Ballots, Bullets And Suicide Bombers

Newsweek by Christopher Dickey | Jan. 8, 2009 (Opinion)

If Barack Obama wants to change the Middle East for the better, he'll have to rethink the notions of democracy that the Bush administration found so easy to espouse, yet so hard to manage. And he should start by considering the vital, visceral importance of resistance, of defiance, of what an Irish Republican Army supporter once described to me as "f--- you rage and resentment," when people see themselves as occupied and oppressed. Full Story »

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3.2

by James Canning - Jan. 8, 2009

This is a so-so report, in which the author asserts that the electoral victory of Hamas in 2006 was a "debacle for the notion of democritization" without any supporting evidence. In fact, the elections were fair and the problem was the failure of the US and Israel to accept the results. The author does call for Obama to push for a settlement of the Israel/Palestine problem, and he presents Hezbollah as virtually an agency of the government of Iran rather than a highly effective deliverer of governmental and social services to the Shiite community in Lebanon.

Obama and Israel should accept the existence of Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Arab peace plan should be put into effect (meaning Israel ends the occupation of the West Bank and gets out of the Golan Heights).