Middle
East Democracy And
The Hamas Factor
By Ramzy Baroud
10 March, 2006
Countercurrents.org
There is a degree of surrealism
in all of this. Hamas has presented its choice of Prime Minister to
President Mahmoud Abbas, as the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine says it has agreed in principle to join a Hamas-led government.
In the Arab world, such political
transformation (that of Islamists and Socialists working together to
create a transparent and democratic Parliament) is only possible in
political satire, not as an attainable and healthy political process.
But Palestinians - as the Hamas Parliamentary
victory sweep and the smooth transition of power have shown - are proving
to be quite exceptional in this regard.
It goes without saying that
Palestinians, and those who have genuinely supported their democratic
insurgency have many reasons to be proud. Evidently, those who used
democracy as a decoy to justify their grievous foreign policies or to
defend their unwarranted military occupation are now being forced into
an unpleasant era of 'soul searching' - as proposed by the Financial
Times.
Hamas, not knowingly, perhaps,
has abruptly deprived Washington of its last card in a Middle East foreign
policy game, which was already in tatters. Delivering democracy was
- until Hamas' political rise - Washington's strongest, albeit murkiest
pretext to justify its military presence in the Middle East. Other pretexts
also proved to be a sham; weapons of mass destruction and all. Even
the war on terror logic was turned upside-down, as post-Saddam Iraq
became a terror magnet, a term liberally used by US policy makers.
Nothing was left but the
good old democracy pretence, which worked well, until Palestinians cast
their vote on that critical day late January. The majority voted for
Hamas, not because of its Islamic agenda, but because of its uncompromising
anti-corruption platform, its stance on Palestinian rights and the Israeli
occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Those who understand
the intricacies of the Arab-Israeli conflict must have also decoded
the vote as a strong rejection of the US government's dubious role in
the conflict and in abetting Israel's defiance of international law.
According to the deliberately ambiguous terminology of pro-Israeli fan
clubs in Washington, the Palestinian vote reflected an emphatically
"anti-American," stance, a most dishonest title indeed.
Chances are, US foreign policy
pundits will carry on with their democracy media parade. However, as
we have already seen, the democracy rhetoric will begin to erode, losing
its tangible associations and relegating almost exclusively to rosy
and indefinable assertions. In short: 'Think Again: Middle East Democracy',
as an article title in Foreign Policy sums it up. The authors suggested,
and rightly so, that the "US wants democracy in the Middle East
-- to a point." However, it seems that Palestinians have somehow
taken democracy a little too far.
Prior to the Hamas victory,
the Middle East democracy train seemed to be chugging along at a calculated
speed with fantastic speeches and more or less favourable outcomes,
from a US foreign policy perspective. From the well-touted, grand democratic
experiments in Iraq, Egypt and to the much less popular, yet equally
consequential local or municipal elections in various Gulf states, the
status quo - with its pending US interests - seemed well preserved.
Even the seemingly containable tremor caused by the Muslim Brotherhood
poll results in Egypt failed to bend the Bush administration's will
of carrying on tailoring democracy to the Arabs. But then, Hamas' surprising
victory changed everything.
There should be no illusions
that a Hamas elections victory and its aftermath have not changed the
parameters of the raging conflict: Palestinians are still as ever an
occupied nation and Israel is still the occupier. Notwithstanding, the
Hamas takeover of power underlines - aside from the limitation of military
occupation - the lack of sincerity on the part of the US administration
and the Israeli government in the former's 'push for democracy' and
the latter's boasting about its own being the one and only.
Needless to say, having Hamas
in power places both the US and Israel in a terrible conundrum. The
Israeli one is obvious: never before has Israel dealt with a Palestinian
'partner' so decisive in its demands and objectives, and so un-receptive
to bribery or intimidation. Even at the height of its 'unilateral' jargon,
Israel knows well that without a 'moderate' Palestinian leadership,
little can be achieved insofar as a state of security for Israel while
Palestinian rights and freedoms are shamelessly denied.
But the Bush administration
debacle, in my opinion, transcends the geographic boundaries of the
Israel-Palestinian conflict to the much more, far-reaching political
and strategic setting in the entire Middle East, to its quandary with
'political Islam' and the disgruntled, 'rascal multitudes' - to borrow
a Chomsky term -- of the Arab and Muslim world; so fractious and so
eager to take charge of its own destiny - perhaps through the ballot
box.
Indeed, the Bush administration
finds itself in a greater political mess than thought possible. Weaseling
its way out of its 'commitment' to democracy in the Middle East is easier
said than done. Every other pretext to justify US imprudence in terms
of foreign policy and unconditional financial and military backing of
Israel - no longer the 'only democracy in the Middle East' - have long
been exploited if not exhausted altogether. Until an alternative policy
is devised - chances are a new US doctrine dealing with unfavorable
democracy outcomes in the Middle East is currently being concocted -
the US and Israel will resort to every form of bullying, intimidation
and pressure to completely sideline the relevance of the new Palestinian
government, or to 'oust' Hamas, as a joint plot, one recently leaked
by US media. The hope is to discredit, then overthrow a Hamas-led government
without having to overhaul its entire democracy 'project', whose demise
would be much more consequential than the removal of a movement branded
terrorist.
Only time and more media
leaked plots will reveal what is to transpire. However, the early signs
- that of Israel's intention to starve Palestinians through sanctions,
coupled with unequalled enthusiasm among US lawmakers to punish Palestinians
for electing Hamas - makes the coming Israeli and US foreign policy
course even more predictable. While Israel sees little harm in making
Palestinians a 'whole lot thinner' as a result of its economic sanctions
policy, the US' rash response in chastising Palestinians will likely
scar US credibility, or whatever remains of it.
-Ramzy Baroud
teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology and is
the author of forthcoming The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle
of a People's Struggle. He is also the editor-in-chief of PalestineChronicle.com.
He can be contacted at:
editor@palestinechronicle
.com