Opinion - News Analysis   

Now the real challenge for Hamas

Will Hutton— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Palestine's majority party must swap terrorism for political strategies. Then perhaps real progress can be made towards peace.

IT IS a decisive moment in the Middle East. Hamas, victor in the Palestinian elections, may turn out to be Islamic variants of the African National Congress or Sinn Fein, the terrorists who negotiated the only and obvious peace settlement. Or this victory may point to a new era of violence, the despair of the Palestinians legitimising a new wave of terror.

Islamic fundamentalism, the ideology of terrorist suicide bombing and the passionate sense of Palestinian injustice is a lethal combination and Hamas is its most obvious expression. To suppose that Hamas can drop its commitment to liberating all of Palestine and resisting Zionism's claims to the last is to suppose the impossible. Now that its stance has been validated by voters, perhaps nothing can be expected except violence and political impasse.

My hunch is that we can expect better and that Hamas will try to move away from terrorism. For while it may have earned its place in Palestinian regard through its uncompromising role in the intifadas, it has to do something with the political capital it has won. The decision last summer to participate in elections for a legislative council that was created by the Oslo accords it once fiercely opposed was itself a straw in the wind. Hamas always was as much apolitical as a religious organisation and its political dimension was there for all to see. Now it has won, it is locked in a political, rather than terrorist, dynamic.

Justifying terrorism as a general principle is impossible. There are acts of terrorism which have had desirable consequences, such as the end of apartheid in South Africa. But that is no more than our acceptance of realpolitik, reflecting the side we are on. Palestinian resistance to cruel occupation and the confiscation of their land is understandable, but that does not mean it can shelter under a general moral principle justifying terrorism. The only principle available to justify terrorism is that the consequences of its actions justify the violent means. But if the terrorist has not subjected his or her intentions to any kind of scrutiny, participation or vote by the people for whom he or she is acting, then there is no escaping that the decision belongs in the same category as murder.

This is even true if the act of terrorism is to try and right a great wrong, which is what Hamas would claim.

This is why Hamas' election victory is so significant. The movement cannot dodge the fact that, as the new majority party, its morality is no longer its own. The Palestinians may agree that they should resist Israel with violence, but this will now become an act of war rather than a clandestine act of terrorism. And Hamas does not want war.

Extraordinary change

Already this reality is forcing extraordinary change. Two senior Hamas leaders have indicated that their charter, which calls for Israel to retreat to pre-1948 borders, could be amended. It has accepted that it cannot impose the sharia law. Furthermore, Palestine possesses the embryonic institutions of a genuine democracy. The worst mistake that the international community could commit is to refuse all dealings with Hamas. This is a moment when the west must commit even more aggressively to support and strengthen Palestine's fragile democratic and welfare infrastructure. It is far too early to talk of progress on a peace settlement, but Hamas could eventually prove to be as promising a partner for peace as Fatah and Yasser Arafat were once considered to be.

The paradox is that Hamas would never have had its chance without the American conviction that the route through the Middle Eastern quagmire was the progressive introduction of democracy. But it is not just voting that will count in Palestine; it is, by Arab standards, the free press, the independent courts, trade unions, and enfranchised electorate.

Hamas now has to justify its actions before this demanding audience and terrorism will not stand the test.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

An unedifying exercise
Behind Karnataka's regime change
The OIC and India: signals of a re-think
Pouring troubled water on oil
Five old-new faces in the Union Cabinet
Focus on gender statistics
Now the real challenge for Hamas
Change in cast
Cable TV law
Court verdict
Say `no'
Heartening

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu