Cause for worry

Terrorists in charge of the Palestinian legislature

By Max Landaw
From the March 2006 Print Edition

Hamas captured 76 seats in the 132-seat Palestinian legislature on January 25 in a landslide victory over Fatah, which received only 43 seats, in the Palestinian elections. To the chagrin of the Israelis, the party in charge of the Palestinians is bent on the destruction of the Jewish state. Already the United States, the European Union (to an extent), and Israel have cut off funding to the Palestinians.

What this surprising election result yields is a precarious position for Israel. At a point where it seemed that peace was near between Arabs and Israelis with the pullout from Gaza, suddenly, Israel has received a slap in the face. Israel supported the democratic elections and now finds itself in a catch-22, where if Israel negotiates with Hamas, it is negotiating with a terrorist organization, and if it does not, it is cutting off peace talks.

To understand why it is a dreaded outcome that Hamas has won the elections, it is important to look at Hamas’ beginnings. Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, with the main doctrine that the land of Palestine belongs to Muslims and that all other groups are to be kicked out. Thus, Hamas has religiously dedicated itself to the destruction of the Jewish state, never having recognized the legitimacy of Israel. They even rejected the legitimacy of the 1993 Oslo Accords, brokered by their ally, Yasser Arafat.

The recent elections have given us more questions than answers. What can Israel do to continue peace talks with the Palestinians but still retain its security? Can a country negotiate with a group bent on its destruction? And, most optimistically, will Hamas perhaps liberalize as a result of achieving legitimate power?

There are no clear answers to these questions, which means that all Israel and the rest of the West can do is to sit back and stand firm. Israel has contemplated the notion of pulling out from West Bank settlements without the approval of Hamas, but the plans are only speculative at this juncture.

It also must be discussed why the Palestinians voted for Hamas over Fatah. The most distinct possibility is one of shortsighted self interest. Fatah has a bad record of supplying the Palestinians with necessary resources, while Hamas has proven itself to be a community leader. The other explanation is, of course, that the Palestinians do not want peace with Israel and would rather fight. For instance, one of Hamas’ claims during the campaign was that it was the intimidation Hamas had put on Israel that forced Israel to withdraw from Gaza. This suggestion that the Palestinians voted for Hamas to discontinue peace is disconcerting and should not be completely discounted.

What should receive increased attention, though, are the international implications of these elections. What we are seeing is a polarization of the Western and the Muslim worlds. The West is finding itself worked up into frenzy over the election while the Muslim world that rejects Israel’s legitimacy could not be happier.

Along with this reactionary election, we see Iran at the forefront of counter-productivity, with inopportune and grossly inappropriate cartoons that deny the Holocaust in response to a recent Danish political cartoon depicting Muhammed in a disparaging light. This suggests, firstly, that the Europeans are having problems handling their Muslim populations, and secondly, that the radical Islamic world regards Europeans as “Jew sympathizers.”

Two questions are therefore raised: where is this nascent collision heading, and where does Israel fit into the struggle?

In the case of a terrorist organization winning legitimacy in an election, it is important as well to look to history for guidance. When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, they quickly purged their opposition. One can look back to the failure of all democratic revolutions, the French Revolution, to see how the National Convention, claiming itself a democracy, executed more than 40,000 of its political opponents.

Today, Fatah is being hunted down.

However, there are also cases of revolutionaries turning to moderation after receiving power. A classic example is Vespasian’s revolt against the Roman emperor; after seating himself on the throne, he proceeded to moderate his position within the state. One could even argue that Fidel Castro moderated after his ascension to the dictatorship in 1959. He came out gun-toting but he has done nothing significant militarily in his long career.

Looking into Israel’s past, it is doubtful they will ever give aid to a Hamas-run government. Whether this will lead to violence or moderation on the part of Hamas is up to Hamas itself. But what is more important for the West is to keep up a strong front. Negotiating with terrorists has never been a necessary compromise for any well-established democracy.

Thus, it will be the job of the United States, as well as the rest of the West, to defend Israel in its actions. The Middle Eastern world can never exist peacefully if one of the nations within it is constantly under threat from its neighbors. It will likewise be the job of the Muslim nations that have made peace with Israel — Egypt and Jordan — to set an example for the rest of the Muslim world by questioning whether it is worth the lives of Muslim civilians to destroy the Jewish state.

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