What, were the Palestinians getting tired of the prospect of ever getting something like nation status?
One good thing about this I guess: The fighting between Israel and Palestine will be over soon.
yeah, i’m not entirely sure what the ramifications are over this exactly…
i haven’t been following it as closely as i should, though…and that’s a problem.
but it doesn’t seem like a good idea for anyone…on paper, at least.
here’s to many more years of squabbling over a stupid piece of land!
Perhaps I’m a bit naive and optimistic, but I’m hoping that this will put Hamas in a position that forces them to bahave in a more responsible manner as opposed to just an organization of thugs and terrorist.
Of course, it’s more likely that they won’t have the political clout and wherewithall to act effective on the world political arena and will therefore implode from the pressure and demands placed on them.
okay, i’ve read something interesting on it…and that coupled with what i already knew (just the basics) looks like that…what we have here is a failure to communicate.
it seems like israel, more than ever, is willing to compromise and have some peace, and now palestine, with this vote, either smells blood in the water, or doesn’t even consider compromise an option…or even both.
apparently, palestinians are pissed off cause they thought they had no voice. such things happen when you mingle religion and state in such zealous levels. obviously, with this outcome, this could end up being good or bad, as all things have the potential to be. i fail to see how this could end up on a positive note, however.
i suppose this can be a lesson to any budding democracies. keep your noses clean in the beginning and try to ditch corruption. fix things, and improve life for everyone. embrace the corruption and you give the anti-democracies time to flush the system and pervert it from within.
Yes. A very sensi…snerk sensib…chort. Ahem. A very …
BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Oh STOP! Yer killin’ me! Hamas gives Hezbollah the creeps! With all the infighting I’ll be interested to see if there’s anything left for Israel to beat up!
What the hell are you babbling about? The Palestinians have a fairly secular state. Fatah was a secular party. In order to get elected, Hamas had to completely downplay their fundamentalist ideology.
The Palestinians weren’t pissed off because they thought they had no voice. They were pissed off because the ruling Fatah party was hopelessly corrupt and inefficient and operated closer to a criminal gang than a functioning government. It embezzled millions, if not billions, of dollars worth of aid that was supposed to go towards the Palestinians. Local Fatah gangs would shake down local business owners and residents. People were sick of it and this election was their first chance to ditch the ruling Fatah party. The only real alternative was Hamas.
Hamas has a reputation for scrupulous honesty in the community as well as having demonstrated actual concern for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. They build schools and hospitals, provide food for the poor and don’t shakedown the local populace.
Not only that, but they did the right thing and campaigned on domestic issues like fixing corruption, welfare and expanding education opportunities and infrastructure. Most polls show that the Palestinians are in favor of compromise with Israel and opposed to the implementation of sharia law. Hamas is acutely aware of this, which is why they scrupulously avoided the topics during debates and campaigning. Moreover, Hamas values the legitimacy that the election results give them, making it unlikely they will do something radical like start a war with Israel that a) most of the people oppose and b) it knows it would lose.
That said, there are lots of pitfalls with this. If Israel and the US simply shut out Hamas, then things will end badly. Intelligent diplomacy is needed at this point from both sides - something that has been lacking more often than not in this whole affair.
In all fairness, though, I suppose we should mention some nitpicky little details like the Hamas-sponsered suicide bombings, the payments made by Hamas to the families of suicide bombers, shelling Israeli towns with mortars and rockets, calling for the destruction of Israel, and quoting from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion before we go jumping on Israel and the US for not negotiating with them. It’s not like these guys are known just for their “scrupulous honesty,” ya’ know? Somehow, I don’t think these guys are overly concerned about their public image, even among Palestinians.
I’ve given this some thought…
I’m imagining Hamas having their first assembly of leaders. One rocket from Israel and the entire problem of Hamas is solved. 
whoa there…simmer down, little pasta.
yes, fatah was corrupt, and the people knew it, hence why there’s the big swing in policy. i just don’t get how hamas is going to be a positive force when they get into office. every actions deserves an equal and opposite reaction. i can see hamas wallowing in graft relatively soon until they settle down over there. i hope things go well. i hope they can get some actual governing going, but i don’t know. an organization is run by their zealots, and those zealots (especially religious ones) have the capacity to be downright scary and tend to be rather liberal with how they should implement their “policies”.
then again, for bush to come out and refuse to talk to them at all…shit, he might as well add them to the “axis of evil” list.
hamas winning this election could be a good thing, in the long run; but it’s gonna take some time to see how it all plays out.
on the encouraging side is this: if (and i know it is a big if) israel decides they can & will negotiate with hamas, at least they will be negotiating with a group that has the power to curb attacks on israel & israeli settlers. fatah could make all the promises they wanted, but they didn’t have the power to say “hey guys, cut it out for a bit while we see where this is going…”
hamas has two wings - the militant, and the social-political; somewhat analagous to sinn fein & the ira in the northern ireland conflict. if there is progress to be made on the political side, hamas is the palestinian political party with the power to (largely) reign in the militant groups, or at least a very significant number of them. especially if hamas is serious about being a long-term player in the future of palestine.
of course, if hamas decides they just wanna play army games, or if the israelis (and others) refuse to even entertain the idea of talking with them, things will only get worse.
but it’s not like there isn’t an opportunity here.
I didn’t say they were good people. I simply said that they are in power now, legitimately, and the US and Israel are going to have to negotiate with them if any improvements are to be made in the area. Last, I don’t know how you can say that they aren’t concerned about their public image to Palestinians. Why do you think they built all those schools and hospitals…the kindness of their hearts?
It’s definitely possible and I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened.
I think the main thing it indicates is that the Palestinian people have no faith in the peace process, and even less faith in Fatah. We’ll just have to wait and see how Fatah actually behaves …
That last sentence should end “how Hamas actually behaves …”
Fatah was bumbling, inept, and corrupt. So the Palestinian people got sick of it and voted them out. Now they’ll get to see real corruption.
But I’ll hand it to hamas. While Fatah was bending people over and forcing bribes, hamas was building schools and offering social programs. And they essentialy castrated Fatah by blowing shit up when Fatah would make any progress towards peace. And Fatah had reached a point where they were impotent in their own land because hamas had their own turf.
I actually think some good might come out of this. The only way to cleanse Fatah of Arafat’s thugs and entrenched croniism was to get them out, and hamas was the only viable party able to do it. And hamas was always content to bitch about Fatah, but never had to undertake the heavy lifting of leadership. Palestine has a symbiotic relationship with Isreal, and can’t get real far without it. And hamas will get to figure that out for themselves the first time Isreal closes it’s borders. They’ll get to see how Syria, Egypt and Jordan don’t really give a shit, and they’re on their own. Their first response will be to start bombing. Then Isreal will really clamp their shit down tight. And then? Then what?
I guess that’s when hamas will either learn politics real quick, or be a one trick pony. If they’re a one trick pony, the natives will soon become restless. In response, hamas will clamp down hard, open revolt will begin, armed factions will face off against each other, turf will be claimed, and hamas will essentially be nuetered. Ya know. Just like what was happening in Palestine last week with Fatah.
If they learn politics, good for them. They have been the real power brokers for long enough. Arafat and Fatah never really could have achieved peace because they were never in the position to offer it. Hamas, OTOH, is able to wield some actual power. If they completely fuck themselves before they come to that realization, which I put at a high probability, then they’ll be just as useless as Fatah had become.
In the mean time, the thugs and cronies of Fatah become bored, disenfranchised, and leave. Purging the the bad elements of the party, and hopefully leaving behind the idealistic and educated good elements. The natives realize that maybe hamas isn’t so hot after all, and bring back Fatah after five, maybe ten years. This time hamas is a little more willing to let Fatah do what they need to do because they understand that leadership isn’t all they thought it would be. So for the first time in nearly fifty years, there’s a chance for some real brokered peace. Even if it’s far off, it’s better than what was.
Palestine needed this purge. They weren’t getting anything done as it is. Sadly, five to ten years is really a bit of a pipe dream on my part. Hamas is pretty young, and once they are corrupted by power, they will fight tooth and nail to keep it. Slowly aging and evolving to the sad, pathetic party that they defeated this week.
I can’t see a silver lining to this, unfortunately.
As Mark Steyn would have put it, “Given a choice between building something and killing Jews, count on Hamas to go for killing Jews, every time.”
A political party with “the liquidation of Israel” as one of its charter points is nothing new. The PLO had this in their charter. It was rendered null after the Oslo accords. Still, for the vast majority of the time there HAS been a Palestinian Authority, the party or individuals in charge have operated under such a charter or declaration.
From a Brief History of Palestine on MidEastWeb.
Enjoy,
Steven
I hope you’re right (I giggle at the self-defeating hate these people express, but I also wish they could have peace). Sadly, however, history shows us that when purging begins, it’s the idealistic and educated who are the first to go. “Youth and Energy vs. Old Age and Treachery” and all that. But yeah, I think the only real hope here is what Quicksilver pointed at: that the vantage point from the hotseat of power will illuminate the necessity of behaving reasonably in a way that wasn’t so obvious from the heckler’s box.
But I don’t gotta lotta hope of that.
Well, there are two other salient points to consider:
- Hamas are now the democratically elected majority party in Palestine following what appears to have been a reasonably free and fair election. Immediately threatening to cut off aid and reduce the Palestinians to penury sends out a pretty mixed signal about how much the west values democracy versus just wanting to impose its will.
- Changes in attitudes and beliefs on a national scale take a long long time. Look how long it has taken the Sinn Feinn/IRA group to progress from guerilla army to political party, as an example. Expecting peace and understanding to break out overnight is just silly.
I think the right approach for the EU/US to take is to try to make it clear that they will work with whatever leadership the PA puts forward to achieve a peaceful solution to the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict providing they avoid violence, and then deal with events as and when they occur. As Mtgman pointed out, the founding charters or stated policies of groups don’t necessarily mean much. What counts is whether or not Hamas launch attacks on Israel, and how they respond to the inevitable ‘incidents’ that are bound to occur, not what they have done or said in the past.
This could be a great opportunity, in that finally the Israelis will be negotiating with people who have genuine support on the street, credibility with the militant elements and some measure of control. People who might be able to deliver on their side of a bargain.
On the other hand, it could be an unmitigated catastrophe that could make the whole situation flare up into a war again.
I just think it’s beholden on everyone to try to push things towards the first outcome and not make the second a self-fulfilling prophecy by condemming Hamas before they have had a chance to show how they wish to take things forwards.
It would also be naiive to think that there won’t be plenty of killings, assassinations, incursions, retaliations and power struggles in the next few years. Both the Israelis and the various Palestinian groups have and will stage provocative attacks when they think it suits their own agendas, and I can’t see a miraculous change coming on that front.