Democracy
Defeated
By Ramzy Baroud
22 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
All
my forewarnings have suddenly been actualised, all at once: Gaza has
descended into total and utter chaos; Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas has capitulated to Israel and to the United States without a shred
of reservation; and the Palestinian democratic experiment, which was
until recently an astounding success, has been smashed to pieces.
For years I have been warning
of a civil war starting in Gaza. I wrote about it in my last book, The
Second Palestinian Intifada. I warned via every media platform available
that there are too many hands working to ensure the demise of the Palestinian
national project, both from within and without. I urged Palestinians
not to fall into rhetoric. I saw very clearly that the fragmentation
of Palestinian national identity -- an outcome of two combined realities:
one stemming from the post-Oslo political culture, the other from Israel's
Bantustan ghettos imposed in the West Bank and the total isolation of
Gaza -- was almost perfected. I've toured many cities in many countries
taking on Palestinian division, worried that Palestinians will reach
a point where they no longer identify themselves as such, but as ideological
and tribal extensions of factions and sub-factions.
In recent months I became
belligerent -- in the eyes of some -- in my frankness. Not one public
speech I gave would conclude without a few Palestinians abandoning the
gathering; either Fatah loyalists furious over my chastisement of Abbas,
Fatah leader Mohamed Dahlan and the rest of the clique for their corruption
and deviation from the aspirations of their own people; or Islamists,
angry for my suggesting that Hamas shouldn't act as the sole proprietor
of the Palestinian narrative, despite their parliamentary majority,
but merely as a conduit for Palestinian constants and the will of the
Palestinian people. My comments were not always popular: they ruffled
many feathers, and recently they cost me my job.
The devastating embargo imposed
on Palestinians after the Hamas landslide victory in January 2006, didn't
produce the results publicly projected. To the contrary, it greatly
hampered the American "democratic" experiment in the Middle
East. Everywhere I travelled since, I have witnessed a sense of giddiness
and much hope being pinned on Hamas's rise in politics. Thus it was
resolved that Hamas had to be removed, with Abbas's Preventive Security
Forces, riddled with corruption, entrusted with the task. Dahlan, man
of the hour, was given the Israeli and American nod. His Palestinian
"Contras" wreaked havoc: kidnapping, assassinating and provoking
endless feuds.
One can well imagine what
impact such meddling would have, knowing that Gaza is essentially a
huge open-air prison. I was a prisoner there until the age of 21. I
remember how people picked fights for no convincing reason -- isolation,
hunger and hopelessness lead to self-destruction. The US and the EU
took part in the siege and embargo, and Israel's bombardment never ceased,
not even for one day. Hundreds of besieged Palestinians have been blown
to shreds by Israeli bombs. Their only mechanism of defence has been
makeshift Qassam "missiles" that have killed no more than
a dozen Israelis in six years. Thousands of Palestinians were killed
in Gaza during the same period. Gaza bore all the signs that warned
of disaster and civil war was looming, it was one assassin's bullet
away -- one provocative statement, one kidnapping.
The pressure Hamas faced
as a result was insurmountable. The movement had reached the limits
of political concessions; any more would be considered a retreat from
its political platform and could lead to fragmentation within its own
ranks. Yet a state of isolation from within (Fatah's total control over
the 10 branches of the security apparatus), and from without (the US-led
international embargo that called for Hamas's removal), was sure to
weaken Hamas and eventually deprive it of popular support. The decision
was thus made that Hamas must take its chances and push for what it
termed the "second liberation of Gaza".
Now the situation is very
bleak. Hamas is in control of Gaza, and Abbas and Fatah are in control
of as much in the West Bank as Israel allows. This places Palestine's
destiny back in the US neo-conservative court.
Dividing the West Bank and
Gaza appears central to the agenda: "This turn of events frees
Abbas to focus on the much more manageable West Bank, where he can depend
on the Israeli Defense Forces to suppress challenges from Hamas, and
on Jordan and the United States to help rebuild his security forces,"
wrote Martin Indyk, the pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, in The Washington
Post, 15 June. Most American mainstream editorials are sounding the
same message. And various Arab governments, the EU, the US and Israel
are flocking to back Abbas. Money, weapons and political legitimacy
are being bestowed upon him from all directions. The once irrelevant
leader is now the darling of the international community; the sanctions
set to be lifted on his emergency government, which he has appointed
after sacking the unity government, an unconstitutional act by all standards.
Israeli officials cannot
imagine a more satisfactory scenario. The new experiment suggests that
the West Bank will be lavished with aid and Gaza will be starved further.
This is the pinnacle of injustice, and as always the US and Israel take
centre stage, directing the show. Abbas and his men are presented as
the true heroes, already making their debut as the true and legitimate
face of Palestinian democracy, a democracy determined by US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not
the Palestinians.
Ramzy Baroud is
a Palestinian American author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com;
his latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a
People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London)
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