Love thy enemy

From Daniel Pipes:

For all their rhetoric about Israel's 'vicious' and 'brutal' occupation, Palestinians -- including their leaders -- sometimes let down their guard and candidly acknowledge how much they prefer Israel to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Of the many examples Pipes give, I thought these two were especially worth passing on:

Democracy. Israel's 1999 elections, in which the sitting prime minister lost, impressed many Palestinian observers. Columnists remarked on the smooth transition in Israel and wanted the same for themselves: "I envy [the Israelis] and desire a similar regime in my future state." Even Hasan al-Kashif, director-general of the PA's Information Ministry, contrasted the changes in Israel with the power of "several names in our leadership" which go on ruling in perpetuity. Nayif Hawatma, leader of the terrorist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, wants the PA to make decisions like Israel, by presenting them for a vote. Minority rights. Christians and secular Muslims particularly appreciate Israel's protection at a time when Palestinian politics has taken an increasingly Islamist cast. A Christian Palestinian declares that when the Palestinian state comes into existence, "the sacred union against the Zionist enemy will die. It will be time to settle accounts. We will undergo the same as our Lebanese brothers or the Copts in Egypt. It saddens me to say so, but Israeli laws protect us.