Legitimate Governments

Recently Vladimir Putin claimed, “We haven’t considered Hamas a terrorist organization. Today we must recognize that Hamas has reached power in Palestine as a result of legitimate elections and we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people.” But does that mean anything in the larger context of what has been happening in the Middle East? Let’s forget the very real possibility that the elections may have been rigged or even democratic in nature and assume for the sake of argument that everything was on the up and up, being legitimately elected has absolutely no bearing on whether those elected are going to be a good government to its people or its neighbors.

Throughout history there have been dozens of legitimately elected governments that turned out to be nothing more than murderous thugs with absolute power; do we have any reason to believe that Hamas will be suddenly any different now that it is in total power than when it was simply the militant wing of the anti-Israeli party? In fact now that it is in total power there is no one stopping it from advancing its primary mission in life; that being the removal of every Jew from Israel.

“Legitimate” elections only serve to prove one thing, that the populace approves of and wants the form of government that is being elected. In the case of Hamas, we can only conclude that the people that voted for it knew that they want to pursue a policy of killing Jews, the only difference now; it will be an official act of the state government and not a militant wing of the population. The election of Hamas to power isn’t an indictment on the legitimacy of elections it is an indictment on the future of the Middle East and it isn’t a pretty picture. We can only hope that the US and the rest of the world will finally stop hiding its head in the sand and stand behind Israel in its right to exist.