I saw this Reuters article this morning and it reminded me of a survey I read about in a recent International Crisis Group report, titled "Gaza's Unfinished Business." The survey in the ICG report showed that 40% of Gazans had no faith in either Fatah or Hamas before the Israeli offensive, and that number has risen to 60% in the months since the offensive. The Bir Zeit survey reported in this article claims that 58% of Palestinians (from a sample of over 6,000 from Gaza + West Bank) want a unity government. They should have it — but their leadership stands in the way.
The fundamental principle of democracy — before you get into variations like representative democ., parliamentary, etc. — is, to put it roughly, "let the people decide, and give the people what they want." The will of the people should supersede political differences; in a parliamentary system, parties debate and oppose one another with the ultimate goal of achieving a political outcome that is satisfactory to as many of the "people" as possible, including underrepresented minorities.
Perhaps I am naïve, but if the will of the people is so clear in Palestine, why doesn't the leadership respect it? Both Fatah and Hamas claim to support democracy. In fact, Hamas often claims to be the only truly democratically elected government in the Middle East; the Islamic movement's supporters cannot get over the ironic rejection of Hamas' victory by the West, so keen to spread democracy, so much less keen to respect its outcomes. I am reminded of Caliban's remark to Prospero in The Tempest:
You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is I know how to curse
The sharp-tongued anti-America rhetoric that we hear from Hamas' leadership should not surprise us; we are, in so many ways, Prospero. We have given Hamas the tools to walk and talk like a democracy, and they are using their newly acquired skills to throw mud in our faces. And we should not expect anything different — our support for democracy in Palestine was always half-hearted at best, and never intended to allow for majority representation of Hamas.
But now that Hamas has the mandate in Gaza, and responsibility for 1.5 million people who are currently recovering from a catastrophic invasion, will they continue to curse us, and to curse Israel, without giving their own people what they so desperately want and need, the unity government that will be a critical step toward ending the siege and confronting the expansion of settlements in the West Bank? Will they continue to allow their resentment at being spurned by the Palestinian elite and the West to dictate the path forward? And as for Fatah, will they recognize Hamas as the coequal that they have clearly become? Or will they cling to power in the West Bank through underhanded means and deprive their own supporters of a viable political future?
What is it, really, that both Fatah and Hamas want? Do their priorities represent the people?
The fundamental principle of democracy — before you get into variations like representative democ., parliamentary, etc. — is, to put it roughly, "let the people decide, and give the people what they want." The will of the people should supersede political differences; in a parliamentary system, parties debate and oppose one another with the ultimate goal of achieving a political outcome that is satisfactory to as many of the "people" as possible, including underrepresented minorities.
Perhaps I am naïve, but if the will of the people is so clear in Palestine, why doesn't the leadership respect it? Both Fatah and Hamas claim to support democracy. In fact, Hamas often claims to be the only truly democratically elected government in the Middle East; the Islamic movement's supporters cannot get over the ironic rejection of Hamas' victory by the West, so keen to spread democracy, so much less keen to respect its outcomes. I am reminded of Caliban's remark to Prospero in The Tempest:
You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is I know how to curse
The sharp-tongued anti-America rhetoric that we hear from Hamas' leadership should not surprise us; we are, in so many ways, Prospero. We have given Hamas the tools to walk and talk like a democracy, and they are using their newly acquired skills to throw mud in our faces. And we should not expect anything different — our support for democracy in Palestine was always half-hearted at best, and never intended to allow for majority representation of Hamas.
But now that Hamas has the mandate in Gaza, and responsibility for 1.5 million people who are currently recovering from a catastrophic invasion, will they continue to curse us, and to curse Israel, without giving their own people what they so desperately want and need, the unity government that will be a critical step toward ending the siege and confronting the expansion of settlements in the West Bank? Will they continue to allow their resentment at being spurned by the Palestinian elite and the West to dictate the path forward? And as for Fatah, will they recognize Hamas as the coequal that they have clearly become? Or will they cling to power in the West Bank through underhanded means and deprive their own supporters of a viable political future?
What is it, really, that both Fatah and Hamas want? Do their priorities represent the people?
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