The PA and Blintzes: The Poor Man's Democracy

I was reminded today by current events of the following story:

Poor Man's Blintzes

An improverished Jew in an Eastern European village one day asked his wife to make him blintzes.

Wife: "Only rich people can afford to make blintzes."

Husband: "What can't we afford?"

Wife: "Eggs."

Husband: "I'll have my blintzes without eggs."

Wife: "We can't afford the cottage cheese."

Husband: "Leave out the cottage cheese."

Wife: "We can't afford the raisins."

Husband: "I don't need raisins in my blintzes."

The wife makes the blintzes without eggs, cottage cheese, or raisins. The husband takes two bites and says, "You know, I don't see what rich people see in blintzes."

And so it is with the PA and their "elections".

Is there any comparison between the Iraqi elections and what they have accomplished on the one hand and what the Palestinian Arabs are doing?

o Under Abbas, the membership of the PA includes terrorists and murderers.
o Under Abbas, the terrorist groups use their guns to break up the elections--unlike in Iraq where Sunni guerillas were ready to protect polling stations from Al Qaeda.
o Under Abbas, what passes for a constitution declares the Palestinian intent to destroy the country they are supposed to be making peace with.
o Under Abbas, a major political force is a convicted murderer.
o Under Abbas, the corrupt old guard is doing everything it can to hold on.
o Under Abbas, the Palestinian Arabs (unlike the Iraqis) are left to themselves to maintain the peace (don't laugh).
o Under Abbas, suicide attacks are encouraged by paying the families of the suicide bombers.

Meryl Yourish asks What was missing from Bush's speech Sunday night? Her point is the double standard and the White House's abandonment of Israel. By the same token, at a time that Bush is attempting to make up lost ground on the issue of the Iraq war, would anything seem so foolish as mentioning Abbas and the Palestinian Arabs in the same breath as Iraq?

No matter how sanitized Hamas (and by extension the PA) is by the media (see SoccerDad's Hamas, a kennedy school of government affiliate), I'd still like to think that the PA is a "democracy" only the media (and desperate Western leaders) could love.

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Palestinians and Democracy.