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Hamas Feasts On Western Naivete
Ballot boxes don't equal democracy...
[Daniel Mandel] 3/27/06

Last Month, Hamas triumphed convincingly in the Palestinian legislative elections, easily outpolling Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, the movement he co-founded with Yasser Arafat.

Now, the European Union, despite its policy not to fund Hamas until it reforms, authorized $143 million for the PA it will soon control. This could signal the prelude to its legitimization. So what is Hamas, why did it win and what can be learned from this?

Hamas is an Islamist terror movement whose chief goals (according to its charter) are the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. It sees itself as part of a broader jihad against the West and an anti-Muslim conspiracy led by the Jews, citing that classic anti-Semitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

It has pursued these aims with diligence, especially since the outbreak of the Palestinian terror war in September 2000, killing 442 Israelis and wounding and maiming 2,244 more in scores of suicide bombings and hundred of other attacks.

PA mismanagement and the moral destruction of Palestinian society explain Hamas' ballot triumph. The Oslo years were ones of Israeli flexibility, American enthusiasm for diplomacy and European largesse. Ample opportunity existed for the PA come to terms with Israelis, build a rule of law and lay the foundation of a firm economy bolstered by the world's highest per capita level of international aid.

Instead, the PA squandered it on building up militias and lining the pockets of officials from Arafat down. Terrorist groups commenced suicide bombing Israel while in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps, incitement to hatred and murder of Jews and glorification of terrorism as a religious and national duty became the order of the day.

PA maps and atlases pretend Israel does not exist, PA-salaried clerics call for murdering "the sons of monkeys and pigs" (preferred usage for Jews), TV and radio, popular songs and poetry extol the glories of suicide attacks, textbooks teach that Israel is a colonial usurper, unfit to live, and streets and colleges are named for suicide bombers.

In these circumstances, logic dictated that negotiations with the PA be called off, funding halted and diplomatic pressure applied to stop and reverse these developments: Peace, after all, was the goal, something otherwise unobtainable.

In fact, Israel signed ever more pieces of paper handing over territory and assets, the U.S. courted Arafat and then Abbas, most recently disbursing millions in aid in a fruitless effort to bolster Fatah's election prospects, and the Europeans plowed still more funds into this governmental Enron. The results of these policies are now plain for all to see.

Hamas' triumph is a lesson in how not to promote democracy in the Middle East. Building democracy requires patience and care not presently in evidence in the White House where the Palestinians are concerned.

"I think if you look back at the previous Palestinian elections, the people that were elected, while they might have been members of Hamas, they were business professionals," said a clueless Scott McClellan, Bush's spokesman, last April. "I don't think [Hamas is] going to get elected, because I think Palestinian moms want their children to grow up in peace just like American moms," was Bush's comment in May.

Who's been advising him?

A preoccupation with the processes of democracy (elections) not its purposes (rule of law, accountable institutions, civil society - none of which have any place in the practice of Fatah or the vision of Hamas) has been detrimental to the promotion of democracy. Democracy must be built up; it cannot be called into being by ballot.

This is the lesson that hasn't been learned. A persistent, hopeful refrain is now heard that power will moderate Hamas as practical problems absorb its energies. This is a hope with nothing in history to encourage it: Hitler, Stalin, Nasser, Castro, Khomeini, Saddam all attained power, some even through the ballot box or popular wave, but power moderated none of them.

Wars, massacres, repression and refugees have been their common legacy. Western naiveté assisted them all and, to judge from the latest EU decision to disburse further funds to the PA, Hamas looks like their next beneficiary. -ONE-

This piece first appeared in the Philiadelphia Daily News

copyright 2006 Daniel Mandel

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