Opinion: U.S. doesn’t support real democracy in Middle East

Ma'an - Ramzy Baroud - … Arab governments have made two important discoveries in the last decade.

The first discovery is that US interests cannot peacefully co-exist with true democracies in the region. Egypt had a rude awaking in 2005, when Muslim Brotherhood candidates won a fifth of the votes, if not more. This was followed by the unmatched democratic revolution in Palestine when Hamas won the majority of the vote. The aftermath of both of these events was enough to remind both Arabs and the US of the folly of their so-called democracy project.

The second realization is that Arabs are not judged by the genuineness of their democracy; rather, the success of their democratic experiences is judged on the basis of how well they can serve and protect US interests.

... Have Middle Eastern ruling elites figured out the democracy trick, the great con of our time? Have they realized that democracy in the Middle East is only what the White House says it can be?

Israel has mastered this very trick since the day of its inception. This is what Hasan Afif El-Hasan argues in his new and very instructive book, Is the Two-State Solution Already Dead? "The identity of the Israelis in their legal documents and ID cards is expressed in terms of their group religious affiliation as 'Jewish,' 'Muslim,' 'Christian,' 'Bahai,' 'Durzi,' etc., where all privileges are conferred by the state on the Jews by virtue of being Jews, thus making Israel a religio-ethnocracy rather than a liberal democracy."

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