IF elections to Israel’s Knesset are to deserve the name elections, only Israel should decide who will participate in the exercise. Palestinians or Americans have no right to dictate that. In the same manner, only the Palestinian Authority can decide who will participate in Palestinian elections. No one else should claim a right to do that — and that includes Israel and the Israelis. As such, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s threat to withhold Israeli cooperation if Hamas takes part in Palestinian legislative elections in January is blatant encroachment upon an internal Palestinian issue. It belies the claim he made only last week at the UN that the Palestinians were entitled to their own state and that his country had no desire to rule them.
Apparently, Sharon has now taken upon himself the authority to determine the course of Palestinian politics. He is of course expecting a huge payback for his withdrawal from Gaza, a decision that involved a “heavy personal price.” He placed the onus firmly on the Palestinian leadership: Either they fulfill their pledge and end “terror” activities by groups such as Hamas or he may do it himself. Sharon’s threat should certainly be taken very seriously. Choosing to leave roadblocks in place in the West Bank, making it difficult for voters to reach polling stations and placing obstacles to the holding of elections in annexed east Jerusalem might not sound significant. But Sharon has gone much further with Hamas by assassinating its spiritual leader and his deputy last year. Hamas, at the same time, is a force and a reality. It has claimed credit for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza; tens of thousands of its supporters have rallied to celebrate that withdrawal.
Hamas, which provides social services throughout Gaza, is viewed by many Palestinians as less corrupt and more efficient than the mainstream Fatah organization. President Mahmoud Abbas has shied away from disarming Hamas by force — as Israel would like — while hoping to move it into the political mainstream and away from fighting the Jewish state. In addition, also at the expense of Fatah, Hamas is expected to make a strong showing in January after making a sweep of a string of town halls in Gaza Strip municipal elections earlier this year. Sharon’s intrusion into Palestinian business and politics does not square with the UN speech in which he called for reconciliation and compromise with Palestinians to “end the bloody conflict.” It is certain that there will never be peace if Israel does not recognize Hamas — or at least accept its presence. Hamas is a group that cannot be brought down by Israeli weaponry and which now stands poised to do well at the ballot box as it tests its electoral strength for the first time. Several overtures to the Palestinians that Sharon made at the UN lacked credibility because of his plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, retain Jerusalem as Israel’s “eternal and united capital” and continue building the apartheid wall that cuts great swathes into the West Bank.
It seems that only when Sharon talks tough with the Palestinians is he serious — often deadly serious.
