Hey, Good Luck With That
We've all gotta have dreams:
Ghassan Barham, a Christian lawyer from the Jenin area, believes that his chances of succeeding Yasser Arafat as chairman of the Palestinian Authority are "very good."... Although he never spent a day in an Israeli prison, Barham holds radical views concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His platform... calls for eliminating widespread corruption in the PA, excluding the US from the peace process, and signing a deal with Israel based on the 1947 United Nations partition plan... Barham... described himself as unaffiliated to any political group... Asked about suicide bombings, Barham said he is opposed to calling them terrorist attacks. "These attacks are carried out in revenge for Israeli aggression," he said.
Let's see. A non-Muslim (read: enemy of Hamas) is running for the Palestinian chairmanship in order to root out corruption (read: enemy of Fatah). He is actually proud that he has no support from any existing Palestinian faction. He's calling for a peace plan that not even the far Israeli left could support, and he's actively trying to alienate the United States. Now, you might be inclined to believe that since he has something that pisses everyone off, he also has something that will make everyone happy (the Israelis will like that he's not an Islamic fanatic, the secular Palestinians will like that he's calling for a return to the 1948 borders, and Hamas will like that he supports terrorism).
But that's not the way things work in the Middle East. Israel has plenty of Christian Palestinians to talk to. The secular Palestinians have plenty of hardnosed negotiators. And Hamas has plenty of candidates who love terrorism. And let's not forget that Barham is very clear that no one will be particularly upset if he was to go missing. So I believe that the sad conclusion is that he's just not a very promising candidate.
This is like when porn stars and midgets ran for governor of California. Except without the whole "Hamas might murder them" thing.
Ghassan Barham, a Christian lawyer from the Jenin area, believes that his chances of succeeding Yasser Arafat as chairman of the Palestinian Authority are "very good."... Although he never spent a day in an Israeli prison, Barham holds radical views concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His platform... calls for eliminating widespread corruption in the PA, excluding the US from the peace process, and signing a deal with Israel based on the 1947 United Nations partition plan... Barham... described himself as unaffiliated to any political group... Asked about suicide bombings, Barham said he is opposed to calling them terrorist attacks. "These attacks are carried out in revenge for Israeli aggression," he said.
Let's see. A non-Muslim (read: enemy of Hamas) is running for the Palestinian chairmanship in order to root out corruption (read: enemy of Fatah). He is actually proud that he has no support from any existing Palestinian faction. He's calling for a peace plan that not even the far Israeli left could support, and he's actively trying to alienate the United States. Now, you might be inclined to believe that since he has something that pisses everyone off, he also has something that will make everyone happy (the Israelis will like that he's not an Islamic fanatic, the secular Palestinians will like that he's calling for a return to the 1948 borders, and Hamas will like that he supports terrorism).
But that's not the way things work in the Middle East. Israel has plenty of Christian Palestinians to talk to. The secular Palestinians have plenty of hardnosed negotiators. And Hamas has plenty of candidates who love terrorism. And let's not forget that Barham is very clear that no one will be particularly upset if he was to go missing. So I believe that the sad conclusion is that he's just not a very promising candidate.
This is like when porn stars and midgets ran for governor of California. Except without the whole "Hamas might murder them" thing.
