Hamas - An Update

9/10/06

Hamas - An Update

For some months we have expected the beginning of a solution, progress towards a working agreement between Israel and Palestine. Our optimism remains and is based, in the broadest sense, on the combination of a consensual government and the existence of economic sanctions. Hamas is no longer the outlaw but an elected leader. That party’s refusal to disavow the destruction of Israel as policy now ensures the presence of severe economic sanctions. Hamas is visible and accountable to an electorate, however crude the process. Starvation trumps ideology every time.
Sure enough, we witnessed a new phenomenon last week - Hamas for the first time becoming the target of criticism. Civil servants are on strike, demanding salaries which have not been paid for the last six months, and blaming Hamas for their problems. Yet the West will not lift the sanctions, from which most of the salaries are paid, unless Hamas renounces violence and adheres to the Road Map for peace. Something has got to give.
That something may be the formation of a new "unity government" where Fatah would join Hamas in a combined, reformed PA administration. As Hamas has been under tremendous pressure within Palestine to moderate its policy stance towards Israel and thus renew aid from the West, this trick may accomplish the same result but save Hamas face. Already Tony Blair has indicated that the West might deal with such a government.
The Founders would not be surprised at any of this. First, Thomas Paine saw that we should encourage the spread of democracy as democracies look to peace based on the self interest of each, what he called the natural concert of international commerce. Next, Madison believed that the best way to avoid conflict when we do have enemies was to create a peaceful alternative to it and that was the use of economic sanctions. This was his weapon of international politics.
Bob Craven