The Hamas Victory: Two Women’s Views
13 February 2006
The Hamas Victory: Two Women’s Views
As Hamas forms a new government within the limited auspices of the Palestinian Authority, we present these two viewpoints. The first article is by Gila Svirsky, an Israeli woman and Jerusalem Women Speak alumn. The second article is by Samieh Khoury, a Palestinian woman and writer.
Following the articles are additional sources for information on the Palestinian elections and their aftermath.
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HAMAS AND US
Gila Svirsky
February 2, 2006
1) Who’s to blame?
Listening to the reactions of passersby at the recent Jerusalem vigil of Women in Black, you would think it was our peaceful little group that put the Hamas into power. This stems from Israeli right-wing politicians who are asserting that Hamas won because of the Gaza withdrawal and other conciliatory overtures, i.e., “rewarding terrorism”. Indeed, Bibi Netanyahu & co. are delighted with the Hamas victory, on which they can now build a fear-saturated election campaign, and return voters to the fold who lately had slipped into something more moderate.
But here’s my take on what made Hamas victorious in the recent elections: Israel’s failure to sit down and negotiate an end to the occupation. This is often phrased as “the failure of Fatah to make progress on peace”, but they amount to the same thing: the Fatah failed because Israel refused to offer any reward for moderation, refusing to sit down and negotiate with them.
And what about the corruption claim – that voting for Hamas was also a vote against the corruption of the Fatah politicians? This may have played a role for some voters, but since when does corruption bring down a politician? Certainly not in Israel, where Sharon’s corruption has been an open book, but forgiven by those who support his politics. Corruption is tolerated when approval ratings are high in other respects. The corruption of the previous Palestinian government would have been overlooked, had the politicians only managed to show some progress on ending the occupation.
2) When terrorists become politicians
I remember standing on the balcony of my home in Jerusalem on a lovely May morning of 1977 and gasping when I heard who had won the Israeli election: Menahem Begin, former head of a Jewish terrorist organization that had killed 91 civilians by bombing the King David Hotel in 1946. And then it was Begin who returned the Sinai Peninsula and negotiated peace with Egypt. In 2001, Israel elected Ariel Sharon, responsible for blood-soaked episodes in Qibiya, Beirut, Gaza, Sabra and Shatila, and more. And then it was Sharon who returned Gaza – imperfect, but a singularly important precedent.
I condemn terrorism, whether ‘rogue’ or state sanctioned, and I would never have voted for Hamas (or Begin or Sharon). But who is better positioned than Hamas to reach a compromise peace agreement? We have the mirror image of Israel in the Palestinian election: Just as the Israeli right (Begin and Sharon) could more easily make concessions than Yitzhak Rabin, who had to fight our right wing all the way, so too the Hamas can mobilize more support for concessions than the more moderate Fatah could now undertake.
3) About creeping fundamentalism
Yes, I am worried about Hamas rule, particularly its domestic agenda in Palestine: I worry about women, non-Muslims, journalists, gays, people in the arts, and all those who benefit from the open society. To what extent will the Hamas increase the role of Shari’a (Muslim) law in civilian life? Or religious education in the schools? On the other hand, it’s quite evident that Palestinians have experienced democracy and will not easily tolerate a closing of their society.
I take heart from this week’s survey of the Palestinian population, published in the Palestinian Authority’s Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda and reported in the Jerusalem Post: 84% of Palestinians support a peace deal with Israel.
In case you wondered if this includes the Hamas, 75% of Hamas voters are opposed to calls for the destruction of Israel. The Hamas knows that seculars comprise a large portion of their constituency.
4) And who benefits from ending foreign aid?
So along come American and Israeli politicians advocating for a policy that would isolate and punish the Palestinians by withholding financial aid. Everyone knows this would destabilize the fragile economy, harm the innocent (but not the politicians), and foster increasing bitterness against the secular west. A much more reasonable approach would be to extend support and see how responsibly Hamas uses it. Or does someone have an interest in sowing chaos in the Palestinian territories?
Yes, I too would like to demand a renunciation of terrorism and violence as a precondition for talking …I’d like to demand it from both sides. But realistically this has to be done as part of the negotiations.
Gila Svirsky is a veteran Israeli peace activist currently working with The Coalition of Women for Peace among other groups. Ms. Svirsky was a speaker on the Eighth National Jerusalem Women Speak tour in October, 2004.
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ARE YOU SURPRISED?
A Reflection on the Palestinian Elections
Samia Khoury
January 29, 2006
On January 25 — ten years after the first elections, which the Palestinians held in 1996 under the terms of the Oslo Accords — the Palestinians held their second elections for the legislative council. All went well, and 77% of the people who had the right to vote went to the polls. The Central Elections Committee was commended on its professional and transparent work, which guaranteed a smooth election day. The results were announced twenty-four hours after the closure of the polling stations with a landslide victory for Hamas, which won 76 seats out of 132. That Hamas would score highly in the elections was no surprise, but that Fatah, the ruling faction of the PLO and of the Palestinian Authority since its establishment in 1993, should get only 43 seats was shocking to many Palestinians, and certainly to Fatah itself.
Those results reflect voters’ frustration at Fatah’s failure to arrive at a political solution for Palestine’s problems and disappointment in the performance of the Palestinian Authority. They furthermore reflect the will of the people to maintain their threatened identity amidst an onslaught of foreign hegemony. Religion, being an integral part of the ethos of any community, becomes a natural refuge under these circumstances.
Fatah should not be surprised at the results of the elections, since it is partly to blame for the disappointment and frustration prevailing in the Palestinian Territories. Everybody on the political scene realizes that we are still under a brutal Israeli military occupation, but people still were hoping that the Palestinian Authority would improve everyday life for Palestinians. They were looking forward for law and order, for discipline and security, for solutions to poverty and unemployment. And most of all, they were yearning for restored human dignity, respect, and public welfare which had been eroded and trampled upon by the long years of military occupation. Unfortunately, the nine other political slates besides Hamas and Fateh could not succeed in joining forces to run as single alternative to both Hamas and Fatah.
Before the results were out, we kept hearing official voices from the USA and Israel announcing that there will be no peace process if Hamas wins, and that there is no chance for the Road Map under Hamas. The Europeans sounded worried as well, realizing that a Hamas government in Palestine would force them to face serious change. Yet none of those official voices had the courage to admit that the peace process was already on hold due to the Israeli intransigence.
How ironic that Mr. Shimon Peres has joined the chorus of those expressing grave concern about making peace with Hamas. We all recall how as prime minister he dismally failed to carry out the legacy of peace for which he, the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the late President Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize. Peres and his woeful chorus pretend not to understand the source of the Palestinian people’s frustration, but they have been witnessing Israel violating U.N. resolutions and international law as well as using sophisticated and extensive weaponry to wage a relentless war on the Palestinian civilian population, and they share the blame for Fatah’s failure, as they stood by passively or offered resources and encouragement to Israel’s attempts to erode Fatah’s authority.
The Road Map that Israeli spokesmen said would not be possible to implement under Hamas was never fully accepted by Israel, which has consistently blocked its implementation and the establishment of a Palestinian State through means such as building an illegal concrete wall eight meters tall to divide the Palestinian territories. So let us not pretend that peace was around the corner before Hamas’ electoral victory, which at most heightened the already astronomical odds against peace barring a major shift in Israeli policy.
Hamas was not part of the PLO when Oslo was signed, and it did not participate in the first elections in 1996. Neither did it participate in the presidential elections in January 2005 after the death of President Arafat. And though it is a resistance movement, Hamas agreed to a period of calm to give Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, the newly elected president, a chance to pursue his political agenda after Arafat, who had been considered redundant by Israel and the USA. But Israel did not appreciate that gesture and did not abide by any agreement, choosing instead to persist in provoking the Palestinians, raiding their homes and camps, targeting their activists, and doing so with impunity.
While the USA turned a blind eye to Israeli violations, it considered Mr. Ariel Sharon, the leader of the right wing Likud party of Israel, a man of peace despite his actions and bloody history. I am inclined to think that in claiming that they would not deal with a Palestinian government including Hamas, Israel and the USA were using a strategy of reverse psychology, secretly hoping that a Hamas win would justify whatever actions they wished to take against the Palestinians and their new leadership, and that members of the international community who endorse Israel’s labeling of Hamas as a terrorist movement would support further crackdown on Palestinians under a Hamas government.
The Palestinian Authority has long experienced external and internal calls for reform. Hamas responded to those calls, and won the elections with a platform promising reform. Their victory at the polls demonstrates just how deeply voters wanted change. But how much of that change will happen — and how much of it will be positive — remains anyone’s guess.
Samia Khoury is a Palestinian woman and a regular contributor to The Witness. Her monthly column is “Justice & Liberation.” This article originally appeared in The Witness Magazine.
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For more information and analysis of the Palestinian Legislative Elections, Partners for Peace recommends these websites:
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission
Official site of the Palestine Central Elections Commission.
The Electronic Intifada’s Election’s Focus Page
The web’s number one resource on news and information from occupied Palestine.
Al Jazeerah English Edition’s Palestinian Elections Focus
The Arab world’s number one source for news.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights: Docements on the Legislative Elections
One of Palestine’s most respected human rights organizations. Based in Gaza.
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