In Seeking to Explain Egypt's Misunderstanding of Democracy, Shimon Peres Misunderstands Democracy

The ardent peacenik "explains":

President Shimon Peres on Thursday implied that part of the chaos occurring with democratic upheavals across the Middle East is a result of citizens in the new democracies "misunderstanding democracy, since they think elections are democracy."  

"But elections are just procedure. Democracy starts the day after elections and includes underlying values and substance," Peres added at comments at a Herzliya Conference on the future of the State Comptroller in a changing society...

Actually, Mr. Peres, democracy starts before elections, with citizens who are in tune with its workings and who have a working knowledge of its traditions and mechanisms and how they engender free societies. In such societies,  Islam's sharia, which is completely antithetical to traditions of freedom and the mechanisms that keep them running, traditions, is simply not on the table.