Saturday, November 11, 2006

Killing two fallacies with one poll

From Power Line:
Thomas asks Secretary Rice what evidence she has that the denizens of such an independent state would give up the dream that actually seems to drive them -- the dream of eliminating Israel:
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you can look at any opinion poll in the Palestinian territories and 70 percent of the people will say they're perfectly ready to live side by side with Israel because they just want to live in peace. And when it comes right down to it, yeah, there are plenty of extremists in the Palestinian territories who are not going to be easily dealt with. They have to be dealt with — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Palestinian territories — they're terrorists and they have to be dealt with as terrorists.

But the great majority of Palestinian people — this is — I've been with these people. The great majority of people, they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do.

QUESTION: Do you think this or do you know this?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think I know it.

QUESTION: You think you know it?

SECRETARY RICE: I think I know it.
I'd like to see the poll to which Secretary Rice is referring. I don't recall one with results as described. But what are we to make of the broader issue? I read Secretary Rice's responses as suggesting that she knows, or thinks she knows, she's peddling tripe.
That poll would be their last election, in which the "Palestianians" voted for a terrorist group sworn to Israel's destruction.

This fact kills two falsehoods: First, that "Palestinians" are a noble people desiring freedom and peaceful coexistence with Israel, and second, that democracy will benefit the Infidel when instituted among a people enslaved by Islam.

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