February
10 , 2006
Hamas Vote
Victory Invites Wrath of the West
The landslide victory of Hamas
in the Palestinian elections on January 25 came
as surprise for the US, UK. and Europe in general
since it was commonly believed that the ruling Al-Fatah
will capture a majority of the seats in the 132-member
legislature. But, Hamas – a radical Islamist
party, an off-shoot of the Ikhwanul Muslameen (Islamic
Brotherhood) of Egypt - moved from the wings to
center stage by capturing 74 seats with the Fatah
trailing far behind with 45 seats only.
This was upsetting not only for the leadership of
Al-Fatah but the Middle East watchers and sympathizers
of Israel in Western capitals. While Al-Fatah accepted
the defeat and its cabinet promptly resigned, the
US leadership, the biggest proponent of democracy,
was surprised and resorted to pressures to bring
Hamas to renounce violence and its manifesto to
destroy Israel, and adopt instead a stance of rapprochement
with Israel.
Israel has already announced that it would withhold
$45 million in January tax and customs revenue it
was to transfer to the Palestinian Authority which
has to pay $116 m to cover the monthly payroll alone.
US and Western aid makes up the rest of the money
needed by the Authority. The US and European donors
have already threatened to hold back their aid,
totaling a little over a billion dollars a year,
unless Hamas accepts Israel and gives up resort
to terror. Monetary desperation is expected to bring
political expediency.
Hamas victory has started a debate in the US ruling
circles over the advisability of Bush administration’s
commitment to support democracy in Middle East.
A forefront supporter of Israel, Daniel Pipes, has
for instance called Hamas win “democracy’s
bitter fruit”. In a widely published column,
he argued that the region was not ripe yet for democracy
and advised the Bush administration to “take
heed that an impatience to move the Middle East
to democracy is consistently backfiring by bringing
the most deadly enemies to power.”
Pipes is the Director of the Middle East Forum that
advocates the use of force to serve US and Israeli
interests in the Middle East. He heads Campus Watch,
a McCarthyist-style setup that targets academics
in American universities critical of Israeli and
US policies in the Middle East. A few years back
he was appointed to Defense Department’s ‘Special
Task Force on Terrorism Technology’, and in
2003 he was selected by President Bush to be member
of the US Institute of Peace.
Pipes advises caution in pushing hard for democracy
in the region. For, a number of recent elections
have proved counter-productive from the US point
of view.
The first functional election in the Palestinian
Authority, he writes, has thrown up Hamas. In December
2005, the Egyptian electorate came out strongly
for the Ikhwanul Muslameen, the Islamic Brotherhood,
a radical Islamic party. In Iraq, the post-Saddam
vote found support for a pro-Iranian Islamist as
Prime Minister. In Lebanon, the voters celebrated
the withdrawal of Syrian troops by voting Hezbollah
in to the government. Similarly, radical elements
have thrived in elections in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
These developments indicate, according to Pipes,
that “ideological enemies in the Middle East
have not yet been defeated”. Radical Islam
has to be defeated and eliminated, he advocates,
before any democratic elections are held.
This interpretation of the outcome in the Palestine
vote is vastly flawed. The people of Palestine are
thoroughly frustrated. Their territory is in shambles
and surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. There is
hardly any law and order. It is, to quote the Newsweek
of Feb. 6, “a vast slum festering with crime
and corruption”. People’s means of livelihood
are restricted and they are checked and harassed
at border posts if they want to go to Israel for
work. There are 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli
jails.
Al Fatah leaders were incompetent and thoroughly
self-serving and corrupt. The Palestinians had become
totally disillusioned and disgusted with their cowardice
and inability to make any headway in the so-called
peace process. Israeli separation wall had been
used to illegally annex a large swathe of the West
Bank and to cut off East Jerusalem from Palestine.
At the moment, Israel refuses to even talk to Hamas.
But, this stance may change. Matter of fact, Israel
was itself instrumental in the creation of Hamas
in the late 1970s to undermine Fatah. Also, at one
stage Israel was as adamant against talking to Al
Fatah, but it signed the Oslo accords with the same
party.
Right now there is a gulf between Israeli leadership
and public opinion. The latter is said to be favorably
inclined towards talks with Hamas. Geography dictates
the two communities to live side by side –at
loggerheads or in peace and prosperity.
Pipes argues, on the other hand: “The Hamas-led
Palestinian Authority must be isolated and rejected
at every turn, thereby encouraging Palestinians
to see the error of their ways.”
Pipes’ prescription goes against the grain
of human emotions, self-respect in particular. He
is speaking the language of power. Aggression does
not buttress submission, often it invites more aggression.
In the case of poverty-stricken, weak and unarmed
Palestine people, it provokes suicide bombers.
What is taking place in the Middle East is essentially
the assertion of a weak and dominated people for
the restoration of their identity and independence.
The US emerged as the sole super power of the world
mainly because of the society’s high moral
values. Jimmy Carter has rightfully lamented, in
his recent book, the erosion of these high values
in recent years, yielding place to the language
and arrogance of power. That is what has created
distortions in the pursuit of the nation’s
policies abroad. That is what has caused the counter-productive
outcomes of elections in the Muslim world. People
have voted for the extremists, not because they
themselves sincerely believe in extremism, but because
the secular elements were suspected of being the
stooges of foreign powers. Their ostentatious lifestyles
reflected their ill-gotten wealth - the wealth they
were suspected of having misappropriated from public
funds. At least that was the prevalent mood during
the elections in Palestine.
Fatah had died long before Yasser Arafat passed
away. For, he was full of fiery rhetoric but accomplished
little success in follow-up. He left with the stigma
of incompetence and subservience to external elements
sticking to the party he spent a lifetime to build.
Now, that Hamas has established a legitimate claim
to rule over Palestine, one sincerely hopes that
its leaders show a pragmatic approach to the issues
facing them. Israel is a reality. They would be
swell-advised to accept it, inasmuch as they can’t
wipe it off the surface of the world as wished for
by the Iranian President. The entire Western world
and a good portion of the rest of the world recognize
the legitimacy of Israel as a member of the UN,
no matter how controversial its origin. That being
the fact of the matter, leaders of Pakistan of all
colors would be well advised to debate and discuss
the pragmatic course of action. And, the leadership
of Iran might prefer sanity to emotional outbursts.
arifhussaini@hotmail.com
