Some thoughts on the outcome of the Palestinian Elections
First, I am unsurprised. We tend to view Hamas primarily as a terrorist organization because that is how it gathers our attention. To Palestinians, however, Hamas is also, and perhaps primarily, a service organization. It has a history of delivering services like health care and child care to Palestinians where both Fatah and Israel have failed to do so. Thus, I think they came to power not on the basis of their hatred for Israel, but rather because most Palestinians see in a Hamas with the government's resources at its disposal the potential for some serious infrastructure and service improvements. As for Hamas' attitude toward Israel . . . I don't think it significantly worse than Fatah's. While Fatah nominally recognized Israel's right to exist, its militant wing, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, continued operations unabated, with Arafat and then Abbas chiding them publicly not as "wrong" but merely as "ineffective," and this mostly to appease the west. One suspects these men cheered in their hearts at the casualties inflicted.
As for America - we need to move carefully. Money is the language of diplomacy, and there are lessons from the past we must bear in mind. When Anwar Sadat proposed to address the Knesset, Saudi Arabia responded by revoking the aid they were giving Egypt to the tune of $3.5 Billion a year. We were able to preserve that peace process by replacing that aid with aid of our own. This raises the question: If we revoke the aid that we are giving to the Palestinian Authority, who is likely to replace it? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Syria? It seems to me that to grant the power of the Palestinian purse to any of these nations by abdicating it ourselves would scarcely be in our, or Israel's, best interests. The nations likely to replace any funds we revoke, are also likely to make those funds conditional on Hamas' continued rejection of Israel.
So how to move forward? Well, if there is one thing I think Israel owes the territories, it is infrastructure. Quite frankly, if Israel had understood in 1967 that the territories would still be in its hands in the 2000's, it might have taken more seriously the need to make capital improvements to the land. However it persisted in a belief that it would one day exchange those lands for peaceful relations with its neighbors, as it did with Egypt in 1979, and thus its investments were minimal. So working cooperatively with Hamas to create and improve infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank is a step that should be considered, although there are major trust issues to overcome. As trust is built in this way, the foundations of a positive polical relationship can be built, and the pragmatism required to actually govern a people and a land will moderate the dangerous idealism that lurks behind Hamas' terrorism.
As for America - we need to move carefully. Money is the language of diplomacy, and there are lessons from the past we must bear in mind. When Anwar Sadat proposed to address the Knesset, Saudi Arabia responded by revoking the aid they were giving Egypt to the tune of $3.5 Billion a year. We were able to preserve that peace process by replacing that aid with aid of our own. This raises the question: If we revoke the aid that we are giving to the Palestinian Authority, who is likely to replace it? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Syria? It seems to me that to grant the power of the Palestinian purse to any of these nations by abdicating it ourselves would scarcely be in our, or Israel's, best interests. The nations likely to replace any funds we revoke, are also likely to make those funds conditional on Hamas' continued rejection of Israel.
So how to move forward? Well, if there is one thing I think Israel owes the territories, it is infrastructure. Quite frankly, if Israel had understood in 1967 that the territories would still be in its hands in the 2000's, it might have taken more seriously the need to make capital improvements to the land. However it persisted in a belief that it would one day exchange those lands for peaceful relations with its neighbors, as it did with Egypt in 1979, and thus its investments were minimal. So working cooperatively with Hamas to create and improve infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank is a step that should be considered, although there are major trust issues to overcome. As trust is built in this way, the foundations of a positive polical relationship can be built, and the pragmatism required to actually govern a people and a land will moderate the dangerous idealism that lurks behind Hamas' terrorism.