The concept of individual rights in the Middle East
By William Hessing

America’s founding fathers fought for independence from England’s oppressive rule to form a country based on individual rights. Our consensual government is a rare and precious idea. It is not imposed or bequeathed. It was purchased with the blood of heroes and patriots. Democracy’s lifeblood is secularism and religious tolerance coupled with free speech and economic liberty.

Democracy does not spring fully formed from the head of a Greek god. Democracy is not a secret to be kept from the mujahideen. They are welcome to it. We should promote it in the Muslim world, but only they can ensure its success. Afghan tribal councils and Palestinian parliament are better than tyranny but are not elected by an unbound citizenry, free to criticize heads of state or to speak openly to journalists.

The differences are critical and lie at the crisis in the Muslim world. Yassar Arafat’s Palestinian authority is the temporary governing body of the Gaza Strip and West Bank territories. To what degree does Palestinian authorities have a real constituency? The people on the West Bank don’t know. They cannot debate one another for alternate policies.

Yassar Arafat assumed power. When he allowed real elections he simply perpetrated autocracy. Viewed in this context of dictatorial rule, the alleged right of Palestinians to "self-determination" is groundless. No group has a right to its own state if what it seeks is a dictatorship. Arafat’s despotism means granting legitimacy to a state that is utterly hostile to its own citizens. The United States was founded on the recognition of individual rights. Arafat wants the "right" to rule rightless serfs in a state run by a ruthless dictator. Nobody has a right to create and maintain such a state.

The events of the last few weeks indicate a pattern that is crystal clear: Arafat and the PLO have escalated their war against Israel, while demanding Israel renounce military solutions in return for a "peace process." It is a brazen attempt to wage all-out war while urging the victims to disarm. The immediate goal would give Arafat his own independent state in exchange for an Arab promise to be nice. Thus, Arafat’s strategy is to unleash a terrorist war; use the "peace process" to keep Israel from fighting back; then terrorize Israel into a "political solution" that gives him more concessions and more territory which he will use to launch a new war to eliminate Israel.

The Palestinians are not seeking to gain their freedom. They are enemies of freedom. They and the Arab world reject the concept of rights. Every Arab country is a monarchy, theocracy or some kind of dictatorship. Freedom of speech, property rights, free elections and the separation of church and state are almost nonexistent in the Middle East. Speaking out against the rulers or Muslim religion leads to imprisonment or death. Attempts to start competing political parties are crushed. Israel is the sole country in the Middle East that recognizes individual rights. People are free to voice their opinions. An Arab who lives in Israel enjoys far greater freedom then he would in an Arab country.

When Israel was created, Palestine was a dessert. People lived as they had since the time of Moses. The Jews brought western values and knowledge. They turned a barren land into a modern, industrialized civilization. They raised cities where there had been dirt. Where there had been dry sand, they developed irrigated farms. Where there had been pack animals, they built cars, trucks and planes. Where there was poverty, they produced wealth. They brought freedom and individual rights to a land where these ideas were unknown.

The fertility of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the Suez Canal, billions of barrels of oil and invaluable geopolitical location that helped create wealthy civilizations in the past now yield an excess of misery, rather than the riches of resource-poor Hong Kong or Switzerland. Blaming the West, and Israel, for their unendurable reality is easier for millions of Arabs then admitting the truth.

When a person can see that a different culture can produce a much better life through greater knowledge, mastery over nature, comfort and security, greater respect for the individual than his own, he has two choices. He can adopt the new culture as a blessing or he can seek to destroy it and himself because it stands as a reproach to his irrational form of existence. Palestinians have chosen the latter. They hate Israel because of her ability to embrace reason, science, technology and individual rights. Israel stands for the principal of life.

For Palestine to have a future, Palestinians need to choose individual rights and a free society as their core political principal. They need representatives who believe in and honor individual rights – leaders who plan to establish a free civilized society where violence is abhorred and suppressed. Only then will Palestinians have earned the right to a state of their own. If they don’t, they will bring further destruction and get their death wish. Analysts should not ignore the morally antithetical premises governing the two sides. Israel is the morally right side that must be free to wage a war of self-defense.

The writer is a resident of Babylon

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