Democracy...

When Ariel Sharon boasts that Israel is a democratic country and when the United States administration and its allies confirm this claim, many questions come to mind.

Does democracy mean the occupation of other people`s lands by force?

Does democracy approve defiance of United Nations` resolutions?

Does democracy accept the killing of innocent civilian people or even those who are fighting for freedom and independence?

Does democracy agree with the destruction of private homes while their inhabitants are inside?

Does democracy harmonise with preventing ambulances from evacuating the wounded and preventing people from burying their dead?

Does democracy permit depriving people of water, food and medicine?

Does democracy tolerate the destruction of mosques and the blockading of the church of the Nativity, killing people inside it and depriving them of their basic needs?

Does democracy approve of the destruction and the devastation of the facilities of education, health and social services, electricity, water and fields?

Does democracy accept plundering the properties and the stores of the Palestinians by the Israeli soldiers?

Does democracy allow treating the Palestinians as refugees in their own homeland?

Why don`t the democratic countries of the free world impose sanctions on Israel, as happened in the case of Yugoslavia and Iraq?

Why isn`t Sharon accused of being a war criminal as was Milosevic and sent to The Hague for trial after the massacre in Jenin (not to mention Sabra and Shatila in 1982)?

Democracy without justice is the democracy of criminals. Democracy without guidance is the democracy of arrogance. Democracy without knowledge is the democracy of the blind. Democracy without mercy is the democracy of the ruthless.