A few of my friends have accused me of going soft. I admit it. I overdosed on cookies over the holidays and got lost in a sugar-induced miasma of peace, love and grooviness.

But the strangest thing happened: As my metabolism returned to normal, my bile rose. So what's been turning my stomach sour?

Let's start with the Palestinian elections, which are being held today.

Although nominally a democracy, under the iron rule of Yasser Arafat, Palestinians haven't had much practice in the nitty-gritty of campaigning. They are figuring it out, but the Israeli government is not making it easy.

The situation is especially confusing in East Jerusalem. Palestinians who hold coveted Jerusalem identity cards have been threatened with the loss of their cards if they vote.

In 1967, when Israel annexed East Jerusalem, many Palestinians living there were designated "permanent residents" and given identity cards. They are not Israelis.

Now, the Israeli government is hinting that they better not vote: They cannot be fully Palestinian, or they might lose their cards and, thus, their homes, their jobs and the benefits their taxes have paid for.

The Israelis are picking the polling places; about 5,600 East Jerusalemites will vote in Israeli post offices, which are monitored by government surveillance cameras. Others will have to travel as far as 20 miles and pass through a checkpoint or two to cast their ballots. They are being watched, they know it, and they are very, very nervous.

Two of the seven candidates, Bassam Salhi and Mustafa Barghouthi, have been arrested for trying to campaign in East Jerusalem without Israeli permits. Sayyed Baraka and Abdelkarim Shubeir were not able to get Israeli permission to leave the Gaza Strip to campaign in the West Bank.

Israelis are denying access to ballots to the 8,000 or so Palestinian prisoners, many of them arrested for nonviolent political activity, being held in Israeli jails.

In the Jenin district, the 15,000 Palestinians who live in the no-man's land between the wall and the green line have not been able to attend campaign rallies, nor have candidates been able to visit them. In Nablus, a series of checkpoints has had a similar effect.

This election has given the Palestinians faith that they can take control of their own destiny through ballots rather than bullets. The Israelis could blow it by trying to sway the election through checkpoints, intimidation and bureaucratic harassment.

If the Palestinians suspect that front-runner Mahmoud Abbas won the presidency because the Israelis crippled the other candidates' campaigns he will not have the trust of the people. Violent factions will have an opening to undercut Abbas. Let's hope it didn't happen that way.

The other bile-inducer has been the City Council's handling of what is being called PGA III, the third proposal to build a golf resort over the delicate Edwards Aquifer recharge zone in northeast Bexar County.

The first time this proposal came before City Council was — oh, what a coincidence! — Dec. 14, the same evening that City Public Service held its public meeting on the proposed East Side coal-fired plant. Environmental activists scrambled to turn out in respectable numbers to both meetings.

SAWS voted to accept the PGA development proposal two days before Christmas and posted the 128-page environmental management plan on its Web site five days later. The City Council, which held a public hearing Tuesday, didn't get the document on the city's Web site until the day before the hearing.

It was obvious that the public meeting was just for show. One SAWS official told Smart Growth activist Chris Brown that it would be impossible to answer his questions before the council meeting on Thursday, let alone make any changes to the agreement.

Three years ago, tens of thousands of San Antonio voters signed petitions demanding a public referendum on the first golf resort proposal. This latest proposal, hustled through the approval process in a two-week period over the busy Christmas holidays, makes a farce of citizen involvement in the important decisions of government.

No more Mr. Nice Guy while democracy is under siege!

Susan Ives can be reached at suives@texas.net.