Thursday 30 December 2010

Compare And Contrast

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.
 
Moshe Katsav Was Convicted Of Rape
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 ......

Algeria
  • Mohamed Boudiaf (June 29, 1992), Head of State of Algeria, shot at Annaba
Egypt

Sadat Assassinated
Sadat Assassinated
Iran
Iraq
Jordan
Lebanon

Rafik Hariri Killed ..... Nothing Left
Rafik Hariri Killed ..... Nothing Left
Niger
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Yemen
However, even Israel has had its moments:

Israel
at

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous4 January 2011 at 12:31

    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!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. No PC5 January 2011 at 13:09

    Actually 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 !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous7 January 2011 at 20:25

    The 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)

    Pakistan: 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)

    ReplyDelete
  4. No PC8 January 2011 at 08:01

    That's another fair point .... although I never claimed the list was complete.

    ReplyDelete
  5. eb-5 visa20 January 2012 at 18:06

    There 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.
    eb-5 visa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No PC1 February 2012 at 22:12

      Think you have posted this on the wrong story .... did you mean this post?

      http://no-pc.blogspot.com/2012/01/et-dont-come.html

      Delete

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