Dec 19, 2008

The Palestinian Prime Minister

Mr. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and previously for many years Chancellor of the Exchequer or Finance Minister, has achieved the sort of results for the British economy that we have come to expect from our financial experts.

Earlier this week he appeared on newsreels with someone whose name I forget (let us call him Mr. Abu Flan) who was headlined as “Palestinian Prime Minister.”

Now the Palestinian election was chiefly remarkable, not only for the fact that one party won in a landslide, but that it was the only election world wide to take place without allegations of vote rigging, charges of corruption, or other objections, and was agreed by all independent monitors to have been entirely free and fair.

Mr. Abu Flan clearly came from the party that lost the election. What happened to the party that won the election, the freely elected government of the Palestinians? I note a BBC news headline this morning “Palestinian militant Islamist group in Gaza to end six month cease fire with Israel.”

How did this happen?

I think that one morning as Mr. Brown was shaking his Rice Crispies into his cereal bowl one of those plastic kiddy toys fell out, and when he picked it up he read “Congratulations. You have won the right to appoint the Palestinian Prime Minister.”

It seems the kindest explanation.

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