Friday, June 15, 2007

Two steps back

Palestine has erupted into chaos as Hamas takes over Gaza and President Mahmoud Abbas scraps the government, blaming the internal strife on Hamas, and calls for new elections.

I remember four months ago when there was some sign of hope for a coalition between Abbas and Prime Minister Ishmael Haniyeh via the Mecca accords, with the bringing together of a unity government. Hamas even agreed to respect prior peace agreements made by the PLO, though didn't specifically address Israel.

The only G8 groups that considered backing the accords were Germany, France and Russia, with the U.S. only agreeing to meet with Abbas.

It's possible to partially blame the West for lack of progress there. The U.S. and Israel were as stubborn as Hamas about conditions in the international "peace process."

The U.S.-Israel camp conditioned restoration of foreign aid if Hamas reject violence, recognized Israel, and past agreements. Hamas wanted to keep the slightly altered (Mecca Accords) status quo vis a vis Israel, in turn for restored aid.


In the midst of the February talks, a Rural Sociologist and West Bank native at UW-Madison, with whom I talked, made a common yet poignant observation. The good professor pointed out, who the hell are Israel and the U.S. to make demands when they don't really embrace peaceful terms with all of Palestine? Israel doesn't recognize Hamas as an authority despite both allowing state-sponsored violence against civilians.

On the other hand.

The West does not deserve the entire blame for the current situation. Hamas was so horizontally organized that internal strife was already common despite the Mecca Accords.

Even if Haniyeh had complied with Israel's demands (less likely than a snowstorm in the West Bank), pissed off, fragmented groups would have still lobbed missiles.

What happens in the planned new elections is another sign of whether there could be any progress for reconciliation between Fatah, Hamas, let alone Israel in the next 20 years. And this is all the more convoluted with Syria and Iran's involvement.

Abbas has been able to pull off small miracles in the past. Let's just hope the U.S. doesn't support him so much that he or the government there are even less legitimate than now. Or that Abbas doesn't get killed.

For a BBC take, click here.

5 comments:

IgnatzEsq said...

Here's my own less informed take on this. First leave it to the U.S. to be obsessed with Democracy in Iraq, and not recognize democratically elected parties in Palestine...

It's the same sort of logic that means we should not even consider talking with countries if we don't like them. I'm not sure whether meeting with places like Iran would accomplish anything or not, but I don't understand why it can never be an option period.

And I've never understood exactly what we get out of our close relationship with Israel. It's always seemed a quite one-sided international relationship to me.

But despite the US and G8's, um, interesting (and to me nonsensical) middle east policies, I fail to see how this current eruption of violence can be blamed on anyone except the parties involved. And while I don't have high hopes, the ones that I do have rest on Egypt to broker an end to the violence.

ps, I love the way the Arab relations work (at least according to the BBC), as Palestinians are economically boycotted by the west, and then receive money from Iran and other more extreme Islamic sources (which is the West's own oil money). Thomas Friedman is pulling his own hair out...

Anonymous said...

I feel like there's not much I can say to make more sense of this than you already have - "shit is crazy" may be sufficient.

I actually dropped by to say nice article. It's mind-blowing to think what that guy Clark has been through already at his young age. The UW program sounds awesome, and it's good to see poetry coming to life in less stuffy, literary ways.

B. Broeren said...

Thanks, Ben, for the props on the article.

As for Palestine, the freedom agenda doesn't seem to be working...

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