THE welcoming by the Quartet of Middle Eastern peacemakers, Europe, Russia, the UN and the United States, of the efforts by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to create a national unity government represents the first break in the ominous political clouds that have hung over the Palestinians since January, when voters elected a government that Washington and Tel Aviv didn’t like. International pundits see a softening in America’s hard-line refusal to deal with the Hamas administration because it has branded it a terrorist organization. Any unity government that Abbas might form would have to include Hamas and therefore Washington would find itself talking with them. The trick for the Bush White House will lie in the fact that a national unity government will have to “reflect” the principles of the Quartet, which form part of the so-called road map to peace. A key element of these is that Hamas should abandon its refusal to recognize the Israeli state.
The only thing clear so far from coalition talks between Hamas and Fatah and smaller parties is that Hamas premier Ismail Haniyeh will keep his job in a new government. However, as the arguments continue over who should be given which governmental portfolios, the key issue is being overlooked. This is that a democratically elected government with a clear parliamentary majority is now being forced by outside interference to share power with its defeated rivals. Few in the Arab world, let alone in Palestine, can feel the least surprise at this egregious display of Washington’s double standard. But what are the feelings among all those who voted for a Hamas government last January? In significant ways, this was a vote of despair.
For years the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority had failed to find a just settlement for its people. Hamas, with its uncompromising approach to the Israeli occupiers, offered a radical change and the voters took it. The fact that Hamas refused to accept the legitimacy of the Israeli state did not mean that everyone who voted its ticket shared that view. It is more likely that what they wanted was for something to happen: an end to Fatah corruption and the election of fresh minds at the helm of government.
Thanks to Washington’s refusal to accept their democratic choice, the elected Hamas administration has been unable to function. The serious deprivation, chaos and lawlessness that this interference has brought do not stand to the America’s credit and has produced some trenchant domestic criticism.
The April resignation of former World Bank President James Wolfensohn from the job of analyzing the humanitarian and economic needs of Palestine came because this respected banker disagreed with the boycott of the new government. Yet ironically perhaps the isolation of Hamas has validated and justified the choice of the Palestinian electorate, who wanted more than anything for some serious movement on a settlement. Now it sees the Quartet actively encouraging a coalition government that can enter renewed talks but which will still include Hamas.
