A rchive Date
[ 30-01-2006 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Palestine ]
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[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079981/site/newsweek/
Extreme Victory
Hamas emerges victorious in a Palestinian election that stuns the world. But what did the militants win? A mess—and they can't fix it alone.
By Kevin Peraino
Newsweek
Feb. 6, 2006 issue - The polls had barely closed before friends of the henna-bearded Muhammad Abu Tir, 55, began talking him up to be the Palestinian Authority's next Interior minister. "I think I'd be good at it," he told NEWSWEEK at his East Jerusalem home. "I'm qualified." Abu Tir—the victorious Hamas's second-ranked candidate in last week's parliamentary elections and a onetime leader in the militant Islamist group's armed wing—has plenty of firsthand experience with law enforcement. He's spent most of his adult life in Israeli prisons. But on further reflection, he said he might do better to keep "a low profile" in the new government. The more he thought about it, the less he seemed to like the idea of Hamas's putting anyone in jail. At last he declared flatly: "We will not act as policemen."
That could be a big problem, both for the Palestinian people and for the world. The most desperate need these days in the Palestinian territories is law and order. There's no use talking peace with someone who has no power to deliver it. The territories' lawlessness was driven home by post-election gun battles between Hamas supporters and the biggest losers, the formerly ruling Fatah party. The Palestinian Authority is a failed state in the making, a vast slum festering with crime and corruption. That was the issue that brought a commanding majority victory to Hamas, with a tally of 74 parliamentary seats out of 132, versus Fatah's 45. Talking to news-week on the eve of the vote, Hamas cofounder Mahmoud Zahar vowed, "The people will be rid of the disgusting situation they live in—the corruption within the weak and ineffective PA that can't even bring itself to arrest drug addicts, let alone other criminals."
Despite those lofty aims, the Hamas landslide poses a bedrock dilemma for U.S. policymakers. The most upbeat spin came from George W. Bush himself. "The people are demanding honest government," the president said. "The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find health care. And so the elections should open the eyes of the old guard there in the Palestinian territories ... That's the great thing about democracy, it provides a look into society." There's one trouble: the Hamas charter explicitly calls for Israel's destruction, and the U.S. government lists the party as a terrorist organization. "I have made it very clear," Bush told one persistent reporter. "A political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal."
The main task for Hamas leaders now is to avoid making life even harder for the people who elected them. With outside support, they might succeed at cleaning up at least some of the rot the Palestinian people have inherited from Yasir Arafat and his Fatah party. They will not likely get much support, though. Israel controls most of the borders to the Palestinian territories, and it will not just forget about years of Hamas suicide bombings and other attacks. Other foreign powers provide the donor funds that keep the Palestinian Authority afloat. Even the threadbare public services the PA now provides would be impossible without an estimated $30 million a month in international assistance, mainly from the United States and Europe.
The U.S. government has budgeted $150 million in assistance for fiscal '06 and contributed an additional $84 million through the United Nations. For the moment, ongoing projects like USAID's water-treatment facilities are likely to go forward—at least until the new government is formed. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are trying to sort out the legal repercussions of a government run by a terrorist organization, and whether a Hamas-led PA could receive anything at all under a U.S. law requiring that recipients sign an "anti-terrorism certification." Bush has said there will be no aid unless Hamas accepts Israel and renounces terrorism. "If they don't, we won't deal with them. Aid packages won't go forward," he warned. "We won't be providing help to a government that wants to destroy our ally and friend." Yet Washington will also have to weigh the possibility that the Palestinians will turn to America's enemies—like Iran—for funding.
Late last week, NEWSWEEK talked to former PA Finance minister Salam Fayyad about the territories' impending budget crisis. (He denied rumors that he had been approached to take the prime minister's post.) According to the Texas-educated Fayyad, who once worked for the International Monetary Fund and is respected by the international community, the PA has been borrowing roughly $20 million every month to meet monthly expenses and salaries of roughly $150 million. "And this is not comfortable living," he says of the latter figure. "This is barely making it." Now, he says, "we're at the limit of how much we can borrow. Banks won't lend any more." Approximately 30,000 government workers could lose their jobs to make up the difference.
Still, Hamas's biggest economic worry is right next door. Israel can close the borders at will, blocking commercial traffic and making the daily commute impossible for the thousands of Palestinians who earn their living inside Israel. Even in "normal" times, the jobless rate in the territories is roughly 20 percent, and per capita income is about $1,100 a year. The Israeli government also controls the collection of all Customs duties in the territories, enabling it to shut off the PA's primary source of revenue, amounting to roughly $700 million a year, according to Fayyad.
Israel's leaders made little effort to hide their attempts to sabotage Hamas before the elections. Israeli troops swept through the West Bank, arresting many of the party's top politicians, including Abu Tir. He was freed a day later, but other Hamas campaigners remain behind bars. A senior Israeli security source, requesting anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job, says the goal was to disrupt the Hamas candidates' day-to-day operations, even though Israeli strategists knew the sweeps would cause a backlash.
The planners were right about the backlash, anyway. At a campaign rally last week in the West Bank town of Abu Dis, a campaign worker used a mobile phone to call Ibrahim Abu Salem, 58, a Hamas leader who has been jailed since last fall. When Abu Salem answered, the campaign worker put his voice on the rally's sound system, allowing the jailed leader to speak directly to his supporters from prison. The crowd went wild.
Israel's policymakers disagreed sharply over whether to force a postponement of the elections, according to the Israeli security source. Some thought a delay could buy time for rival Palestinian candidates and Western diplomats to exploit potential splits in Hamas, while others worried that stalling would only strengthen the Islamists' support. Silvan Shalom, Israel's Foreign minister at the time, told NEWSWEEK that he warned acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert the day after Ariel Sharon's stroke not to let the elections take place. He says Olmert barely replied. According to Shalom, U.S. diplomats were pressing the interim leader to allow the elections to proceed. "I think he didn't want a confrontation with the American administration in his first decision [in office]," says Shalom. "And so he gave up."
Even with so much unpleasant history, some Hamas leaders have nevertheless hinted that the party might be willing to tone down its death-to-Israel plank—but not without big concessions in return. Hamas has generally honored a yearlong truce with Israel, and senior members have suggested that it could be extended indefinitely. Opinion polls say most Palestinians—even among those who voted for Hamas—want a decent peace deal, not endless conflict. Asked about the possibility of future talks with Israel, party cofounder Zahar does not rule it out. "The previous experience is bad," he says. "We did not benefit at all. However, if another attempt is made and it is successful, this situation will lessen the embarrassment for all sides." In a poll published by Yediot Ahronot newspaper, an astounding 48 percent of Israelis actually favored talks with Hamas.
The radicals are learning how to massage their message. Nashat Aqtash, a communications professor at Birzeit University on the West Bank, has been tutoring Hamas candidates on the language of modern politics. He says he learned one of his most valuable lessons from watching Bush's spin doctors: replace hot-button words with polite equivalents. "We don't need to 'kill people'," he says. "We need to 'remove occupation.' Both are the same, but the meaning is totally different." And aim your pitch to attract swing voters. "People tackling social issues get higher votes," he says. "When you kill, don't say you're going to do it. Just do it. And then say you're sorry."
Few Israeli politicians can dare to speak of talks with Hamas until after March 28, when Israel will hold its own parliamentary elections. For followers of Sharon's moderate Kadima Party, the rise of Hamas just proves that negotiations are futile, and unilateral withdrawal is Israel's only option. Kadima's opponents see things differently. "People now understand that any territory we vacate will be used against us," Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told NEWSWEEK late last week. "Sometimes reality has to punch people in the face before they change their opinion."
Hamas has hardly begun to feel the reality of governing the territories. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, warns that further public pressure on the group is likely to do more harm than good. "I would advise us to avoid becoming the problem," he says. "The problem is in the Palestinians' laps. Let them deal with it."
Some Palestinians claim they actually look forward to the challenge. "When you push for democracy you cannot tailor the outcome to your own liking," says Ziad Abu Amr, an independent Gaza politician who often helps mediate differences between Fatah and Hamas. "Today, people may elect Islamists, and in four years they may change their mind. They will learn what works and what doesn't." All sides are girding for a long, hard, messy process. But if President Bush and the leaders of Hamas can agree on anything, it's that nothing else works better.
With Dan Ephron and Joanna Chen in Jerusalem and Michael Hirsh and Richard Wolffe in Washington
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
© 2006 MSNBC.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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