Sunday, November 11, 2007

Some thoughts on Mahmoud Al-Zahar

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, as you know if you have been following the news and/or some of the more important Israel-advocacy blogs, is a Hamas official who stated that if Israel withdraws from the West Bank, then Hamas will take control just as it did in Gaza.

I think that we have once again been granted an unusually clear view of reality. It is an understatement that Israel lacks a "peace-partner." It has in Hamas a permanent enemy which, in a fairly likely worst-case scenario, could become the permanent leadership of the Palestinians. It could be that it already has in all but name. And non-democratic movements don't willingly give up power once they gain it.

At the very least, Hamas is likely to retain enough power to prevent Fatah from being able to function as a peace-partner even if it wishes to do so, which is far from established. For a true land-for-peace deal to go into effect, the Palestinians will need to produce leadership which can prevail among the Palestinians collectively and which will actually negotiate in good faith.

A slight majority can prevail in a Democracy because there is a tradition under which the party that loses an election goes along with the normal course of governance, even though its favored policies are not being enacted. The Palestinians, in contrast, are lead by a collection of Islamist and Marxist militias. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are backed by Iran and there is now an Al-Qaeda presence among the Palestinians. A true peace-partner would need to subdue or subsume all these groups for its will to prevail. The West and Israel look to Fatah as the candidate peace-partner, but it's getting weaker and it never showed much commitment to peace in the first place.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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