The HAMAS Victory in Palestine

It is difficult for many people in the U.S. to understand how a terrorist organization like Hamas could win the recent parliamentary elections in Palestine. The reason for this is that we are exposed to a media so consistently and shamelessly pro-Israel that most of us remain ignorant of even a basic understanding of the conflict: for instance, the fundamental fact that one side is actually engaged in a vicious military occupation of the other side.

To understand the election results then, we must forget what the mainstream media has told us and begin anew.

First, some history. Hamas arose as a significant force during the first intifada in 1988. While Hamas was fairly strong in Gaza, they had very little support in the West Bank. I spent some time in Palestine in 1988, and was told by a number of Palestinians in the West Bank that they thought Israel actually supported Hamas as a counterweight to the PLO. Several years later, some Israel officials admitted this was true. Israel thought that by supporting Hamas, it could split the Palestinian movement, once again proving (as the U.S. did in Afghanistan) the law of unintended consequences.

Like many Islamic fundamentalist organizations, Hamas gained its support through a combination of religious and social services. In Gaza, which is very poor, these social services brought Hamas increasing levels of support among the population. But how does one explain their current support in the West Bank?

The most important factor has to do with the rampant corruption in the current Palestinian Authority, which is controlled by Fatah. Fatah is the party of Yasir Arafat. When he returned to Palestine after the 1992 Oslo Accords, he helped create a government of such profound incompetence and dishonesty that it was only the symbol of him as a resistance fighter that kept people from abandoning Fatah earlier. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has been unable to stem either the corruption or the image Fatah has among the Palestinian people. Like many elections around the world, the victory of Hamas is as much a result of people voting against the incumbent party as it is anything else.

Israel also has much to do with the Hamas victory. Not only did Israel support Hamas in its early rise to power; Israeli policies create the kind of anger that generates support for extremist groups. One has only to read descriptions of Israeli soldiers’ behavior at the numerous checkpoints they have erected around the West Bank—descriptions the U.S. media has spared us—in order to understand the levels of Palestinian anger. These checkpoints, which are the daily fare of nearly all Palestinians, involve constant humiliation and insult, arbitrary beatings and detention, strip-searching fathers in front of their children, refusal to allow pregnant mothers access to hospitals, and spoilage of agricultural produce. The Israeli press has published several eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers of ongoing horrific treatment of Palestinians at checkpoints. And, of course, checkpoints are only one small aspect of the occupation.

In addition, Israel has illegally imprisoned the most popular secular leader in Palestine, Marwan Barghouti, on trumped-up charges of terrorism. Many consider Barghouti, in both eloquence and popularity, Palestine’s Nelson Mandela (who was held for years in a South African jail on the same pretext).

What do we make of the Hamas victory? There is historical precedent for it. The Likud, which has governed Israel for much of the past thirty years, is a party led for most of its history by terrorists. Menachem Begin, Yitzak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon have all had long histories of terrorist engagement. (And, it is worth noting, the Likud’s initial rise to power was largely a result of voters rejecting the corruption of the governing party of the time, Labor.) What is different in this case is that it is the occupied rather than the occupiers that have put a terrorist organization into power. Predicting events in the Middle East is a hazardous business, but I suspect that Hamas’ victory will not change the dynamic of the occupation very much. Israel has been acting unilaterally for many years. Even during the period of Oslo (1992-2000), when there was, officially, a peace process, Israel felt free to violate those accords in order to expropriate Palestinian land and double the number of its settlers on it. Hamas will make Israel’s rhetorical task easier, but will not likely modify anything in its historical policy of dispossession of the Palestinians.

As far as the rest of the world goes, the Hamas victory will likely decrease support for the Palestinians. This, again, will not have profound consequences for the Palestinians, since the U.S. has, since 1967, ensured they have not received effective support in the first place. From its numerous vetoes of Security Council resolutions condemning the occupation, to the staggering amount of money it offers Israel (all told, an estimated $5.5 billion a year), to its pressure on countries that would criticize Israel, the U.S. has effectively blunted support for Palestinian rights and allowed Israel to engage in its slow-motion genocide against the Palestinian people.

Looked at up close, on a day-to-day basis, it always appears that momentous events are happening in Israel and Palestine. From the larger historical perspective, however, the course of history has been steady, and remained steadily against the Palestinians. One way or another, the Hamas victory will not, I believe, alter this course very much. It would take a massive campaign of non-violent refusal by the Palestinians, alongside a recognition by the wider world of Israel’s cruelty toward them (a combination that was glimpsed briefly during the first intifada), not a victory by angry clerics, to change the dynamic of Israeli-Palestinian relations.