Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced, yesterday, that the United States will restore aide to Palestine through the government’s fund for democracy and development assistance. The presumption of a fund, like the one Condoleezza Rice referred to, is that our government is promoting democracy. Yet this decision reveals an intentional effort, not to promote democracy, but to promote a unilateral policy agenda.

I am convinced of a few things. First, I am convinced that democracy in the Middle East is a positive objective, if it comes from among the people who the democracy is supposed to represent. But a democracy by the sword is not at all a democracy. It is a sham image of democracy. We, as Americans, are absolutely committed to democracy domestically (in theory, at least). We cannot imagine any other form of government, even if we domestically allow another form of government in the name of democracy's rhetoric. Moreover, it is not clear to me that the Palestinian people even want a democracy. I am perplexed about how one can claim that a democratic government a citizenry does not want is, in fact, a democracy. If the people do not choose democracy, then a so-called democratic government is not functioning according to the will of the people. And a government not functioning according to the will of its citizenry can hardly be called a democracy.

Second, I am convinced that nothing about the so-called new government of President Abbas of the Palestinians justifies it being called a democracy meriting support from an American government fund to support democracies. Don't get me wrong. If I had to weigh in whether I support Abbas or Hamas, I am much more sympathetic to President Abbas, especially given his desire to support stability and peace. But that is hardly the point when evaluating our own government's policy initiatives.

Third, it is not at all clear to me that the new government in Palestine demonstrates anything remotely exemplifying a real government, democratic or otherwise; despite Condoleezza Rice's reference to Abbas' appointment of what Rice calls the new Palestinian government. If Abbas "appointed" a government, that government exists neither democratically nor at the will of the people; especially given that the people, themselves, are conflicted over who properly represents them. It is a government formed at the will of a single man, Abbas, at the prompting of our own American Administration.

Here are the issues I have. First of all, Abbas was elected because American policy insisted on a democratic election of a Palestinian president. Then American policy went on to insist on a democratic election of a legislative branch of a Palestinian government. That democratic election gave Hamas control of Palestine’s legislative body. Democracy served its purpose. The Palestinians got a legislative government that they feel reflects their issues. Our own American policy set up the conditions, then, for the conflict Palestine is now going through. We set that up because the neo-cons running Bush's Administration really believed we could strong-arm the formation of a sympathetic government. Bush's Administration, with the counsel of the neo-cons, apparently calculated incorrectly.

But should our government have been calculating at all, in terms of interfering directly with the will of a populace in relation to what type of government that populace wanted? We absolutely should not have been.

If we have not learned anything at all form the two world wars, it is that sovereign nations deserve the integrity of their sovereignty without interference from other nations. That means a society deserves the right to be self-determined in terms of the government they desire to have. No outside nation, including a super-power like the United States, has the right to interfere; especially for the purpose of effecting unilateral benefits for ourselves. We believed in that so strongly, after World War II, that we, as Americans, led the movement for the creation a world body empowered to help ensure the integrity of national sovereignties and respect between nations: the United Nations. Our American Government now makes the U.N. irrelevant at the expense of our own national ethics and principles.

I know there will be those arguing that the Palestinians had no government, so they had no national sovereignty to respect. I will answer the Palestinians had a society that, should they be left their space, would have formed, on their own, a government that reflects the will of their people and their society. That deserves every bit as much respect as does a formed government. After all, a government, whether democratic or not, is properly a reflection of the society it governs.

In Palestine, however, we have a conflict between a pseudo-government that exists at the will of American neo-con policy and one that reflects the will of the people of Palestine.

What direction, then, should we take as Americans intending to pursue effective foreign policy? Hamas poses a real problem that needs to be resolved. Their very existence as a political movement reflects entrenched hatred towards another people, the Israelis. America, however, cannot resolve that problem by continuing to play big-daddy-warlord overseeing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. We have to begin to see ourselves as mediators. We have done that before. We did it under Carter, with great success. And we did it under Clinton, moving towards success. That approach needs to be continued. But, to be successful, we have to be respected mutually by Palestinians and Israelis. We can only do that as a disinterested, third-party nation interested only in peace. We cannot do that as a nation choosing sides, especially choosing sides through use of force or through facilitating the use of force.

By the way, have I voiced, yet, my cynicism about our current government Administration’s policy in the Middle East propping up puppet governments while claiming to promote democracy?