By Dr. Nayyer Ali

Hamas in Charge


February 10 , 2006

Last week’s legislative elections in Palestine produced a shocking win for Hamas, the Islamist group that has never held power in the Palestinian Authority. This win has thrown the Middle East into turmoil, and its implications are still unknown.
While the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in the context of a two-state solution of the conflict back in 1988, Hamas has consistently argued that Israel has no legitimacy, and that what was taken by force from the Palestinians must be returned. Namely, they believe that all the land of geographic Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, and reject a permanent peace based on two states.
Hamas has also been notorious for its use of suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli targets, both civilians and military and also among the settlers in the territories (who don’t have quite the innocence of civilians, but are not really military either). The recent unilateral withdrawal by Israel from Gaza was widely seen as the result of unrelenting Hamas violence that eventually wore down the Israelis.
So based on this agenda and history, can we assume that Palestinians have rejected a two-state settlement and have voted for violence against Israel until the Hamas agenda is achieved? Actually, we can’t. Because peace was not on the ballot, only corruption was.
Since returning from Tunis with his Fatah supporters in 1993, Arafat transformed the PLO into the Palestinian Authority. But in reality, it remained his personal kingdom. And within that kingdom tremendous graft, venality, corruption, and incompetence took hold. The end result was that despite significant foreign aid, average Palestinians did not see much return from the PA in tangible improvements to their lives. In contrast, Hamas ran a wide network of humanitarian projects including food aid, schools, health clinics, and other nodes of assistance that made life bearable for the Palestinians. The relative efficiency of Hamas operations compared with the incompetence of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority undermined Fatah’s credibility. On election day, the voters decided to give Hamas a chance.
But what about peace? Don’t the Palestinians see that only Fatah could get a peace deal with Israel, and Hamas only promises more violence? The average Palestinian voter does not see that to be the true state of affairs. In reality, Israel has made clear that they will not negotiate with any Palestinian government. In fact they have pursued a public policy of unilateralism for the last several years. There have been no meaningful negotiations between Israel and the PA since the Taba meetings in January of 2001, which took place before either Bush or Sharon came to power. The US has totally backed Israel in its policy of unilateralism, including the building of the illegal wall.
Israel insisted that the PA must dismantle Hamas before it would even talk to it. Given the election results, it is obvious that Israel was demanding the Palestinians have a civil war in exchange merely for the privilege of talking to Israel. Palestinian voters see no downside in terms of peace negotiations to voting for Hamas, as they had no expectation of any negotiations even if Fatah had won.
Finally, it is possible that the voters were even wiser than we credit them. Hamas will find that playing the defiant one works better when you are not ultimately responsible for your people. They have been brought into power to provide clean and effective government and to improve the lives of the people. To accomplish that, they will have to pursue peace with Israel. Already Hamas is adjusting its rhetoric and strategy. While on the one hand appealing to the Muslim world to make up the financial shortfall an aid cutoff from the West would bring, on the other they have declared their willingness to negotiate a “long term truce” with Israel. If by “long term” they mean not just a few years but a few decades, then they are really talking about accepting a two-state solution in all but name.
While it may have been easiest and best for all if the left in Israel and Palestine had negotiated a final peace 10 years ago, it now seems that only after both societies have exhausted the possibilities of total victory that their respective right-wings have pursued will final peace be possible. It could possibly be that in a few years a Hamas government signs the peace that ends this 100-year conflict. The one useful thing about having the extremists sign the deal is that it will really stick. Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com

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