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PALESTINIANS CHOOSE HAMAS

Ramallah's Virtual Reality

By Henryk M. Broder

A Middle Eastern disaster is in the making say the pundits. But at least now it's clear where the Palestinians stand. They are lost in visions of heroic victory and resistance. Israel, meanwhile, has moved on.

There's an old saying in Cologne: "Et kütt, wie et kütt" -- "What happens, happens." Cologne residents, it should be mentioned, are considered the philosophers among Germans.

What does that have to do with Thursday's Palestinian elections? Those folks from Cologne seem to know what they're talking about. The extremists from Hamas have emerged with a sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections -- an absolute majority even, with 76 seats to just 43 for the Fatah faction. It has happened. Hamas will now play a decisive role in the government of the Palestinian Authority.

And now it's time for the pundits. Some saw it coming, others act surprised, but everyone agrees that the cards have been reshuffled. The peace process, most agree, will be put on ice and that the Palestinians will have to decide what they want: a political solution to the conflict, as President Mahmoud Abbas has sought; or armed conflict, as militant groups ranging from Islamic Jihad to the Fatah Movement's own Al-Aqsa Brigades have waged. Or a little of this and a little of that -- a policy to suit whichever way the political winds happen to be blowing at the time.

But let's stick to the facts: free elections are always a risk. There's always the possibility that a vote can be won by a party that is fit neither for power nor for the opposition because its platform is a recipe for disaster in either case. The Israelis have put such experiences behind them; now it's the Palestinians' turn. But there is one fundamental difference between the two. It took the Israelis a long, long time to come to terms with reality, but they did. They finally realized that there is such a thing as a Palestinian people; that there is no such thing as a "good occupation" acceptable to those occupied; that Israel is not alone in the world; and that if they want to avoid being left behind by history, they'll have to negotiate peace one day.

Basking in the glow of candlelight

It was these realizations that led to the Oslo Accords -- fully 12 years ago. In hindsight, it looks as though the Israelis not only pulled Arafat out of exile, but also out of political irrelevance. It was perhaps a naïve assumption that he would not only be capable of achieving law and order in his realm, but would also be willing to cooperate with the Israelis. Everyone knew that Arafat was corrupt, but just how corrupt has only become clear in retrospect.

The last thing Arafat wanted was a free, independent, sovereign Palestinian state to exist alongside Israel. Why should a man who had accumulated $900 million in his various accounts -- and who could afford to send his wife $100,000 a month in Paris -- give up the role of the revolutionary and instead turn his attention to garbage collection in Ramallah, the sewage system in Gaza and providing meals to schoolchildren in Nablus? All that was too mundane for Arafat. His specialty was to keep on fighting until he had achieved victory.

And the Israelis were foolish enough to give him the opportunity to position himself as the untiring fighter, under siege in his compound in Ramallah, basking in the glow of candlelight, surrounded by guests and companions willing to suffer with him and die if necessary. Attaining heroism couldn't have been cheaper.

Arafat's greatest crime was that he never told his people the truth. Perhaps he really believed that the Palestinians had time on their side -- that they would have to sacrifice two or three generations to outlast the occupation. But if that was Arafat's belief, it was a miscalculation. Time isn't on the Palestinians' side. In fact, it's working against them.

If they had accepted the autonomy arrangement former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat negotiated in the first Camp David accords, a Palestinian state would probably exist by now. It would have limited sovereignty, be demilitarized and tied to Jordan, but it would be free of Israeli occupation. Instead, the Palestinians preferred to dance in the streets when "Sadat the traitor" was murdered.

Fundamental misunderstanding

Nowadays there is not a single Arab country -- not even Libya -- that wants to destroy Israel to help the Palestinians achieve justice. The almost daily terror combined with the deadly suicide bombings have not, as expected, demoralized Israel. Instead Israeli resolve to end the conflict unilaterally has strengthened: giving up Gaza; building the security fence; and perhaps even a gradual pullout from the West Bank, for which Gaza was merely a dress rehearsal.

Either the Palestinians haven't noticed any of this, or have fundamentally misunderstood it. Instead of confronting reality, they chose to stay in their virtual world -- a world in which every thought and every action was focused on the "right of return." Even armed with his good intentions, Mahmoud Abbas was unable to change that virtual world when he took over from Arafat.

That Hamas -- which has no interest in abandoning terrorism or backing down from its stated goal of destroying Israel -- won the election is hardly a disaster. Rather, it has established the necessary clarity. Israel will continue with its policy of unilateral action and will leave the Palestinians to their own devices.

The outcome of the election was likely also related to the dark fantasies of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His outlandish comments may have inspired absurd hopes that Israel could somehow be convinced to destroy itself -- to give up its territory and return to Europe in order to sidestep a military defeat that would spell the end of the Jewish state.

But Ahmadinejad miscalculated. He made it brutally clear to the Israelis where the real danger lurks -- not in Hebron, Nablus or Bethlehem, but in Tehran. He also made it clear that the Israelis will be forced to end the occupation because they'll need all of their political strength and military resources to confront this threat.

On the other hand, few predictions made about the Middle East these days are likely to last more than a week. It's quite possible that the Hamas leaders will undergo a transformation similar to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's the minute they come into power. There are no indications that this is likely to happen, but it also isn't out of the question. In the best case, this kind of process could take 10 to 20 years. During this time, Israel will continue to act unilaterally. Meanwhile, the Palestinians will end up with less than they would have had in 1980, 1990 or 2000.

It's bitter, but it's reality. What happens, happens.

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1.27 Gaza. Fatah's protest, or celebration??

More about the issue here:

Haaretz

Fatah members urge PA to reject gov't with Hamas

Jerusalem Post

Fatah members protesting Hamas win storm Gaza streets

IHT/New York Times

Abbas will ask Hamas to form new government