Yesterday the ex-President of Israel (he resigned from the largely ceremonial post of head of state in 2007), Moshe Katsav, was convicted of rape by a jury in open court in Tel Aviv.
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| Ex- President ...... |
He was found guilty of raping an employee in the 1990s, when he was
tourism minister and of later sexual offences while he was President.
The judges said they believed the evidence of the woman whose testimony
had led to two charges of rape.
In Israel's neighbours the courts, or elections have little to do with the removal of leaders .... in fact its only happened once in recent times when Saddam Hussein was tried and convicted (and that took hundreds of thousands of Western troops to ensure it happened) .... assassination on the other hand is a frequent method of 'democratic' change. Of course it takes the 'good' as often as it takes the 'bad' such as King Abdullah of Jordan, or Anwar Sadat of Egypt ..... but its often hard to tell the difference in the Arab World.
Just for interest I have compiled a list of the Arab / Muslim 'democratic changes' of the post 1945 period. These are those who died with their boots on ......
Iran
Niger
Yemen
Israel
Just for interest I have compiled a list of the Arab / Muslim 'democratic changes' of the post 1945 period. These are those who died with their boots on ......
Algeria
- Mohamed Boudiaf (June 29, 1992), Head of State of Algeria, shot at Annaba
- Ahmed Maher Pasha, (1945 February 24), Prime Minister of Egypt
- Mahmud Fahmi Nokrashi, (1948 December 28), Prime Minister of Egypt
- Anwar Sadat, (1981 October 6), President of Egypt, shot while reviewing military parade
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| Sadat Assassinated |
- Ali Razmara, (1951), Prime Minister of Iran
- Hassan Ali Mansur, (1965 January 21), Prime Minister of Iran
- Shapour Bakhtiar, (1991), Prime Minister of Iran briefly in 1979, stabbed to death at his home in France
- Saddam Hussein was tried and convicted (See main post)
- Abdullah I, (1951 July 20), King of Jordan, when entering the Al Aqsa Mosque
- Hazza al-Majali, (1960 August 29), Prime Minister of Jordan, killed with 10 others by time bomb in office
- Wasfi al-Tal, (1971 November 28), Prime Minister of Jordan shot during visit to Cairo
- Bachir Gemayel, (1982), president-elect of Lebanon, killed by bomb
- Rashid Karami, (1987 June 1), Prime Minister of Lebanon, killed by bomb aboard helicopter
- René Moawad, (1989), President of Lebanon
- Rafik Hariri, (2005), former Prime Minister of Lebanon
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| Rafik Hariri Killed ..... Nothing Left |
- Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, (1999 April 9), President of Niger, ambushed by soldiers.
- Faisal of Saudi Arabia, (1975 March 25), King of Saudi Arabia, shot by nephew at palace
Yemen
- Imam Yahya, (1948), King of Yemen
- Ibrahim al-Hamadi, (1977), President of North Yemen
- Ahmad al-Ghashmi, (1978), President of North Yemen killed by bomb along with envoy from South Yemen
- Kadhi Abdullah al-Hagri, (1977), past Prime minister of Yemen Arab Republic, killed in London
- Yitzhak Rabin, (1995), Prime Minister of Israel and 1994 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
To be fair the US has assassinated (4) or tried to assassinate several Presidents, and the UK has had at least one (Spencer Perceval) ... I expect that France has had attempts as well as other European countries!!
ReplyDeleteActually that's a fair point .... maybe the main thrust should be that in these countries, its the only way to get rid of the leaders !!
ReplyDeleteThe list was incomplete: you might have added for Iraq King Faisal (killed by/on orders of Gen. Kassem) and Gen. Kassem (hanged on orders of Saddam Hussein and/or CIA)
ReplyDeletePakistan: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (hanged after show trial on orders of Gen. Zia Ul-Haq): Gen.Zia Ul-Haq (killed in mystery plane crash -bomb on board?) and Benazir Bhutto (shot by assassin)
That's another fair point .... although I never claimed the list was complete.
ReplyDeleteThere was an emergency fund raising drive and it re-opened again, but despite support from such luminaries as former astronaut Bill Anders, sci-fi author Larry Niven, and even Hollywood actress Jodie Foster, these funds were only enough for a few months of operations.
ReplyDeleteeb-5 visa
Think you have posted this on the wrong story .... did you mean this post?
Deletehttp://no-pc.blogspot.com/2012/01/et-dont-come.html