[The Gaza Withdrawal:] A Democracy Killing Itself

Submitted by Sam Antoine (Monaco), Aug 16, 2005 at 12:25

Dear Mr Pipes,

This would be the very first time I do not totally agree with you. Concerning the Gaza withdrawal, I was an advocator of this strategy many years ago. Let me explain.

Once you have lived a war in Lebanon and experienced terrorism before anyone in the West, you are able to understand things that are difficult to conceive. Many years ago, I advocated the same thing to General AOUN. At that time, the Syrian army was occupying the area south of Beirut until the southern part of Lebanon, with a grand majority of muslims and palestinians. The Northern part was still free with a large majority of christians. When General AOUN decide to free ALL lebanon from Syrian occupation, the muslims and the palestinians turned against him.They wanted to remain under the syrian occupation. I then told General AOUN to leave them clean their own problems together (namely security problems) and that soon they would fight together to see who was going to rule . He didn't listen and fought a battle to free their part, while ours was already free! He lost, and we lost with him beyond repair, even if the U.S has recently helped to drive out the Syrians from Lebanon.

Leave the palestinians rule their own land and you will see how security will behave. A similar example is Cyprus. Why don't you ask the greek Cypriots if they want to revert back to a unified country?

I know it is difficult for you in the West to understand and to connect such things with democracy. The major problem is that Islam does not understand democracy, and you had better try to improve yours on your own and let them experience their autonomy according to their own laws and religion.

Sorry about that, but you will see that Mr Sharon is a great visionary and he is rendering a great service to Israel.
Best Regards,
Sam Antoine, Ph.D.

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