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How do you like your democracy now, Mr. Bush?
Hamas' stunning victory underlines the contradictions and
hypocrisies in Bush's Mideast policies.
By Juan Cole
01/27/06 "Salon.com"
-- --
The stunning
victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party in the
Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the
Bush administration's policies toward the Middle East. Bush pushes
for elections, confusing them with democracy, but seems blind to the
dangers of right-wing populism. At the same time, he continually
undermines the moderate and secular forces in the region by acting
high-handedly or allowing his clients to do so. As a result, Sunni
fundamentalist parties, some with ties to violent cells, have
emerged as key players in Iraq, Egypt and Palestine.
Democracy
depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable
institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on
checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority.
Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce
authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce
genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest
sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad. And by
either creating or failing to deal with hated foreign occupations,
he has sown the seeds for militant Islamist movements that gain
popularity because of their nationalist credentials.
In Iraq,
which is among the least secure and most economically fraught
countries in the world, the Dec. 15 elections brought into
Parliament a set of powerful Shiite fundamentalist parties and a new
force, the Muslim fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, which gained
most of the votes of formerly secular-minded Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Some
IAF politicians are suspected of strong ties to Iraq's Sunni
insurgency. In Egypt, last fall's election increased representation
for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood from 17 to more than 70
seats in Parliament, making that group a key political player for
the first time in Egyptian history. Decades ago, the party once
assassinated a prime minister and attempted to assassinate President
Gamal Abdul Nasser, but now maintains it has turned to moderation.
It aims at the imposition of a rigid interpretation of Islamic law
on Egyptians, including Egyptian women.
Now Hamas, or
the Islamic Resistance Movement, a branch of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood, has come to power in Palestine. In his press conference
on Thursday, Bush portrayed the Palestinian elections in the same
way he depicts Republican Party victories over Democrats in the
United States: "The people are demanding honest government. The
people want services. They want to be able to raise their children
in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they
can find healthcare." He sounds like a spokesman for Hamas,
underlining the irony that Bush and his party have given Americans
the least honest government in a generation, have drastically cut
services, and have actively opposed extension of healthcare to the
uninsured in the United States.
But the
president's attempt to dismiss the old ruling Fatah Party as corrupt
and inefficient, however true, is also a way of taking the spotlight
off his own responsibility for the stagnation in Palestine. Bush
allowed then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to sideline the
ruling Fatah Party of Yasser Arafat, to fire missiles at its police
stations, and to reduce its leader to a besieged nonentity. Sharon
arrogantly ordered the murder of civilian Hamas leaders in Gaza,
making them martyrs. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements continued to
grow, the fatally flawed Oslo agreements delivered nothing to the
Palestinians, and Bush and Sharon ignored new peace plans -- whether
the so-called
Geneva accord
put forward by Palestinian and Israeli moderates or the
Saudi peace plan
-- that could have resolved the underlying issues. The Israeli
withdrawal from Gaza, which should have been a big step forward for
peace, was marred by the refusal of the Israelis to cooperate with
the Palestinians in ensuring that it did not produce a power vacuum
and further insecurity.
Frustrated,
the Palestinian public predictably swung to the far right. Their
embrace of Hamas does not indicate that most Palestinians are
dedicated to destroying Israel; polls show that most support a
two-state solution and are weary of the endless violence. Rather,
they are sick of the Palestinian Authority and believe that Hamas
will be more effective negotiating partners with the Israelis. As a
Saudi political talk show host
told the Associated
Press,
"They [Hamas] will be the Arab Sharon. They will be tough, but only
a tough group can snatch concessions from Israel."
In a
mystifying self-contradiction, Bush trumpeted that "the Palestinians
had an election yesterday, the results of which remind me about the
power of democracy." If elections were really the same as democracy,
and if Bush was so happy about the process, then we might expect him
to pledge to work with the results, which by his lights would be
intrinsically good. But then he suddenly swerved away from this line
of thought, reverting to boilerplate and saying, "On the other hand,
I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the
destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you
can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got
an armed wing."
So Bush is
saying that even though elections are democracy and democracy is
good and powerful, it has produced unacceptable results in this
case, and so the resulting Hamas government will lack the legitimacy
necessary to allow the United States to deal with it or go forward
in any peace process. Bush's double standard is clear in his
diction, since he was perfectly happy to deal with Israel's Likud
Party, which is dedicated to the destruction of the budding
Palestinian state, and which used the Israeli military and security
services for its party platform in destroying the infrastructure of
the Palestinian Authority throughout the early years of this
century. As Orwell reminded us in "Animal Farm," some are more equal
than others.
President
Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had earlier been elected in a separate
process and could continue in office if he chooses to work with a
Hamas-dominated cabinet. He had earlier hinted that he would resign
if his party lost. Asked about a possible resignation, Bush said in
his typically tongue-tied way, "We'd like him to stay in power. I
mean, we'd like to stay in office. He is in power; we'd like him to
stay in office." Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas leader who is in exile in
Syria, said that his party would be willing to work with Abbas as
president, according to a party spokesman.
But then when
Bush was asked if the United States would end aid to the Palestinian
Authority if a Hamas government was formed, he implied that it
would, unless Hamas changed its platform, which opposes the
existence of the state of Israel on the grounds that the territory
belongs to the Palestinians. He said, "Well, I made it very clear
that the United States does not support political parties that want
to destroy our ally Israel, and that people must renounce that part
of their platform."
Bush implied
that Hamas is dedicated to unremitting violence against Israel. And
since 1994 its military wing has launched many suicide attacks
against Israelis, killing hundreds of people, most of them
civilians. But in fact it has observed a more or less effective
truce for about a year -- indeed, as an
important study
carried out by the respected International Crisis Group pointed out,
it has observed the truce far more reliably than Fatah. And Hamas'
leaders have affirmed that they are willing to continue the truce if
Israel refrains from aggressive violence toward them.
Despite
Hamas' founding position that the Israeli state is illegitimate,
violence is not foreordained. A Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar,
told the Associated
Press
that his party would continue what he called its year-old "truce" if
Israel did the same. "If not," he added, "then I think we will have
no option but to protect our people and our land." More
fundamentally, even Hamas' charter could change. As the ICG points
out, Hamas "has accepted the principle that there is no religious
prohibition against negotiating or co-existing with Israel and that
the provisions in its charter providing for Israel's destruction are
not indelible." Even President Bush, in his measured response to the
elections, seemed to hold out hope that Hamas would adopt a more
pragmatic stance.
To be sure,
many Israelis believe that Hamas is only using the truce to rearm,
that it will never change its opposition to the very existence of
Israel, and that any negotiations with the Islamist group will only
weaken the Jewish state. And Hamas' failure to speak clearly about
its intentions does nothing to allay such fears.
But no one
has ever put Hamas to the test. Neither Bush nor Israel have ever
made good-faith efforts to resolve the underlying issues, preferring
to issue moralistic denunciations that ignore the reality on the
ground. The bitter fruits of that shortsighted policy are now
evident. In Iraq, Bush has been forced -- albeit too late -- to act
pragmatically, negotiating with the leaders of Sunni insurgents whom
his administration earlier denounced as "terrorists." He and Israeli
leaders should follow the same course in Palestine and try to engage
Hamas in a realistic, good-faith political effort to resolve the
conflict.
There is no
evidence that either party will do so. Bush announced early in his
administration his unwillingness to do anything that would challenge
Sharon. For his part, acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is
following in Sharon's footsteps. He said that
he would refuse
to deal with the Palestinian Authority if it was led by Hamas or
included Hamas as a partner, and that he would continue to take the
high-handed unilateral actions planned by Sharon, including holding
on to the large Israeli settlements in the West Bank and refusing to
negotiate the status of Jerusalem.
Bush has
boxed himself into an impossible situation. He promoted elections
that have produced results opposite of the ones he wanted. For all
his constant rhetoric about his determination to hunt down and kill
terrorists, in Palestine he has in effect helped install into power
a group he calls "terrorists." His confusion over whether this is
democracy, which should be legitimate, or is an unacceptable outcome
-- and his unwillingness to address the underlying issues behind the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- suggest that a fatal paralysis will
continue to afflict the region.
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