Sorry, I meant to just characterise the argument, not its speaker. The absence of Arab democracies doesn't have a well-established predictive mechanism that would allow us to predict a Gazan democracy should fail. It does highlight a unique aspect of Israel in its region.
For rule of the people (democracy) to work, certain base values and education are necessary. I implore you to research this, it is discussed often by both Arabs (who understand Arab culture) and Westerner scholars (who do not).
Sure, no problem, I actually had this conversation with somebody a few months ago. He's an Israeli Arab, not a Gazan Arab, but they are both Sunni Muslims. The conversation was in Hebrew, though I often speak with Arabs in Arabic as well. I spend much time interested in their culture and language - Israelis and Westerners know almost nothing about them.
Firstly, legal authority lies only with God. Not with man, as in Jewish and Christian societies (his comparison, not mine, and yes he mentioned Christians for some reason even though his town does not have Christians). There is no decision of man about what is permitted and what is not - even if the majority in a democracy want it. Allah has revealed what is good and just for man, even though he emboldened man with other desires and temptations.
Another problem with democracy in Arab society (not Muslim society as the previous paragraph dealt with) is how would voting even work. Two women's votes would be needed for every man's votes. He specifically said that this is an Arab problem, not a Muslim problem. And he says that women should not vote anyway, nor should children whose father is still alive, because they can only vote for who the father or husband says. Secret voting does not change that.
Another problem is Jews will manipulate the voting, or the results. Or any voting results the party doesn't like, will be blamed on Jewish intervention. I think he means Israeli intervention but those are his words.
That's just from some store owner I was talking to. You can choose to decide that he doesn't represent anybody. But he is a Sunni Muslim who lives a half hour drive from Gaza city.
I understand all this very well. What I don't agree with is that the solution to this problem is to not give them any say in their government. The solution is education, and that doesn't happen when they're starved and bombed. Analogously, the slaves freed in the US Civil War were mostly illiterate and had been kept so by law. It is very difficult to run a democracy with an illiterate electorate, but nobody would suggest that we just throw up our hands and give up on having the government represent the will of the people.
