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Hamas, The Elections, and the Middle East Shabbat sermon by Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman January 27, 2006 27 Tevet, 5766
The results of Wednesday’s election in the Palestinian Authority came as a surprise only to children, the blind, and others who were overcome by a momentary lapse of optimism--perhaps brought about by the unexpected mid-January thaw or maybe even by Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last summer.
The Arabs are describing it as an earthquake, or a tsunami. After 40 years of Fatah leadership, the rival party Hamas won this election by a landslide. They had been expected to lag behind by ten or so seats. Instead, Hamas won more than 70 seats in the 132-member parliament—representing more than 50%.
The reaction to these results ranged from shock and confusion among the Fatah leadership, to jubilation among Hamas and their supporters. Today, supporters of Fatah expressed rage, first blaming Israel (of course), then their own leaders who, they said, had done nothing to stem corruption and mismanagement, nothing to advance the cause of their own people or their economy.
The truth is, Hamas played their game brilliantly. While keeping the status of their own people more or less quo, they used some of their funds to build health clinics and kindergartens. At the same time, their political agenda continued blaming Israel for all the Arabs’ (if not the rest of the world’s) woes, and they used the rest of their monies to fund suicide bombings. This strategy paid off big time last Wednesday.
In the larger picture, the results this election shouldn’t have come as a surprise for yet another reason. As Steven R. Weisman wrote in the New York Times today, “The Hamas victory was the fifth case recently of militants’ winning significant gains through elections. They included the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, a radical president in Iran, and Shiites backed by militias in Iraq.”[1] Again, only the blind or the overly optimistic would fail to see the pattern here.
Muslim radicalism differs from fundamentalism in other world religions in that it tries to enforce its views through violence and terrorism. With the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with Syria in disgrace and the sheikdoms of Arabia on somewhat shaky ground, Iran has emerged as one of the world’s major exporters of this militant philosophy. It is poised to be the main financial and political supporters of Hamas. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has already called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Along with his country’s plans to enrich uranium, his words carry a lot of weight and should not be dismissed out-of-hand. Now, however, even if he agrees to back off from his intentions to develop weapons-grade uranium, thus winning the world’s approval, Ahmadinejad still has a weapon aimed at Israel’s heart. Hamas has been recognized throughout the world as a terrorist organization. Unlike Fatah, which has more-or-less renounced its intentions to destroy Israel, Hamas has vowed never to back off until its vision of a Jew-free Middle East has been made real, no matter the cost in blood or tears. An alignment between Iran, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is the noose on the gallows the Arabs think they are preparing for Israel.
Whether this dangerous scenario will unfold this way or not is not yet clear. For one thing, I have enough faith in God—and in Israel’s military strength and clear vision of the situation—to believe and hope that the plot will unravel and the threats will come to naught. Of course, I could be wrong. Sadly, war in the Middle East is no rarity. It is as frequent and regular—if unwanted—a guest as a plague of locusts.
But this is also a region where revolutions, not elections, are by far the more normal way in which governments change hands. Today’s anger among supporters of Fatah might yet result in the annulment of the elections, which of course would then lead to civil war.
Terje Roed-Larsen, the former United Nations envoy in the Middle East, has observed that “What Hamas faces is not only a political but an existential dilemma… They have built their identity on opposing elections and the institutions of the Palestinian Authority. Now they’re the masters of the institutions they have been against.”[2] In other words, this group that has specialized in mayhem and destruction, now has to invest in running a government, a people, and possibly an emerging political state. How they will manage this transformation will be something the whole world will watch—none more carefully than Israel and its partners in the civilized world.
Israel has announced it will not negotiate with any terrorist organization. In fact, it has refused to do so even with Fatah, until that organization began to change its policies in the Oslo Agreement in 1993. Step by step, in a dance that has been more bloody than peaceful, the process of mutual recognition went from there to Camp David, through the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, through the Intifadahs, through the death of Yasser Arafat. Last summer, both as a gesture of goodwill and in recognition of the new political reality of the region, Ariel Sharon pulled Israel’s settlements and armed forces out of the Gaza Strip and some areas of the West Bank. Following Sharon’s stroke earlier this month, his presumed successor, Ehud Olmert, has followed this policy, announcing the possibility of yet further unilateral actions. That means continuing the building of the Fence of Separation and the creation of a de-facto border between the Jewish State and the Moslem Palestinian state.
Perhaps it was our general optimism, or maybe some momentary hamsin-induced euphoria, that had us see these moves as representing a hopeful new reality. Now, in light of Wednesday’s elections, many of us may start thinking differently. Yet, perhaps nothing at all has changed. The massive victory of Hamas shows the truth of the matter—that a clear majority of Arabs want Israel destroyed, and see that as a major plank in any political platform. As Ecclesiastes puts it so nicely, “The sun sets, the sun also rises, and there is nothing new under the sun.”
Only the future will unravel the mysteries that we face today. We cannot know whether Sharon acted optimistically or pragmatically. Did the withdrawal weaken Israel or strengthen it? Will it lead to peace or to war?
Historical experience has taught us one thing, if nothing else. Bullies must be stopped. Their words cannot be excused as so many mutterings of mad dogs. Nor can democratic elections be seen, as President Bush would have us see them, as a cure-all for the third world’s woes. The recent elections in the Muslim world have only managed to bring greater power than ever to radical fundamentalists and hateful war mongers. Let us not forget for even one moment that in 1932, Hitler rose to power in a free and democratic election.
We must look with great caution at this new rise of Evil in the world. We must make sure all our representatives in the US government are aware of the great danger facing Israel and the rest of the free world. And we must be equally watchful of the reaction of the rest of the world to these events. Democracy does not make the world safer. Only strength does. The world has been reacting cautiously to the surprising results of the Palestinian elections. It has done next to nothing to stop the rantings of Ahmadinejad in Iran. That leaves it up to Israel and its supporters. Let us hope that Sharon’s vision of a strong Israel will hold out. And let us all maintain our own strength—moral, spiritual and physical. The future may yet call on us—all too soon—to do all that we can to ensure the survival of Israel and the Jewish people.
Adonai oz l’amo yiten, Adonai y’varech et amo bashalom—May God give His people strength, may God bless His people and the entire world with peace. Amen.
[1] Steven R. Weisman, “Bush Defends His Goal of Spreading Democracy to the Mideast;” New York Times, Friday, January 27, 2006. [2] Weisman, NY Times |
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