Whenever I Need A Laugh, I Think Of All Those People Assuming Palestine Will Be A Liberal Democracy

By Mahmoud Abbas

Nobody ever promised me the position of President of the Palestinian National Authority would be easy. I never expected it to be. Combine it with – or consider it a subsidiary role of – my position as Chairman of the Fatah faction and Palestine Liberation Organization, and you get one long work day after another. Tensions run high. Usually I thrive on that – it gives me a sense of vitality – but occasionally I need to dissipate that tension, and there’s no better way to do that than to laugh. When I need a good laugh, I think of all those fools who see the nascent State of Palestine as a liberal democracy.

It never fails to crack me up. Other people’s idiocy can be an amazing thing to behold, and a hilarious one. In the almost twenty-four years since the Authority was created, there has been a steady erosion – one might describe it as an active weakening – of any semblance of democratic values, leaving precious little around which one might build a democratic state. We’ve had the occasional elections – I was voted into this four-year term twelve years ago, and the Palestinian parliamentarians a year later – but other than that, I chuckle every time I consider what our supporters in the West believe will happen once we gain full state status. Somehow our violent political culture, our endemic corruption, our all-important tribal loyalties, and our irrational genocidal hatred of Jews will dissipate in favor of transparency, robust institutions, and rule of law. Excuse me for a moment, I’m about to lose my composure…

Well. As you can see, that stuff is hella funny. It just doesn’t get old. I could spend hours rewatching clips of my advisers pontificating on democratic values being trampled by Israel, and how all the dysfunction of our society going back a thousand years is all Israel’s fault – and these people eat it up! they can’t get enough! We started playing a game back in the 1980’s who could get the Western press to take the most outrageous thing at face value, and we’ve yet to hit rock bottom. Most of us thought we’d grow tired of it, or discover the limits those imbeciles’ credulousness, within a couple of months, but we’ve yet to encounter either phenomenon. New vistas of ridiculousness open up daily.

Don’t ever stop, Western liberals. Please. We desperately need you for comic relief.

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