Reasoning With Hamas

The Norweigians think that they've got to maintain contact with Hamas, now that they've won the elections in the territories. They soundly defeated the ruling terrorist group Fatah, and are warning that they're going to continue their war against Israel, but the Norweigians don't seem to mind continuing contact with Hamas.

They're probably thinking that someone has to maintain contact although there's no real good reason for that to be the case. The only thing anyone has to do is look at the PLO and what they did in the runup to Oslo and realize that Hamas could do one of two things. The first is that they'll say they've moderated and make all the right pronouncements in public, but they'll turn loose their terrorists in a "military wing" - a Hamas version of the AAMB.

The second route, which is the one that Hamas has followed thus far, is that they're organizing a terrorist army, will continue the terrorist attacks, and will continue the war against Israel. In other words, they're not changing one bit.

Yet there are some numbnuts who are relying on hope and prayer to wish away this problem. They think that if they hope strong enough, they might change their view of Hamas (not that Hamas has changed - only the media elites' version of Hamas has changed).

And hope is no way to run a foreign policy.

Now, Israel has said that it wont deal with Hamas. That remains to be seen. Pragramatists would say that Israel will eventually have to deal with someone, but Israel now has someone across the proverbial table about whom they know exactly what their goal is and they aren't afraid to say so.

Meanwhile, the US is going to be providing security for Hamas at its Palestinian mission in New York City, which would be a direct violation of US law.

It's still quite interesting to see media elites trying to spin the Palestinian election as a defeat for the Bush Administration push towards democratizing the region. What better way to show just how bass-ackward the Palestinians are and how thoroughly coopted they've become by a nihlistic and self-destructive theology. There's no better way than having an election and letting the Palestinians show just how repugnant they are to morality and values that most folks here in the US hold dear. These are a group of people that have no problem bringing in a terrorist group that's even more violent than the old terrorist group to run things for a while.

John Hindraker at Powerline refutes key assertions that this is somehow a defeat of the Bush Administration by going back to the history books and finding that backing democratic efforts in Palestinian controlled area was a policy backed by the Clinton Administration, and that the US wasn't above supporting elections where terrorists were involved.

This is the part, though, that is really reprehensible; Kessler tries to argue that the administration's support for democracy has generally been a failure throughout the region:

Elections in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and now the Palestinian territories have resulted in the defeat of secular and moderate parties and the rise of Islamic parties hostile to U.S. interests.

What a breathtaking bit of deception! The election in Iran was a sham, conducted by the mullahs and largely boycotted by reformist forces. The election didn't cause the "rise of Islamic parties;" the mullahs have controlled Iran since 1979. Blaming Bush for the election returns there is like blaming him for the Iraqi referenda in which Saddam Hussein used to receive 99% of the vote.

Egypt's election was barely more open, and the Egyptian government is not above arresting its opponents. But how did the election results represent a "defeat of secular and moderate parties"? President Mubarak, as secular as they get in Egypt, was overwelmingly re-elected, but the multi-party election--the first under his rule--was widely seen as a step on the road to democracy.

And then there's Iraq. Astonishingly, the Post is now trying to cast last year's Iraqi elections as a defeat for the Bush administration! The Iraqi government is still being formed, but Kessler's suggestion that the election will yield a regime "hostile to U.S. interests" is unfounded, if not downright absurd.

Here's the real tally, insofar as it relates to the Bush administration: In Afghanistan and Iraq, fledgling but fully functioning democracies are taking root. Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have all made progress, in varying degrees, toward popular rule. After centuries of autocratic misrule in the region, that's an astonishing record in a period of only three years.

We now know exactly where the Palestinians stand on the key issue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Palestinians want to replace Israel with their own 'state.' Of course, Israel will never let that happen, but that's where the real fun begins.

The rest of the world is basing its foreign policy and Arab-Israeli relations based on hope. Not facts on the ground and actual positions staked out by the parties, but on hope. That's no way to run foreign policy. Indeed, it's a recipe for disaster.

The world, through the UN other international organizations and pressure from the likes of the EU and even the US, will try to push a peace process forward between Palestinians and Israelis despite the fact that the Palestinians refuse to accept the continuing existence of the state of Israel. They hope that Hamas will moderate, despite all evidence to the contrary. They overlook the posturing and the outbreak of violence throughout the territories and think this is a position for opportunity. Well, it is, but not in the way they think.

Israel can now complete its own unilateral disengagement from areas that the Israelis themselves find are no longer worth the effort. They'll fence off the Palestinian areas and let the Palestinians fend for themselves.