John Rapley
BE CAREFUL what you wish for. That may be one of the lessons Israel has learned from Hamas's stunning victory in the Palestinian legislative elections.
Back in the 1980s, when Hamas was born, Israel regarded it rather benignly.
At the time, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was hegemonic in the Palestinian imagination; it, in turn, was dominated by Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Thus, in its early days, when Hamas's main target was the secular nationalist PLO, Israel saw it as a potential counterweight to its arch-enemy. In the occupied territories, the Israelis quietly tolerated Hamas's growth while repressing the PLO.
'LONG-TERM TRUCE'
Twenty years on, how much has changed. The PLO got nominal power over the territories abandoned by the Israelis, but not much else. A viable Palestinian economy failed to emerge, and corruption diverted much of the foreign aid meant to build the nascent Palestinian state. Fed up with the rot, Palestinians delivered their governors a stinging rebuke.
The international community was caught off guard. Only the Israelis apparently anticipated such a strong showing by Hamas, but even they couldn't have foreseen the scale of the victory. Indeed, Hamas itself seems to have been surprised by its landslide. For now, Israel is drawing widespread support for its position that Hamas should be isolated for as long as it remains committed to the destruction of Israel.
The most Hamas is willing to give, so far, is a 'long-term truce' if Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders. However, assuming it adheres to its long-standing refusal to recognise Israel's right to exist, Hamas will pose a grave dilemma for the outside world. If foreign aid is cut and Israel withholds the taxes it collects on the Palestinian Authority's behalf, the fragile Palestinian state could collapse. That could be an even more fearful spectre to Western governments than the thought of funding what they consider a rogue regime.
Regardless, America's Middle East policy has suffered a setback that may surpass even its failings in Iraq. The Bush administration had put all its eggs into one basket: a negotiated two-state solution engineered, on the Palestinian side, by a reconstructed PLO. Instead, Palestinians decided that the PLO was beyond repair, and opted for a new chapter in their history.
The road ahead will be perilous. Apart from the sharply heightened tensions between Israel and Palestine, along with the geopolitical strains provoked by a government close to the Iranian fundamentalists (who are currently engaged in their own bout of sabre-rattling), it is not clear that Hamas will be able to bridge the divides within Palestinian society. In addition to secular Palestinians, there are also Christians and many PLO loyalists who will not warm to their new government.
LAYER OF SOCIAL SERVICES
If there is one heartening lesson to be gleaned from all this, it is that religion and ideology may have less to do with this than appears. Hamas's popularity seems to arise from the fact that it has provided an extensive layer of social services to poor Palestinians. In municipalities it controls, it appears markedly less corrupt than the PLO.
The long and short of it is that those who deliver the goods will win their peoples' loyalty. The PLO apparently took its people's support for granted. But democracy has come to Palestine, and its leaders will be held accountable to their electors. For all its talk of war with Israel, if Hamas fails to turn on the lights and put water in the pipes, it will find itself out of office pretty quickly. Though it despises its neighbour, Hamas may soon find it has no choice but to make a peace of sorts with it.
John Rapley is a senior lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
