For once, ‘shock and awe’ is an appropriate term to apply to an event that has taken place in the Middle East. But this time it doesn’t characterize the defeat of an armed opponent on a battlefield. Rather, it encapsulates the political earthquake in the West Bank and Gaza, the sheer wonder at the sound thrashing dealt out to Fatah at the hands of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in January’s parliamentary elections.

Picture courtesy of the Sunday Morning Herald

Few expected that the party of Yasser Arafat would be so thoroughly trounced, although most observers anticipated its control would be loosened by voters fed up with a movement better known for cronyism and corruption than competence and honesty. Years of political and economic stagnation and a failure to deliver Palestinians from Israeli occupation (at least in the West Bank) were sure to come back to haunt Fatah and its moderate yet powerless head, Mahmoud Abbas.

Reaction to the militants’ victory was swift in coming. US and European officials talked up Hamas’s rejection of Israel’s right to exist, noting that the group’s charter commits it to the liquidation of the Jewish state. As threats to sever ties with the new Palestinian Authority and cut financial aid swirled like sand flies, Hamas leaders re-affirmed their charter’s centrepiece and expressed contempt for those who would deny them cash on that basis.

But is it clear just what Palestinians were voting for (or against)? Was every ballot cast in favour of Hamas an endorsement of its anti-Israel charter?  Tough to say. One may interpret the vote as a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the current political and economic paralysis that grips the Palestinian territories. It is equally possible that Hamas, by virtue of its uncompromising stance toward Israel, might have been viewed by voters as the only party with the determination and credibility to achieve statehood for Palestinians. If only a committed anti-communist like Richard Nixon could go to China, perhaps only a militant could achieve a just peace (whatever that is) with the Israeli adversary. After all, credentials matter.

And whereas Westerners may be gripped by the ‘all politics is local’ axiom at election time, Palestinians cannot separate their domestic lot from their foreign (i.e. Israeli) affairs. The latter has a direct impact on the former. Sovereignty is more than a matter of national dignity; it is the key being able to set a domestic agenda that will lead to a brighter future.

Still, President Bush and Prime Minister Harper were correct to tie the future of aid to Hamas’ willingness to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Certainly one cannot put any stock in Hamas’ pledge to offer a ‘long-term truce’ to Israel in return for land captured in the 1967 war. A truce can be broken at any time with even the slightest provocation, real or imagined. (Did anyone say ‘cartoons’?)

Picture courtesy of the Associated Press

But Western leaders do their peace-making efforts no good by under-playing the fact that process by which Hamas came to power met democratic standards. By all accounts the elections were free and fair, and voter turn-out was high. Sporadic violence did not deter voters from exercising a right denied to millions of their co-religionists elsewhere in the region. Whatever Hamas’s platform, its right to form a

new Palestinian Authority and to legislate on behalf of the citizenry cannot be denied.

Can other countries fail to recognize its right to govern based solely on its past role in suicide bombings and its admittedly intemperate views of its neighbour? Having come to power through the ballot box, should it not be permitted to assume all the burdens of government? After all, those yearning to practice statecraft also have to worry about reigning in the gunmen and cleaning the streets. And while recent suicide bombings been perpetrated by the Fatah-linked Al-Asqua Martyrs’ Brigade, Hamas has largely held its fire.

Rather than focusing exclusively on Hamas’ incendiary past (which should not be ignored or forgotten), Western governments would do well to praise the Palestinians’ embrace of the democratic process, while reserving judgement on its ultimate outcome. The latter involves holding Hamas to a set of standards in return for a continuation of aid. Instead of cutting of all assistance, pledge to maintain or even increase it with the proviso that a Hamas-led government show real willingness to live in peace with its Israeli neighbour. The alteration of the group’s charter – to include the public and irrevocable renunciation of the pledge to reclaim land that composes Israel - is unlikely to be secured by threatening to reduce the Palestinians to penury when the radicals in oil-rich Iran can simply step into breach.

It may, however, be secured through an offer to recognize Hamas as a legitimate political movement in much the same way the Britain recognized Sinn Fein, the political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. In return for renouncing violence and coming to the table, the West would ensure that on the table there was a ‘menu’ of most, if not all, of the things Palestinians want. Provided their leaders were willing to drop their maximalist demands and make the ‘peace of the brave’, and with sufficient inducements to lift a fledgling Palestinian state out of poverty, the current log-jam could be broken.

An unreformed Hamas leading a revanchist Palestinian Authority can (and should) be isolated politically and financially by the West. But the time for that has not yet come. Trying to engineer the fall of the new government through financial strangulation will send a message to the Arab masses that the West’s desire to see democracy implanted in the region is so much hot air. Brandishing the ‘stick’ of non-recognition and economic hardship (to which Palestinians have long been accustomed), without offering some ‘carrots’ for responsible behaviour will drive the Palestinians further into the arms of those who preach hate and violence, or of outside mischief-makers. For now, playing up the possibilities that this democratic experience could hold is the way to go, as it speaks directly to the majority of Palestinians who, according to recent polls, concur with their Israeli neighbours that a two-state solution is preferable to another generation of blood-letting.  

The return to face-to-face negotiations between a Hamas administration and an Israeli populace longing for disengagement seems improbable under current circumstances. But another unilateral Israeli withdrawal from occupied land will not usher in a sustainable peace; both peoples must agree on where the border lies. At the same time, Hamas will have to be pragmatic, recognizing that the ‘right of return’ of Palestinians (and their descendants) to their former homes in Israel is a non-starter.

With the benefit foresight as much as hindsight, even the stubborn Ariel Sharon came to realize that the struggle against Israel’s tormentors would have to end with a political compromise. The hard men running things in the West Bank will have to put their pride on the shelf and do the same. The ‘glory’ that armed struggle with ‘the other’ is known to foster may have had some role in propelling Hamas to power, but it will not deliver the statehood that it claims is its ultimate objective.

David Rudd is the President and Executive Director of the CISS.

Copyright CISS 2006

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