The victory of Hamas, known as an Islamist extremist group that has vowed to wipe out Israel, in Palestinian territories has created a fresh international crisis in a region where problems in Iraq and Afghanistan have already boiled to nearly intractable levels. Even its bitterest critics will concede that the Hamas victory came in accordance with the due process of election and democracy. Yet, this successful entry of ‘democracy’ in an area thought to be woefully short of it has only added to the worries of much of the outside world.

The US was prompt in sending out strong signals to the new rulers of the Palestine Administration with President George Bush declaring that he will not do any business with Hamas and he also threatened to stop US aid which is around $400 million a year. The European Union, an even bigger aid giver (over $600 million a year), has also spoken in the same vein. Israel has said it will withhold the tax revenue, around $50 million, it has collected on behalf of the Palestinian Administration. Considering that the Palestinian territories depend to a very large extent on foreign aid this kind of massive blockage of outside financial help can only produce a deleterious effect on the people that the Hamas will rule.

The generally adverse reaction of the Hamas victory in the Middle East ‘Quartet’ of US, EU, UN and Russia is bad news not only for the Palestinians and the party that will govern their territories but also for the ‘roadmap’ of peaceful coexistence of Israel and the Palestinians. The US has been expectedly hostile to the victory of Hamas, which it and the entire west views as a terrorist organisation. Washington has made it clear that it will not soften towards Hamas unless it renounces the use of terror and violence and declares its faith in the ‘two-nation’ principal that allows for Israel and Palestine to coexist side by side.

Washington’s dilemma has multiplied with the Hamas victory. But the kind of ‘surprise’ that is being expressed in the western capitals is a bit hard to swallow, as the unpopularity of the present rulers of the Palestinian territories has been well known. The US cannot be seen as an unqualified champion of ‘democracy’ if it refuses to recognise or talk to people elected through the ballot. Already many in the US are talking of other ‘add on’ qualifications before they accept a democratic verdict. For instance they say that those who advocate violence and terrorism will not be acceptable even if they sweep the polls. This stipulation will give a lot of comfort to many autocratic (or military) rulers in the Muslim world aligned to the US, including the one in our very own Indian sub-continent.

Advocates of terror should be barred from contesting polls, many would agree. But if allowed to contest and once they have been elected through a legitimate process, how can they be kept away from governing? In fact, why should they be kept out in the cold? Well, these are wider questions. What is of immediate concern is that intensified hostility towards Hamas can also raise the spectre of US intervention for effecting a ‘regime change’ in the Palestinian territories. As and one that materialises, it will surely plunge the already troubled region into further chaos.

Signals of trouble have also come from within the Palestinian territories. Soon after the victory of Hamas, groups of supporters of Fatah, the hitherto ruling party (founded by Yasser Arafat), came on to the streets and raided Parliament to give _expression to their anger and frustration at the downfall of Fatah brought about by the corrupt and inefficient leaders. Perhaps a more ominous development was the storming of parliament by some men of the Palestinian security forces who were demanding that the Hamas members responsible for the killing of two of their colleagues be brought on trial.

The 58,000- strong security force of the Palestinian Administration owes its allegiance to the Fatah while the Hamas has a standing army of 5000 armed men. Some time ago there was a controversy within the Fatah with the younger section accusing the then security head, a relative of Arafat, of converting the security forces into a kind of private army loyal to him alone. The Hamas, however, wants to merge its armed militia and the Fatah security forces, though it is not clear how these two antagonistic forces can work together.

What these unruly incidents suggest is that not everyone within the Palestinian territories is enamoured of the Hamas or its extreme agenda of destroying Israel which, incidentally, did not figure during the poll campaign. This leads to the surmise that Hamas in power may learn to moderate its rhetoric. After all Yasser Arafat’s PLO had also started on a strong ‘finish Israel’ note and stayed with that slogan for almost quarter of a century before accepting the ‘two-nation’ principal that acknowledges the right of Israel to exist.

Significantly, Hamas’s poll plank was ‘good governance’ platform in its poll campaign. Its victory was no less due to the ‘anti-incumbency’ factor as the majority of people thought that Fatah had failed to deliver. Religious extremism was not an issue in the poll campaign and the Palestinians do not wish to live in an orthodox Islamist state. After over 50 years of violence, many Palestinians are longing for the dawn of permanent peace. But that is not what Hamas seems to advocate at the moment; it cannot admittedly as officially it is committed for the annihilation of the Jewish state.

This is a goal that many Islamist organisations in the world espouse. In recent days, this call received an additional boost when the Iranian head of the state, who, incidentally, was also elected through the ballot, spoke of wiping Israel off the map. If this kind of rhetoric is stepped up, either separately or in concert by the Hamas and the Iran, it will further recede the chances of peace in the Middle East.

The causality will be moderate line in Israel, where elections are due on March 28. In recent years, moderate have gained a wider constituency in the Jewish state. In fact, a large constituency for peace with Palestinians, including withdrawal from the occupied territories, had come up after the ailing prime minister Aerial Sharon decided to pull out from of some the occupied territories.

A rising crescendo of ‘crush Israel’ will harden the Israelis. But the bigger danger to the area as well as the world outside will come from any hasty and hard decision taken in western capitals against the new rulers of Palestine. The best strategy at the moment is to let the Hamas settle in the chair and see how it goes about its job of governing and grapples with pressing problems like poverty and unemployment. Not any unwise territorial adventure!


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

Printer-Friendly Version