International Update

So I'm not sure how many of you out there reading this also know about the whole Hamas political victory in Palestine, since we Americans pay about as much attention to international news as we do to sports like rugby and badminton.

I can't help but think: what a dilemma for us and our European buddies. What do you do or say when you go around the world promoting democracy, and then a democracy in Palestine elects a group internationally labelled as terrorists to power? Which side do you come down on? Is it more important that the power of choosing government leaders is given to the people or that the people eventually put in charge have to agree with our policies?

Of course, with our current war on terror, it's not hard to see that we can't immediately embrace Hamas (or, in many ways, respect the wishes of the Palestenian people). It's not the first time we've failed to recognize elected world leaders.

Still - what's the right thing to do? Embrace democracy or embrace the fact that there are a lot of people out there that think terrorism is ultimately acceptable? The Fatah party that Hamas replaced was more corrupt; clearly, there was voter dissatisfaction with the current government. Hamas didn't run on a platform of blowing up Israelis (although that's what they're most known for) - they ran on a platform of fixing the problems of the Fatah regime and making things better for the people at home on the ground. Although the victory is being called "surprising" and "stunning" in most of the headlines, it must have taken a lot of disgust in the Palestinian voters to swing such a vote.

Anyway, what do I know? I had to look up Israel, Palestine, Hamas, and Fatah in Wikipedia to begin to have an idea of what's going on behind this news story. It's a muddled mess over there, and no one person or nation is to blame for that. It'll be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out.

In other news, buy Chipotle stock!