Hope For Hamas

Recently, Hamas assumed power in the Palestinian territories, an event newspapers and political pundits around the world hailed as catastrophic. The New York Times headline read “A Huge Step Back.” The Daily News announced, “Hamas Wins, Peace Loses.” And The Washington Post warned that it will “unsettle the world.” In fact, the situation is not as terrible as the national media has made it out to be. This event will, refreshingly, force Hamas to make dramatic choices that will reveal the involved party’s true colors. Hamas’ assumption of power brings the situation to a pivotal point that will lead to three major alternatives in the future, any of which would be better than the Palestinian doublespeak and roadmap malaise of the last several years.

The first, and most optimistic, possibility is that under tremendous international pressure, Hamas will soften its platform and renounce terrorism in order to maintain the vital flow of almost a billion dollars in annual foreign aid. It may seem a stretch to assume that an organization committed to the annihilation of Israel and with a long history of brutally murdering innocent civilians is capable of such fundamental change. However, to draw an incomplete parallel, at the start of Ariel Sharon’s term as Prime Minister of Israel, no one would have ever predicted that he would advocate an Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip. When asked how his political beliefs as Prime Minister had changed so drastically from his far-right days as founder of the Likud Party, Sharon replied, “things look different from here than they do from there.” Maybe Hamas will also see things differently now that it heads the Palestinian Authority. If they do, they will have even more clout in building a lasting peace because they have caused much of the terrorism in the past.

Even if Hamas does not change, Hamas’ victory has already begun to transform the Fatah Party, a welcome development. Under Yasir Arafat and recently Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah Party presided over one of the most corrupt and incompetent organizations in the world. Arafat used the Palestinian Authority treasury as his personal cashbox to buy loyalty and to support a maze of security services. It is estimated that Arafat and his corrupt cronies pocketed almost half of the seven billion dollars in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. Sadly, only ten percent of the Palestinian state budget ever reached the residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip who desperately need basic government services. While Fatah members fattened their wallets and drained the funds that were meant to build a country, Hamas filled the vacuum by providing healthcare, education, and social-welfare services. Whereas Fatah was corrupt and hollow, the Palestinian population began to see Hamas as honest, disciplined, and effective. One of the best outcomes of the Hamas election is that it forces Fatah to reform or become irrelevant and uncompetitive.

The third possibility is that Hamas will be destroyed. By assuming power, Hamas now faces a moment of truth where it can choose between war and peace. It may enter a period of peaceful coexistence with Israel, embracing a two-state solution by abandoning its violent past, or it can choose war with the greatest military power in the region at the expense and betrayal of its people. Now that Hamas has assumed power in the Palestinian territories, if attacks on Israel continue, Israel may justifiably respond to such attacks for what they are, an aggressive assault on its people by the Palestinian Authority. There will be no hesitation because Hamas is no longer a loose terrorist organization able to hide in the shadow of the ruling authority. It is the ruling authority, and as such, it is a clear and targetable enemy. If Hamas wants to destroy Israel, Israel has a right and duty to fight for its own survival and to destroy a perverted leadership that celebrates the murderers of women and children as “martyrs.”

Ultimately, the question of whether Hamas’ victory represents positive change will be measured by the progress (or lack thereof) toward a peaceful settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. It is, however, important to remember that there is a difference between appeasement and a lasting settlement. Peace will only come when both parties are deeply committed to a permanent agreement, and until Hamas shows that it is truly committed, there must be no pressure on Israel for concessions. The contrasting examples of the Oslo Accords and the lasting peace with Egypt demonstrate the necessity of this prerequisite to negotiate. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians proved insincere in their desire for peace, using weapons and resources given to them for internal security to terrorize Israelis. In the case with Egypt, Anwar Sadat was so committed to a solution with Israel that he was willing to alienate himself from the rest of the Arab world in order to bring about peace. Until the Palestinians generate leaders that, in the words of Golda Meir, “love their children more than they hate Israel,” there will be no peace.

Richard A. Krumholz ’07 is an economics concentrator in Mather House.