On Wednesday, Palestinians voted almost two to one to put Hamas in charge of running their government, a move that is forcing Israel and its Western allies to reexamine their approach to dealing with the "Palestinian Question." Ironically, the majority of Palestinians were excluded from the vote. Millions of exiled Palestinian refugees, as well as the 1.3 million Palestinians living within Israel proper, had no way of participating in the election.
Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Forced expulsions and discriminatory laws form the chorus of Palestinian history. The scattered and physically divided nature of the Palestinian community highlights one of the many painful realities of Palestinian life: they are a people that must constantly define themselves in opposition to their conquerors. No conception of Palestinian identity can escape the humiliating imprint of the occupation. This is the salient feature of Palestine's contemporary collective conscience. Israeli domination is the lens through which any expression of Palestinian popular will -- including last week's election -- must be viewed. We must acknowledge this if we are to make sense of this latest, democratically chosen, obstacle on the road map to peace in the Middle East.
The American media is quick to blame the victory of Hamas on the internal corruption of the Palestinian Authority and its long-dominant Fatah party. Reporters and commentators scrambling to explain Fatah's demise are pointing to Yasser Arafat's legacy of cronyism and patronage, a legacy that the lackluster performance of Mahmoud Abbas was unable to change. They say that Hamas represents a break with politics as usual, that it will bring a much-needed measure of accountability to the Palestinian government. While this is certainly true, the problem with this approach is that it places Palestine in a vacuum. In reality, Hamas' rise to power owes as much to Israeli policy as it does to Palestine's internal politics.
Hamas was bolstered by the Feb. 2001 election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister. Sharon, the father of the Israeli settlement program, was a shrewd political tactician who deftly manipulated the Palestinian people in order to achieve his own interpretation of a "settlement." His strategy was twofold: firstly, to minimize the international pressure on Israel, and secondly, to demonstrate that there is no Palestinian leadership with which Israel could negotiate.
Key to accomplishing both objectives was demonstrating the weakness and ineptitude of the Palestinian Authority. In order to do this, Sharon deliberately prodded the fundamentalist groups. His tour of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Sept. 2000, his frequent use of targeted assassinations and his refusal to halt construction of the separation barrier amounted to pouring gasoline on an already smoldering fire. Hamas and the other militant Islamic groups retaliated in kind, relying on suicide bombings -- their "F-16s," as they call them.
The terrorist attacks stressed the Palestinian Authority's inability to control their own population, thereby discrediting the PA as a legitimate partner for peace in the eyes of the world. As the suicide bombings mounted, pressure on Israel to halt its settlement programs waned.
The truth of the matter is that the electoral victory of Hamas is the outcome that Sharon's strategy was very obviously seeking.
Sharon was never interested in a peaceful settlement. His withdrawal from the Gaza strip, while noteworthy, was merely a prelude to his own unilateral implementation of a final status agreement. No negotiations would be required. The path of the separation barrier was rapidly determining the borders of the two-state solution. The barrier will illegally appropriate over 140,000 acres of Palestinian land, or about 10 percent of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem -- the only possible capital of any future Palestinian state. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are already affected by the barrier, prevented from crossing the border to work, attend school and receive medical care. The International Court of Justice has outlawed the building of the barrier, declaring in July 2004 that its existence would be "contrary to international law." Sharon, however, persisted unabated. The occupation -- with its institutionalized roadblocks, checkpoints and curfews -- seemed irreversible.
If we are to understand last week's elections, we must understand how heavily the occupation weighs on the minds of Palestinians. Long a source of national humiliation, it has since become the primary source of economic and social degradation. The economic disaster that is the inevitable by-product of the Israeli occupation has directly empowered Hamas. Since its inception, Hamas has operated mosques, schools, clinics and charities. It has made the survival and maintenance of Palestinian society a major priority, providing vital services in an economy that has grown weaker by the day. Its medical clinics offer subsidized treatment for the sick and it extends financial and technical assistance to those whose homes had been demolished and to refugees living in sub-standard conditions. Thus, ever since its establishment, Hamas has offered Palestinians extensive community services and has responded constantly to the changing political reality by making pragmatic decisions.
Fatah, by contrast, seemed impotent and unresponsive, its leaders representative of an old guard whose time had passed. Abbas was too eager to play the role of the technocrat, unable and perhaps unwilling to stand in Yasser Arafat's shoes. Indeed, without Arafat's personality cult, Fatah quickly fell victim to infighting and began its precipitous descent to the back seat of Palestinian politics. Last week's elections confirmed what many had long expected: that Hamas is extraordinarily popular and that free elections would provide it with an easy opportunity to parlay its favor with the people into legitimate political clout.
As we continue to debate the implications as well as the origins of Hamas' victory, we must not dilute the importance that Israel has played in determining the political landscape of Palestine. The occupation, as well as Ariel Sharon's contrived attempts to inspire retribution, have strengthened the hands of Islamic militants across the board. With the peace process in danger of collapsing, we must now more than ever view the fates of the Israeli and Palestinian people as intertwined. Both sides must be held equally accountable for their actions if we are to end the political exploitation of violence that has continually prolonged this conflict.
