the network show. Or as Shakespeare
it was strangely reticent at televising the
put it: "Sweet are the uses of adversity."
bullet that entered the back of the head
The movie, had it been shown, con-
of Margaret Hassan, the woman who
tains several scenes in which U.S. ser-
had done so much good for Iraqis and

vicemen, still in a rage after murderous
combat, gunned down Germans who -- -
wanted to surrender. This happens in
war. Steven Spielberg didn't just make it.
up.
The home front in 1944 never read
about it, and certainly never saw it.
Partly because of tight censorship, and
partly because we had the quaint notion
that we shouldn't assist the enemy by
airing propaganda calumniating our
troops.
Those who use the incident in the
mosque as evidence that Americans have
been desensitized and brutalized by this
particular war don't know what they're
talking about. But those who are
ignorant of history are destined to
repeatedly babble nonsense.
There was a song that began: "I bet
you're sorry, Tokyo Rose, for all the
dirty things you've done."
But today's TV networks, foreign
and domestic, never have to say
they're sorry. Even when they are
exposed for the contemptible hyp-
ocrites they are. I 1

12/ 3
2004

37