Palestine’s New Face
In last month’s election, Hamas won 74 of 132 seats in the Palestinian Parliament. Ismail Hanieyh, a ‘moderate pragmatist’ Hamas leader from Gaza was named prime minister and the Islamist group gained incredible momentum.
What does this mean for the future of Palestinian-Israeli relationships? Consequently, is there hope for a viable road map to peace?
These are very important questions. Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat and his Fatah party failed to satiate the Palestinian peoples’ demands. These demands evolved during the years. Right after the occupation in 1948, the Palestinian peoples’ demands were simple: ‘give us back our land which you (the Jewish occupiers) unlawfully took from us.’ However, today the majority of Palestinians (84%) are pro-peace and would like Hamas’ call for the destruction of Israel to be dropped.
The half century after the occupation witnessed tit-for-tat aggression, diplomacy, concessions, compromises and terrorism. Arafat’s reign was a political rollercoaster. The 1993 Oslo accords injected sentiments of hope for a peaceful, compromised resolution between the two sides. However, Israel’s broken promises as well as aggression from militant Palestinians led to the accords demise and instigated the second Intifada.
As discussed in my recent post ‘The Rise of Pan Islamism’, Hamas’ rise to power is at this point problematic. However, this does not suggest that it will jeopardize any hopes for peace. Their accession to power is problematic because they’ve acted violently and aggressively in the past. Thus based on Hamas’ precedent behavior, the West is very skeptical of their future actions and most importantly their intentions.
However recently, Former President Carter recently said that Hamas deserves to be recognized by the international community, and despite the group's militant history, there is a chance the soon-to-be Palestinian leaders could turn away from violence. In essence, there is already immense pressure on Hamas to act diplomatically and peacefully. In order to salvage any hopes for long-term peace, the West should certainly give Hamas a chance but at the same time remain cautious of their actions.
It is very important for the United State to uphold and maintain such a position. This is in their foreign policy interest because they were prime protagonists in promoting democratic norms in the Middle East. However Condoleezza Rice’s recent touring of the region persuading Arab governments to curtail their funding to Hamas gives the impression that America is applying double standards.
This could backfire badly because Hamas could easily use such excuses (i.e. America’s reluctance to cooperate, negotiate and compromise) to resort back to violence. Moreover, this gives off the impression that America made a mistake by allowing the Palestinian people (in a lawful and democratic election) to vote for the party they sought.
The situation is complex and tense. On the one hand, cutting funding to Hamas is leading to a financial crisis and on the other hand the Palestinian people are not ready to resort back to Fatah’s corrupt ways. If Hamas find a way to eliminate corruption in the current government and manage with a reduced amount of funding, they will empower themselves from within and gain more political leverage.
General public sentiments regarding Hamas are mixed. In his recent posting, my friend Lebanon.Profile argued that Hamas’ victory is good for Palestine. LP’s argument is also in line with Saeb Erakat’s (a PLO bureaucrat) as he stated that “the Hamas victory cannot be allowed to obscure the reality: the Palestinian people want a negotiated peace, and in Mr. Abbas they have a Palestinian Authority president and P.L.O. chairman who shares their view, enjoys a mandate to act and has the ability to deliver.”
Learning from their past mistakes and Fatah’s mistakes, Hamas’ rise to power might in fact be the missing link to peace – this is a very optimistic position. But, Hamas still needs to reform the government and control corruption. For now, a realistic position would be to give Hamas a chance but remain cautious – their actions need to speak for themselves and their rhetoric of upholding peace and the Palestinian peoples’ requests needs to slowly but surely manifest.
What does this mean for the future of Palestinian-Israeli relationships? Consequently, is there hope for a viable road map to peace?
These are very important questions. Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat and his Fatah party failed to satiate the Palestinian peoples’ demands. These demands evolved during the years. Right after the occupation in 1948, the Palestinian peoples’ demands were simple: ‘give us back our land which you (the Jewish occupiers) unlawfully took from us.’ However, today the majority of Palestinians (84%) are pro-peace and would like Hamas’ call for the destruction of Israel to be dropped.
The half century after the occupation witnessed tit-for-tat aggression, diplomacy, concessions, compromises and terrorism. Arafat’s reign was a political rollercoaster. The 1993 Oslo accords injected sentiments of hope for a peaceful, compromised resolution between the two sides. However, Israel’s broken promises as well as aggression from militant Palestinians led to the accords demise and instigated the second Intifada.
As discussed in my recent post ‘The Rise of Pan Islamism’, Hamas’ rise to power is at this point problematic. However, this does not suggest that it will jeopardize any hopes for peace. Their accession to power is problematic because they’ve acted violently and aggressively in the past. Thus based on Hamas’ precedent behavior, the West is very skeptical of their future actions and most importantly their intentions.
However recently, Former President Carter recently said that Hamas deserves to be recognized by the international community, and despite the group's militant history, there is a chance the soon-to-be Palestinian leaders could turn away from violence. In essence, there is already immense pressure on Hamas to act diplomatically and peacefully. In order to salvage any hopes for long-term peace, the West should certainly give Hamas a chance but at the same time remain cautious of their actions.
It is very important for the United State to uphold and maintain such a position. This is in their foreign policy interest because they were prime protagonists in promoting democratic norms in the Middle East. However Condoleezza Rice’s recent touring of the region persuading Arab governments to curtail their funding to Hamas gives the impression that America is applying double standards.
This could backfire badly because Hamas could easily use such excuses (i.e. America’s reluctance to cooperate, negotiate and compromise) to resort back to violence. Moreover, this gives off the impression that America made a mistake by allowing the Palestinian people (in a lawful and democratic election) to vote for the party they sought.
The situation is complex and tense. On the one hand, cutting funding to Hamas is leading to a financial crisis and on the other hand the Palestinian people are not ready to resort back to Fatah’s corrupt ways. If Hamas find a way to eliminate corruption in the current government and manage with a reduced amount of funding, they will empower themselves from within and gain more political leverage.
General public sentiments regarding Hamas are mixed. In his recent posting, my friend Lebanon.Profile argued that Hamas’ victory is good for Palestine. LP’s argument is also in line with Saeb Erakat’s (a PLO bureaucrat) as he stated that “the Hamas victory cannot be allowed to obscure the reality: the Palestinian people want a negotiated peace, and in Mr. Abbas they have a Palestinian Authority president and P.L.O. chairman who shares their view, enjoys a mandate to act and has the ability to deliver.”
Learning from their past mistakes and Fatah’s mistakes, Hamas’ rise to power might in fact be the missing link to peace – this is a very optimistic position. But, Hamas still needs to reform the government and control corruption. For now, a realistic position would be to give Hamas a chance but remain cautious – their actions need to speak for themselves and their rhetoric of upholding peace and the Palestinian peoples’ requests needs to slowly but surely manifest.
posted by The Egyptian Observer at 11:55 AM
1 Comments:
Excellent point, Aliandra. The democratic process has spoken in Palestine, and chosen Hamas. As a free republic, the U.S. is obligated to respect that process. But the U.S. does not have to agree with the postion of the new cabinet, and can decide how and when they want to participate (diplomatically, financially, etc.) with that new government.
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