Kidnapping

Since the beginning of the most recent Middle Eastern Conflict, Israel has been venturing into the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to capture Hamas officials. As in this BBC article, "in recent weeks, Israel has arrested dozens of Hamas officials, including the Deputy Prime Minister, Nasser Shaer." The international press, using Israeli statements, has been referring to the capture as "arrests." The lack of any international outrage over this matter is revealing. Venturing into territory outside of your own sovereign state in order to capture diplomatically elected officials of another nation is not an arrest, it is kidnapping. I understand that Hamas has a terrorist wing that has historically attacked civilian targets inside Israel. However, democratic elections had begun to force the group, which had been observing a truce with Israel, into the moderate fray of a ruling party. In fact, just before the Israeli incursions into Gaza, senior Hamas officials had reached an agreement with Hamas officials inside Israeli jails to recognize the State of Israel. And although it was not the type of democracy George W. Bush had been idealogically hoping for, it was a democratic step nonetheless, which I believed heralded a step in the right direction for a two state solution.

Although it has been said many times in many places, democracy and secularism do not necessarily have to co-exist when you have a highly homogeneous society in which a clear ethnic and religious majority exists. Although my personal view is that secular political systems that respect religious freedoms are an ideal to be aspired towards, from my perspective democratic elections in the Palestinian territories was a step in the right direction. If nothing else it made a marginalised and "crushed" people believe that they had a voice in their own future. The question will continue to be, is it desirable for many of the corrupt secular autocratic rulers of the Middle East to remain in power, or have democratic elections whereby a Islamic majority would most likely emerge?