Let Freedom Reign (Part MCMV)

From the NYT:

JERUSALEM, Feb. 13 — The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

Making showy demands of Hamas seems a great way to increase to chances they won't do want we want. Oh, and it should definitely increase our democracy cred. Especially the hope about Abbas calling for a new election. Here's the NYT again:

Mr. Abbas, the president, would have the authority to dissolve parliament and call new elections, the officials say, even though that power is not explicit in the Palestinian basic law.

Urging the Palestinian president to think creatively when it comes to governing elections law; now that's showing 'em how it's done.

 

Comments

[brian]

Perhaps Bush could send them some Florida election officials(even Katherine Harris ?) to show Fatah how to run an election ,you can't lose)...mind you Hamas ,ight be able to help by running a "clean" mid-term election on "06. !@

[Zathras]

This is not an easy question and should not be treated as if it were. No Israeli government would last long if it claimed it was under obligation to collect taxes for a Palestinian regime dedicated to murdering Jews. Nor are foreign aide donors compelled to subsidize terrorism, even if their refusal to do so does create a morale problem amount Palestinians who think they have a right to other people's money.

On the other hand, if Hamas is to renounce terrorism, and mean it, it will need time. Not only will it have to reconcile its own membership to the idea, but it will have to have enough control over Palestinian security services to suppress attempts by other Islamist terror gangs like Islamic Jihad and al Aqsa to fill the vacuum with their own attacks on Israelis.

I'm guessing that Israeli officials know this. The concern is that Bush administration officials may respond to Israeli political imperatives rather than to the security analysis. My view is that political imperatives cannot be ignored, but should not drive a precipitate decision on aid and tax collections to the PA.

[Eric Umansky]

Zathras, putting sentiments aside and just looking at policy, looks like we ultimately end up in the same place. I don't see why we can't make some aid to the P.A. actions/conditions -based rather than statement-based. That is, rather than making aid contigent on, say, announcing Israel's right to exist (which we agree isn't going to come anytime soon), make it contigent on them stopping terrorist attacks. There'd have to be some fudging in there, b/c some number of isolated incidents are always going to happen. But simply getting away from the rhetoric and sticking to influencing action strikes me as the least bad path. It's certainly a better one than trying to effectively invalidate Hamas' win which makes us look like (and be) hypocrites but carries the significant risk of actually increasing Hamas' popularity.

[Tyler]

Via Vital Perspective: U.S., Israeli Officials Deny New York Times Story on Hamas

[Alexandra]

All Things Beautiful TrackBack Islam's Heart On St.Valentine's Day
[http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/2006/02/islams_heart_on.html]

[Alexandra]

Sorry - here the correct link
http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/2006/02/islams_heart_on.html

[Zathras]

Eric, I hope you're right about our ending up in the same place as to policy. Whether we do may depend on what Hamas does.

I am not sanguine about efforts to democratize Arab countries, and view in particular the idea that the essence of democracy is "the freedom to elect whomever you want" with a particular lack of sentiment and sympathy. I have no interest in being right about this, however, and hope I am not in this case. The bottom line is that a Hamas government will have to do everything the administration and the Israelis want it to do with respect to terrorism, regardless of what the Palestinian people think, or neither Western aid nor Israeli tax collections will be sustainable. I understand a Hamas government will need time to get to that position, but that assumes it will want to. I hope it will and think our policy should reflect that hope. But I don't actually know that the hope is justified.