So it looks like the EU's constitution might have run up against an iceberg. According to a report from Paris in The Weekly Standard, French President Jacques Chirac may have overplayed his EU card by allowing the French people to decide by referendum whether or not they wish to ratify the French-authored, 448-article EU constitution. Opinion polls taken in mid-April indicate that 56 percent of French voters now oppose the constitution which they are set to vote on in late May.

According to the report, French opposition to the constitution is based on a combination of economic populism and general distaste for the entire project ? one which diminishes their national sovereignty and puts them under the control of people they dislike and distrust.

If this negative trend is not reversed, it seems that the French voters will reject the plans of the nonelected European bureaucratic elite that have been more or less pushing through the program of European unification for the past few decades without public oversight. That is, the European elite, in progressing to their post-nationalist (and anti-American) dream regime of multinational elites writing treaties and regulations and hatching plots together in Brussels, may actually suffer the consequences of cutting themselves off from the people in whose name they purport to be working.

The most striking aspect of this turn of events is that it reminds us what it means to live in a democratically governed society. It means that when elections are free and fair and direct, the leaders of any particular government are supposed to reflect the collective will of their people and that the policies of a democratically elected government will, at the end of the day, be a reflection of the self-interests of the community of voters that make up its society. If, as the West has for the past 400 or so years, the citizens of a country are considered rational actors, then the result of elections should be the emergence and development of peaceful, non-revolutionary, wealth-creating societies.

In countries where elections are corrupted ? either by non-direct electoral processes or by regimes that organize them in a manner that prevent the people from exercising an authentic free choice ? the connection between the governed and their leaders becomes attenuated and the policies of the government will not be informed necessarily by the interest of the people.

This is the case, no doubt, in Saudi Arabia. Last Saturday, in the third round of municipal elections in that absolute monarchy, Islamist candidates were swept into office. The fact that women in Saudi Arabia are denied the vote, like the fact that the country is governed as much by the religious thought police as by the secret police, no doubt had something to do with the results.

In the Palestinian Authority the situation is even more acute. Palestinians are governed by a series of interlocking yet quasi-independent tyrannies. On the one hand, they have the PA itself with its secret police and goon squads, better known as the Palestinian security forces, that determine whether they will receive jobs, various licenses or permits to work in Israel. As well, the PA determines the content of school and university curricula, mosque sermons, newspapers, and radio and television broadcasts.

On the other hand, Palestinians are governed by the terrorist organizations that rule their streets from Rafah to Jenin. Some, like Hamas, bring them into their fold through Saudi-funded welfare services. Others, like Fatah, bring them in by intimidating them or paying them off with PA, Iranian or Hizbullah-financed salaries.

Given this situation, the PA-ruled areas can be compared to a jungle and the strongest force in any particular area is the most popular one.  So, when PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas wants to pander to the people, he panders to the strongmen, who are also terrorists. This presents both Israel and the US with an unworkable situation. Under pressure from both to reform his security services, he turns to strongman Rashid Abu Shabak ? strongman Muhammad Dahlan's replacement as head of the Preventive Security Service (the PA version of the KGB) ? to head the PSS in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria.

Shabak is a powerful man. But he is also a mass murderer and master terrorist. He commanded the bombing of the school bus in Kfar Darom in November 2000 that killed two adults and left three children legless. He is known in Gaza as both the father of the Palestinian mortars ? over 5,000 of which have rained down on Israeli communities in the area since their introduction in 2001 ? and as the "collaborator hunter." According to The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh, over the past several years, Shabak has "hunted down" more than 100 Palestinians who have assisted Israel in its counter-terror operations.

Yet in the jungle of Palestinian society, it is not enough to coddle terrorists. What is most important is to be a terrorist. And so, Hamas is poised to become a political force to be reckoned with after the planned July 17 elections for the Palestinian legislature. Hamas leaders have already made clear that they are first and foremost a terrorist organization and will not abandon their arms as a result of their political involvement. As Mushir al-Masri told the press this week, "Our fingers will remain on the trigger." Masri maintained that Hamas's participation in the elections, "does not mean it is on the way to becoming a political party."

In the meantime, the Palestinians, election or no election, are preparing for the next round of war, which they plan to open in September, immediately after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to expel all Israeli citizens from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria is completed.

This week there were several reports that Palestinians have already smuggled anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns into Judea and Samaria. The Islamic Jihad is reorganizing in the Jenin area which is set for Israeli withdrawal. At the same time, the Israel Ddefense Force is sending special forces to man the 120 mile border with Egypt which now, for the first time since the signing of the peace treaty 25 years ago, is considered by the IDF to constitute a strategic threat to Israel. Continued...