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A
Sobering reality, the morning after
By
Kenneth Sikorski
Mr.
Kenneth Sikorski expresses a dissenting opinion on the reasons
that led Palestinians vote for Hamas. Mr. Sikorski argues
that Hamas' landslide victory, rather than a protest against
Fatah's corruption, shows that Palestinians have opted for
'struggle' instead of moderation, for violence instead of
peace
In
the rush to explain the landslide victory by Hamas, the news
media and political pundits have focused their attention on
the corruption within the Fattah, as being the main reason
for voter dissatisfaction with the present PA government.
But when viewed in the light of Israel's recent disengagement
from Gaza, the electoral victory by Hamas begins to take on
an entirely different perspective.
Its
not that the Palestinian electorate is any more discontent
with Fattah than it was a week, a month or even a year ago.
On the contrary, the
Palestinians are used to the institutionalized corruption
and nepotism of the Fattah, its a cycle that has kept both
dependent upon the other for well over a decade. What has
caught the Palestinian imagination now more than ever, is
that the Hamas is being perceived as 'the' primary force in
ejecting Israel from both Gaza and the four settlements in
the West Bank.
The
Palestinian electorate has totally misunderstood the disengagement
policy of Ariel Sharon and his Kadima party, which was established
on the basis of correcting the misguided assumptions of Oslo.
Ariel Sharon had rightly concluded that security will eventually
bring about the conditions for a final peace, not the other
way around. Had the Palestinian Arab street understood that
simple truth, there would have realized that a vote for Hamas,
meant pushing their dream of a Palestinian state even further
into the future. Instead they chose to believe that Hamas,
(like the Hezbollah six years ago) was responsible for the
new situation on the ground, not Israeli politicians who had
long decided there was no Palestinian partner for peace.
It
appears that many in the international community are as clueless
to the new dynamics in this conflict, as the Palestinians
themselves. While much of the international community are
shocked by the win of the Hamas, they still cling however,
to the fiction that the Hamas can be much more than the violent
Islamist group that they are. They desperately hope that the
Hamas, whose charter removes any doubt that a viable Israeli
state can be an option, will somehow change their radical
religious interpretations of the Quran on which the movement
was founded.
Palestinian
politics has been turned on it head, with the IC no longer
being able to demand that the PA to disarm its radical terrorist
factions, since it would be effectively calling for the PA
to disarm itself. The international community and its media
have to get it right this time around,
and not repeat former mistakes of yesteryear, when no Palestinian
atrocity was allowed to stop the peace process, while every
Israeli protective measure was criticized as being a roadblock
to peace. The Palestinians have now clearly opted for 'struggle'
instead of moderation, for violence instead of peace.
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