FORCED RESPONSIBILITY:

Hamas: The Perils of Power (Hussein Agha, Robert Malley, March 9, 2006, NY Review of Books)

Power confronts Hamas with other uncomfortable choices and uncertain prospects, for example how to respond to future attacks against Israel carried out by more radical groups, such as Islamic Jihad, or less disciplined ones, such as Fatah's al-Aqsa Brigades. What methods to employ to secure the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails? What should Hamas do if Israel resumes targeted assassinations, builds more settlements in East Jerusalem, or completes the separation barrier? How is Hamas to handle the roughly 70,000 armed security forces who are loyal to Fatah and are not about to report to a Hamas command?

Nor does the power Hamas has gained look quite so considerable now that it has it. The Islamists may hold the Palestinian Legislative Council, but that means they control only a little over half of one of five branches of power, and not the most influential one at that. The presidency remains in Abbas's hands, the security forces are allied with Fatah, the Islamists' status in the Palestine Liberation Organization is still unclear, and, for now at least, they have no part in the government. Even in terms of the popular vote, Hamas's victory is less than it may seem, for more Palestinians cast ballots for Fatah and Fatah-leaning independents than they did for the Islamists. In a sense, Hamas's electoral success may highlight its political and structural weakness. The Islamists triumphed over Fatah but only in the battle between two organizations, and organization never was Fatah's strong suit. Rather, Fatah derives strength from the loyalties it elicits, the memory it evokes, the paramount leader it once had, and the inclusive ideas it still espouses. Those strengths, Hamas is likely to find, will be far harder to vanquish.

But the headache is not Hamas's to bear alone. How others react undoubtedly will influence what it ultimately will do. Early reactions by Fatah reflected shock and anger, but, more than that, a thirst for revenge. In voting for Hamas, as some 45 percent did, Palestinians were expressing the belief that the Islamists could succeed where the nationalists didn't. As many in the nationalist movement see it, it is important to prove them wrong. The last thing to do would be to give Hamas cover, allow it to control a technocratic government from afar, benefit from its successes, and profit from its international support. Rather, Hamas should be forced to confront hard choices. If it sticks to a hard line against recognition of Israel's legitimacy, it will lose international support and fail. If it agrees to compromise, it will be exposed in public eyes as hypocritical and flounder. Either way, so goes the logic, Fatah will gain.
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In a sign of bewilderment that was unusual even by the standards of the Bush administration, the United States all at once pressed for the recent elections, warned that armed militias such as Hamas should not participate, and opposed Israeli efforts to keep Hamas off the ballot. After the elections, President Bush both praised the Palestinians' exercise in democracy and hinted they might be punished for their choice. US perplexity is the price, perhaps, of years of chasing an illusion, the so-called Fatah young guard that was supposed to democratize, reform, and stabilize the Palestinian Authority, while also enjoying the necessary legitimacy to disarm militias and compromise with Israel. The occupation weighs too heavily and Palestinian society is too traditional, traumatized, and dispersed for people who lack deep, authentic roots ever to achieve that. Having waited in vain, and at heavy cost, for the nonexistent young guard to emerge, the US inherited instead the Islamists. It now must figure out what to do with them.

In Washington, there is palpable temptation to be tough, and require of Hamas wholesale ideological conversion before economic or diplomatic benefits can flow. That conversion, it readily is conceded, is unlikely to happen. But for some, setting the experiment up for failure is not the worst one could do. Hamas should not be let off the hook easily; its intolerant Islamist outlook should not be sanctioned; and, besides, there is more at stake than Palestine alone. Throughout the region, radical Islamists already have been emboldened by Hamas's victory; if the experiment is allowed to succeed, they may become unstoppable. Hence the need to maintain a coherent, united, and solid international front demanding that Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel as a precondition for engaging with any government it would back.

It's easy enough to argue that the U.S, should not have supported democracy for the Palestinians -- after all, Realism has long prevailed in the Middle East as we've backed dictatorships out of fear of the people -- but there's nothing incoherent or perplexed in the Administration's position that democracy should proceeed and that the Palestinians should not have voted for an Islamic party but that they were entitled to do so and we in turn are entitled to insist that such a party moderate its views before being treated as legitimate. Either democracy and the demands of the electorate will serve to discipline the leadership of Palestine or else a day of military recknoning will have to come. All the Bush/Sharon policy has done is give Palestinians an opportunity to determine their own fate--whatever happens from here on out is to their credit or they're to blame.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 18, 2006 6:11 PM