So What Should We Do About Hamas?

The Hamas victory in the January Palestinian parliamentary elections is shaking up the region considerably.

Basically, Hamas won for three reasons. First, its program—which except for Islamism is virtually identical to that of its Fatah rivals—appealed to voters because of its maximalist demands, record of effective terrorism, and manipulation of hatred against Israel and the West.

Second, the extremely poor performance of Fatah during almost a dozen years of running the Palestinian Authority disgusted many voters. Rampant corruption, anarchy, and incompetence turned them against the regime.

Third, an additional sign of Fatah’s ineptness was the deep split in the movement which made multiple Fatah candidates divide the vote and ensure Hamas victories even when the Islamist group did not have a majority by itself.

Actually, Hamas got about half the total vote (there were a number of smaller parties, too). It had done equally well in local elections, where it captured almost all the bigger towns. This level of support doubled that for Hamas in the past. Almost all the seats were won by radical parties supporting terrorism—in third place was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which has been involved in many such attacks in the past. Only two of 132 seats were won by moderate liberals.

Now Hamas will form the government though the chief executive, Mahmud Abbas, still comes from Fatah and has three more years left in his term. Hamas will try to use its power to take over the movement permanently. Since its overwhelming election victory put it “ahead of schedule,” the group can afford to have patience.

For example, it will not try to impose massive Islamization quickly, especially since it knows that this is the least popular part of its program. But there will probably be a steady increase in the level of Islamist legislation, mostly on the local level. A key target will be control of the educational system which will be used to produce a generation of Islamists who will support Hamas in the future. In other words, while Hamas was elected to office it has no intention of ever leaving power again.

There are two important limitations on Hamas’s power compared to the usual Middle Eastern regime. First, there are limits on the way it can use the government budget to entrench itself in power. At a minimum, the Palestinian Authority needs about $1.5 billion a year just to pay its bureaucracy, which functions more as a political base of support than as an effective government. Virtually all this money comes from foreign aid, including money from Israel.

But with Hamas openly saying—in Arabic though not always in English—that the West is evil, the Jews are sons of pigs and monkeys, and terrorism is the way to total victory, the United States, Israel, and other countries are not rushing to pay its bills. Even before the election, European funding had been largely cut off due to the massive misuse of funds. Since the mid-1990s the Palestinians have received the largest per capita economic aid in history and the money has all disappeared leaving almost no productive investment behind.

It is worth noting that all Arab states combined have given the Palestinians less aid than Sweden or Norway alone. Fiery rhetoric on behalf of the Palestinians has not brought much real action from Arab regimes. While there is now a lot of talk about Iran or others making up for the decline in Western aid, one might well wait to see if any actual effort is made. And even if Iran wants to give Hamas money, it seems unlikely that it could really be delivered to the scene.

The purpose of cutting off aid should be obvious: it is to restrain Hamas from doing whatever it wants and using success in getting lots of money to ensure that it stays in power permanently and wins even more popular support. Of course, Hamas will blame those who don’t pay but it would be attacking them any way. At the same time, methods can be found to fund humanitarian and more moderate groups.

Certainly, it should be remembered that the only reason the Palestinians received the aid in the first place is their promise to adhere to the Oslo agreements and carry out a peace process leading to a compromise negotiated settlement. While the Palestinian Authority’s fidelity to its commitments in the past can certainly be questioned, Hamas openly states that it does not accept the Oslo framework. Indeed, it makes clear that the only reason it ran in elections in the first place is that it regards all these agreements as dead.

The other big problem of Hamas is that it does not control the security forces, which are still in the hands of Fatah people. Any attempt to fire thousands of Fatah gunmen would lead to civil war. How it is going to solve this problem is hard to see.

Any serious study of Hamas’s politics and statements since the election show that there is no real moderation going on. The most “pragmatic” Hamas initiative is to say that if Israel meets all of Hamas’s demands—a return to the 1967 borders and letting several million Palestinians come into Israel—the only thing Hamas will do is not to attack Israel until it feels like it. This may sound like an exaggeration but it is exactly what Hamas leaders have said.

The election result, then, sets back the prospect for Israeli-Palestinian peace for many years, even decades. The deadlock means there is no one who can take the tough decisions needed to bring peace; the radicalization means that there is no major Palestinian party that wants to do so. For the moment, the focus will be on how the new power balance will be worked out within Palestinian politics and whether anyone can—or will even try—to impose some order in that society.