“The Politics of Chaos: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Context of the United States’ Middle East Wars”.

Introduction

Palestinian politics, dysfunctional as they may be under the distorting effects of a foreign military occupation, share, along with U.S. and U.K. policies, a number of ironies. First and foremost is the answer to the question of whether the Palestinian quest for freedom is central to the instability in the region.

Since 1948, Palestinian leaders have been arguing that Israel’s occupation and its policies of ethnic inequality were a concern for not only the Arab world at large, but also of the Muslim world and the nations of the Non-Aligned Movement. Later, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created in the mid-1960s, and especially after Israel’s occupation of large parts of the region in 1967, the PLO was able to carve out a role that was simultaneously independent in representing Palestinian interests but allied with other nations seeking to liberate their territory from Israel as well as those nations, who within the context of the Cold War, found themselves on the same side of the balancing act between the United States and the Soviet Union.

A significant corollary of this policy was that Palestinians argued, and continued to argue until the death of Yaser Arafat, that the root of all Middle Eastern instability lay in Israel’s occupation of Arab territory. The Palestinian argument was that every conflict in the Middle East, from problems of autocratic regimes to inter-Arab and inter-Muslim wars, could be more successfully addressed if the Israeli-Arab component was resolved.

Today, when arguably that is most true, parts of the Palestinian leadership have attempted to isolate themselves.

This summer, Israel and Lebanon engaged in the most serious Arab-Israeli war since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Unlike virtually every past war Israel has fought with her neighbors, this one ended with Israel decidedly not winning. Although it is impossible to describe the destruction of Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure or the more than 1,000 civilian dead and tens of thousands of wounded as a "win" for Lebanon, there is little doubt that Hezballah, effectively acting as the Lebanese Army, fought Israel’s military to a standstill – no small feat for a guerilla force.

Yet, this time, the part of the Palestinian leadership led by President Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority and as Chairman of the PLO, immediately separated Israel’s on-going attacks on the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from its war in Lebanon and, reversing Palestinian policy for the last several decades, decided not to ally with the Arab forces facing off against Israel – even rhetorically, even as Palestinians were fighting and dying in the Gaza Strip.

It was only the external leadership of Hamas, based in Damascus, and the Palestinian public at large, that was willing to make rhetorical common cause with Lebanon.

But if we want to understand Palestinian responses to the U.S.’ vision for the Middle East, we have to first understand how the Palestinians’ view that vision, whether it be consistent with U.S. views of its own role or not.

Today, Palestinians, and I would argue many others in the Middle East, see the United States and her allies engaged in desperate wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon; with the United States explicitly promoting the overthrow of democratically elected governments in the occupied Palestinian Territory and the Islamic Republic of Iran; engaging in civil strife in Somalia which as a result has threatened a wider conflict in that part of Africa involving Eritrea and Ethiopia; and allegations that the United States was involved in the removal of the elected president of Haiti and the continuing instability in that country as well as allegations that the United States was involved in the past attempted coup in Venezuela (U.S. involvement in both coup attempts has been officially denied by the White House). Further afield, the Palestinians would note that North Korea’s continued demand for negotiations with the United States go unheeded, while their nuclear proliferation proceeds apace.

Palestinians also see a relatively quiescent Europe, with European diplomats often telling them that U.S. policy is promoting instability and is ultimately unsustainable, but that there is little their country can do about it. In such a circumstance, their European interlocuters argue, it is best to work on the margins to improve the humanitarian conditions or lessen the political ramifications where possible and hope that the situation changes in a few years.

Specifically, the Palestinians have seen the Quartet mechanism, composed of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States, become a co-opted tool of U.S. diplomacy. Past examples of the inability of the members of the Quartet to counter U.S. policy include 1. the inability to keep provisions in the Road Map for an implementation mechanism that would have potentially made it a more effective document from being unilaterally removed by the United States at Israel’s request; 2. the unwillingness to issue any new peace proposals at a time when the United States itself backed away from its own Road Map; 3. the inability to insist on Israel’s direct engagement with President Abbas’ government in the year after Arafat’s death during the cease-fire; or 4. the unwillingness to prepare a plan for engagement with the new elected Palestinian government after this January’s elections.

Most recently, Palestinians have noted the Quartet’s willingness to engage in economic sanctions against the newly elected Palestinian government in order to pressure it to adopt the status quo arrangement between the PLO and Israel, despite the humanitarian crisis that this has caused.

This European inability to strike its own Middle East policy would appear to Palestinian eyes, to extend beyond the Occupied Palestinian Territory. It can’t help but be noted that even as one country after another tries to extricate itself from the Iraqi disaster, European nations have moved in to help with NATO attempts to keep the Kabul government from collapsing under the weight of a renewed Taliban offensive.

Closer to home, European countries have volunteered to move into Lebanon without a clear mandate to either provide diplomatic cover to an Israeli military failure or to in fact try to finish the military job Israel couldn’t – the dismantlement of the single most effective fighting force Israel has ever had to face.

It remains to be seen whether the European Union will be able to withstand increased U.S. pressure for military action against Iran after the November Congressional elections in the United States.

In each of these interventions on behalf of what can be considered US policy initiatives, there are no guarantees that European nations will yet be successful though the price of failure for Europe – like the U.S., particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq, remains extraordinarily high.

The ramifications of Quartet impotence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been immediately noticeable to Palestinian civilians. The current conditions in the Gaza Strip especially indicate an extreme atomization of Palestinian society with some Fatah elements acting as forces against stability even to their own party’s detriment. Hamas is finding that without Fatah’s support, it is unable to hold the center. The Gaza Strip, without exaggeration, can be said to be on the brink of anarchy with the West Bank close behind. Palestinians have lost their meager savings and have begun selling off belongings and jewelry for money. The Palestinian budget has plummeted from $150 million a month to less than $20 million. Over 160,000 employees have remained without salary for over six months. Electricity and water in the Gaza Strip is only intermittent, after Israel attacks on the civilian infrastructure. Aid agencies including those of the UN, unable to withstand the growing chaos, have moved out of Gaza. Similarly extreme sanctions on Iraq during the 1990s destroyed the Iraqi middle class and further empowered Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, in this case, there is no dictator to empower. The middle class is quickly being obliterated, the government is non-functional, and Palestinians are divided against one another.

So love it or hate it, from this particular Palestinian perspective, the United States is truly a hegemon with the ability to cause tremendous Palestinian suffering and pain but with also the potential to bring relief. Europe is no longer truly an independent player, but an economic and sometimes military adjunct to U.S. policy.

Similarly, but with less effect, the ability of the Taliban to continue reorganizing in Pakistan (a U.S. ally) and to tie down the NATO forces sent to compensate the removal of U.S. forces to Iraq, also makes the viability of a U.S. friendly government in Kabul over the long term a greater question mark.

Nor has America’s failure in Somalia been missed. Just as news reports began to appear that the United States was finding ways to fund and arm several of the warlords in Mogadishu against Islamist militias, the Islamist militias were able to finally coordinate their activities and effectively begin the transformation of Somalia from a chaotic territory back into an organized and functioning state, albeit under their version of Islamic law. This has allegedly drawn in Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and arms on different sides of the battle. Again, the United States appears to have bitten off more than it can chew, lacking a plan on what to do if our alleged illicit support for the secular warlords didn’t work out as planned.

And Israel’s failure in Lebanon against Hezballah will also be interpreted as a failure of U.S. policy. The ability of Hezballah with an estimated 700 elite commandos and no more than 2,500 reservists to hold down 30,000 Israeli troops with complete air and sea superiority in fighting in several southern villages not only decisively breaks the myth of the invulnerability of the Israeli military, but also indicates a failure of U.S. ability to change governments or powers with which it does not agree. It may also predict a very difficult time indeed should the United States engage in military action against Iran with the hopes of fomenting a domestic revolt.

Finally, Osama Ben Laden and Ayman Zawahiri’s continued freedom to act, even if only as cheerleaders for acts of terrorism in countries with troops in Middle Eastern countries or against Shia Muslims in those countries, is another indicator of the limits of U.S. abilities and policies. Some may be forgiven for seeing the United States as an overactive adolescent, always distracted by our next war before we finish the one against a small puritanical post-modern terrorist organization that provided the excuse for our wars in the first place. Even though al-Qaeda remains a widely unpopular organization among Palestinians, both for its extremist Wahhabi identity, its resulting advocacy of inter-Muslim conflict particularly against Shia in Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon, and its primary tactics of choice, the fact that the United States cannot seem to focus on its elimination has not been missed.

(Nor has it been missed that some Arab governments and the United States have begun to utilize similar anti-Shia rhetoric against Hezballah and Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon, Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq, and Iran – a direct reminder of the 1980s when the United States promoted an extreme form of Wahabbism and Sunni-Shia hostility in an effort to mobilize Arab governments against Iran.)

So, from this Palestinian perspective, the United States is still the primary hegemon in the region, but no longer the invincible hyperpower which can change governments at a whim. For once, the U.S. is seen as a greater force for instability in the Middle East than Israel. The White House’s support for a policy of "constructive chaos" is seen to be half right. U.S. policy is not necessarily the source of salvation for Palestinians from this perspective, but in some ways as great a threat to Palestinian freedom as Israeli policy but with significant weaknesses.

Although it is early, it is clear that Hezballah and Hamas are independently reappraising their assumptions vis-a-vis Israel in light of this last war. In short, Hezballah thought it had a quid-pro-quo arrangement with Israel. Hezballah and Israel could play a cat and mouse game of commando operations against each other in order to bargain for the release of hostages or prisoners of war on both sides, while keeping their respective civilian populations out of the conflict. The rule was that when Israel would attack and kill Lebanese civilians or civilian infrastructure, Hezballah would retaliate against Israeli non-combatants with Kaytushas.

That no longer can be the operating principle. Israel showed in this war that it was willing to compensate for its weakness on the military front with overwhelming attacks against Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. Hezballah’s ability to fire Kaytushas into Israel every day up until the cease-fire increased the cost to Israel of its attacks on Lebanese civilians but turned out not to be a sufficient deterrent. There are indications that this is already causing a recalculation among Hezballah leaders as suggested by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

On the other hand, Hezballah’s ability to first fight a guerilla war that drove Israel from Lebanon after an 18 year occupation, and then to fight Israel to a standstill in southern Lebanon in this war has proven to be a considerable deterrent to Israel’s ability to project its ground based military forces into Arab countries and territories. Furthermore, the fact that it appears that third parties have begun negotiating a prisoner exchange between Lebanon and Israel re-emphasizes the efficacy of commando attacks on military targets as a tactic for hostage retrieval or prisoner exchange.

Similarly, Hamas is showing signs of recognizing that Qassam rocket attacks across the border are meaningless tactically. President Abbas has said so for some time, and now Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas spokesperson, has added his voice publicly to those condemning the firing of rockets across the border. On the other hand, the successful guerilla raid across the border against an Israeli military outpost and taking of an Israeli soldier as prisoner of war has resulted in negotiations through third parties between Hamas and Israel over the possible release of 1,000 of 9,000 Palestinian detainees including women and children, although it remains unclear how successful these negotiations will be.

Hamas might have come to this realization earlier, however the suicide bombings it promoted in Israel during the second Intifada were not a tactical failure from their perspective. That tactic accomplished two objectives – it weakened Hamas’ primary domestic opponent, Fatah as the Palestinian Authority, which took the brunt of Israeli retaliation for much of the conflict and it justified a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

In this case, I can only assume that Ariel Sharon’s policy considerations to ensure that there be no Palestinian partner with which to negotiate a peace and his desire to unilaterally define Israel’s borders without having to make any compromises overrode the immediate tactical considerations of empowering the policy of suicide bombing.

The lesson today appears to be that attacks on non-combatants or other civilians in order to affect a political policy – the definition of terrorism – simply don’t work. They don’t work whether it is a Kaytusha rocket provided by Iran falling on Haifa, a Qassam rocket made in a scrap shop falling near Ashkelon, or a U.S. 1,000 pound bomb dropped from an F-16 onto the middle of Beirut.

On the other hand, effective guerilla tactics aimed at an invading army fighting not in defense of its own territory but to project its power outward, seem to be conversely effective – particularly in the absence of any discernable diplomatic end game.

We may not want to see it in the same way from western capitals, but we should at least understand why those engaged in guerilla resistance in the Middle East might beg to differ.

To figure out the future tactics used to achieve their strategic objectives, Palestinians need to know what those objectives in fact are. The long-term objectives for Palestinians have not changed much since 1988. Palestinians still seek a withdrawal of all Israeli occupation forces, including about 450,000 settlers, from all the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967, the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in that territory, a "just and agreed" resolution of the Palestinian refugee crisis created in 1947 and 1948, and (for those 1 million Palestinians who are Israeli citizens) the creation of a more equitable system of governance in Israel which would allow for full equality among all of Israel’s citizens.

Although not stated in this manner, these goals also appear to be true for Hamas’ elected leadership with the primary difference that Hamas would prefer Israel to remain an embattled outpost after these goals are reached while Fatah would accept Israel’s normalization into the Middle East once these goals are reached.

Although these goals remain those of Palestinian officialdom, there is evidence that they are no longer as popular among Palestinians as they once were. Polls taken over the summer would seem to indicate that support for a two state solution along the Taba – Geneva model has dropped to below half. Public support for some form of integrationist solution with Palestinians and Israelis sharing the entire territory remains a minority position with polls showing up to 30% support for such ideas depending on how the question is phrased.

(However, I believe that should such integrationist models be explicitly mapped out, as the two state solution model has been, there might be far more support for different forms of integration more consistent with international practice and international law.)

The election of President Abbas was, in my opinion, equally about having a democratic and quick transition after Arafat’s death as about a negotiated two state solution. After one full year of no change in Israeli and U.S. policy towards the elected Palestinian government after Abbas’ election, Palestinian support in this year’s elections for Hamas reflected as much frustration with Fatah’s inadequacies as with a recognition that a negotiated two state solution was no longer a desired outcome by either Israel or the United States. In a non-negotiating political environment, Hamas was seen as the party better able to speak to Palestinian interests.

One can note an interesting parallel in Iran during former president Khatami’s time in office. His calls for dialogue with the west, his genuine efforts at internal reform, Iran’s cooperation with the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and his attempt to strike a "grand bargain" with the United States were effectively ignored by both White House administrations.

In both cases, Palestinians and Iranians may be forgiven for concluding that if the voice of moderation and reason doesn’t influence U.S. or Israeli policy, then perhaps a more "American dialectic" might.

However, from an American and European perspective, this "standing tough and moral" attitude may prove to be a costly and ineffective method of communicating with those nations with whom we have interests. The recent decision by European leaders to speak with all necessary parties even if they are officially labeled to be terrorist organizations, and Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recent visits in the region may reflect a desperate realization of the unsustainability of the "silence is golden" approach.

There is one final observation. Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and its continuing attacks on the Occupied Palestinian Territory have received the same type of Arab government response.

This effectively reveals the inadequacy of the propaganda currently being used in some Western countries that so-called Sunni countries are concerned about a so-called "Shia arc of influence." In fact, when the PLO was in Hezbollah’s position in 1982, the response of Arab countries [and incidentally of Iran] are instructive. Then and now, the response from some Arab governments and from Iran to Israel’s attacks against Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territory have been the same. In 1982 and in 2006, Arab states could not hide their desire for movements which actively supported resistance to Israel to be whittled down to size, while Iran could not hide its glee at their ability to survive the Israeli onslaught. This has much to do with the politics of those nations, their relations to the US, and nothing to do with Shia-Sunni differences or the happenstance sect of Hamas, Hezballah, or the then leftist PLO.

It is important when using propaganda not to make the mistake of believing it ourselves.

The common element in the question of strategic objectives remains the end of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But different centers of Palestinian power are far more sharply split on how to achieve that objective than they are on the strategic goals.

President Abbas’ wing of Fatah remains wedded to the notion that the United States government has fundamentally the same notion of U.S. national security interests as did that of Bill Clinton’s previous administration, despite evidence to the contrary. They believe the United States believes it is in Israel’s interests for there to be a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that they would want it to be minimally viable. The only way that can happen peacefully is for there to be negotiations between Israel and this wing of the Palestinian leadership. With each new U.S. war in the region, this wing will argue that such negotiations will help calm the western flank allowing the United States to better concentrate on achieving its objectives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, or Lebanon. This wing views the new Palestinian polity that would emerge as firmly within the American orbit – a new pro-American state like Kosovo, Bosnia, or Poland.

This wing wants to avoid or delay as long as possible the creation of a new Palestinian national unified leadership that might re-open the discussion of strategic objectives or tactics and that would almost certainly involve the replacement of many officials. Privately, this wing would appear to some Palestinians to be supportive of US regime change goals in Palestine in the hopes of forestalling any new Hamas dominated polity. Publicly, this wing urges unity, bemoans the boycott of Palestinians, but also urges the Palestinian public to note the hardship they are facing because Hamas will not accept their platform of unilateral acceptance of Israel’s right to exist and unilateral willingness to support a full and indefinite cessation of violence. The current civil servant strike in the Occupied Territory is a direct manifestation of this policy goal.

Vis-a-vis Israeli policy, this wing continues to argue that Israel’s plans for a unilateral withdrawal to behind the separation wall, "snaking through the occupied territory" to use President Bush’s term, would neither create a viable Palestinian state nor security for Israel.

This wing justifies its position by assuming the "America as omnipotent" analysis of U.S. policy in the region.

The greatest weaknesses of this wing is the view among many Palestinians that it is composed of corrupt officials who have benefited first from the revolution and then later from the Oslo process, as well as its failure over the last 15 years to actually provide any evidence that it can attain its stated objectives through negotiations.

The greatest strength of this wing is the diplomatic and financial support it has for its existence, if not its success, from the United States, the European Union, and Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Although the wing does not have overwhelming grass roots support, its continued access to diplomatic circles increases its longevity. We might call this the idealistic wing of Palestinian politics; although it’s Palestinian opponents also refer to it as the "defeatist wing."

Marwan Barghouti, the grass roots leader of Fatah, now joined by one third of the elected Palestinian Parliament and much of the Palestinian Cabinet in Israeli prisons, leads the other organized Fatah wing. This wing is composed by some members of the Abbas wing, many mid-level cadre, and many Fatah activists in the Diaspora. Its argument remains that no Palestinian strategic goal can be achieved without the recreation of a unified Palestinian national movement composed of all the major actors in Palestinian politics including Hamas.

Unlike the Abbas wing, it also maintains that if Israel is unwilling to negotiate, then Palestinians have no choice but to continue a violent struggle for freedom, however, it seems to be moving in the direction of arguing that violent acts should be limited to those against combatants in those areas from which Palestinians want the Israelis to withdraw. This is reflected in the so-called "Prisoner’s Document" which is actually a platform for recreating a unified national movement. It accepts the concept of an Israel living in peace with not only Palestine but with all the Arab states, however, does not necessarily believe that this is an Israeli goal.

Vis-a-vis Israeli plans for unilateral withdrawal, this wing argues that any Israeli partial withdrawal from Palestinian territory should not be negotiated. If Israel wants to get out of Palestinian territory, let them get out. Palestinians should take it and use it as a base to reestablish an independent Palestinian polity that can continue the struggle for the remainder of the occupied territory. Having unilaterally accepted Israel’s right to exist within the 1967 borders, having supported the Arab Summit Resolution of 2002 which calls for full normalization by all Arab states of relations with Israel upon conclusion of peace agreements with Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and having compromised Fatah through its intimate dealings with Israel through the 1990s, this wing argues that there is precious little for Palestinians to negotiate, outside of permanent status talks. At least Palestinians could not argue that the outcome of any unilateral withdrawal was a result of weak negotiating skills by their representatives.

This group recognizes U.S. preeminence in the region, but still assumes there is room to maneuver outside the scope of U.S. policy dictates.

The greatest weakness of this wing is that it only possesses public support, but not access to the levers of money, guns, and power that the Abbas wing has. Furthermore, it lacks the organizational coherence and party discipline of Hamas or the coherence of the Abbas wing which shares vested interests in wanting to maintain the prerogatives of power. Finally, the general disintegration of Fatah as a political party over the last 15 years means that there are numerous local Fatah leaders and militias with little organizational ties to any broader movement. Despite their popularity, it is not surprising given these constraints, that this group has still not been able to force the Abbas wing to expedite a Fatah General Convention to restructure the party – an attempt that had previously been on-going with former President Arafat.

The greatest strength of this wing lies in the public support it possesses, as well as the personal respect that its leader Marwan Barghouti maintains among Palestinians in the Occupied Territory. It also possesses the strength of being viewed by Fatah activists worldwide as the legitimate heir to the Fatah movement created by Yaser Arafat and sharing the popular perception of most Palestinians that negotiations are a desirable but not the only method of achieving independence in light of perceived Israeli and American intransigence .

Hamas has been in a constant state of evolution from its inception as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, with the initial tacit support of Israel, to Israel’s primary security threat. In its first stage, Hamas began as a quiescent organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980s at a time when the United States was actively promoting a politically quiescent version of Islam as the new "Islamic orthodoxy." It preached the creation of a Muslim society through the right actions of individual Muslims and generally eschewed engagement on political issues.

This changed with the advent of the first Intifada or uprising against Israel’s occupation in 1987. In this second stage, Hamas began promoting an activist political party structure that included a wing to be involved in resistance to the occupation. It was only in this second stage that Hamas actually began to become a potential rival to Fatah’s dominance of the national liberation movement.

In its third stage, during the Oslo years of the 1990s, Hamas concentrated on two things: 1. it continued to develop a powerful grass roots party system with a significant network of support services for the Palestinian public while eschewing direct involvement in Palestinian politics and 2. it acted as spoiler through attacks on Israelis at crucial moments when Israel and the PLO appeared about to negotiate interim deals that Hamas opposed.

In its fourth stage, as the second Intifada erupted, Hamas concentrated on becoming the leader of the national resistance to Israel. Although Hamas only began suicide bombings against non-combatants as an attempt to create a deterrent to Israel’s policy of political assassinations of Palestinians, the tactic took on a life of its own and Hamas found that its suicide bombings – while failing to promote the achievement of national objectives – had, as noted earlier, the short term tactical advantage of giving Israel an excuse to weaken its rival, the Palestinian Authority, and simultaneously making it more popular among Palestinians desperate for any policy that would allow Israel to share their pain if nothing else.

In its fifth stage, after Arafat’s death, Hamas saw an opportunity to capitalize on its new political capital. It immediately launched a policy it had been researching for some time on how to convert from a militant underground organization to a political party capable of co-leading the Palestinian national movement and influencing its strategic goals and tactics. Hamas agreed to a unilateral cease-fire with Israel, confident that Israel had no intention of negotiating with President Abbas and announced it would run for elections for parliament. At this stage, Hamas de-emphasized the fundamentalist elements from the 1980s; promoted a moderate Islamism that simultaneously accepted the nation state system, democracy, and a role for Islamic law, but which did not expect Palestine to be an Islamic state; took credit for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip; and began identifying candidates with tremendous local respect to run on its slate along with its rank and file cadre.

In this stage, Hamas expected to be able to cut a Shaitan’s bargain with Israel because of their common short term goals – neither wanted a negotiated end of the conflict, both wanted at least a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Occupied Territory, and both wanted time to consolidate their tactical gains.

For Israel those gains would be its subversion of the European Union, the United States, and a few significant Arab governments from supporting a true two state agreement into supporting a type of Bantustan in the Occupied Territory. Moreover, Israel could continue consolidating its version of a Jewish ethnocracy without reference to the Occupation.

For Hamas, those gains included becoming a dominant player in local Palestinian politics and becoming at least co-owner of the international Palestinian national liberation movement thereby being in a powerful position to identify the goals and tactics for the next stage of the revolution.

The flaw in Hamas’ logic, in my opinion, is that whereas it correctly identified Israeli goals, it did not have a sufficient grasp of the ideological nature of U.S. policy. In part, Hamas could be forgiven for its misunderstanding of U.S. policy. After all, it was the United States which insisted on Palestinian parliamentary elections, and it was the United States which insisted that Hamas be allowed to participate. But Hamas misunderstood this support for electoral processes as support for democracy and representative government. Hamas did not understand the full scope of the U.S. vision for the remaking of the governments of the Middle East, under the rhetoric of democracy. Although Hamas had stopped suicide bombing, it did not realize that the United States placed it firmly within two opposing camps at the same time: for the White House, Hamas is like al-Qaeda; for the White House, Hamas is like Iran. Arguments that al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization and that Iran is a state, or that they both hate each other and want dramatically different things for the Middle East – and that Hamas is another creature entirely – are merely fine nuances for the White House.

So Hamas found itself not just on the receiving end of an Israeli stick, something they were used to and thought they could handle, but also on the receiving end of a US policy stick to which Europe was uncomfortably adhering. Hamas’ response to this pressure was to remind Israel that it had the option of restarting the Intifada through its successful guerilla operation against an Israeli military camp inside Israel and the taking of an Israeli soldier captive, but Israel’s response was a re-invasion of the Gaza Strip in which at least 200 Palestinians have died, at least half non-combatants including at least 44 children, compounding the misery caused by the boycott.

The outcome for Hamas and the Palestinian national movement is still in doubt. Like the Marwan Barghouti wing, Hamas is desperate to re-create the PLO, and is now in active discussions on whether the Palestinian Authority, as an administering arm of the occupation, should be disbanded since Israel refuses to allow it to exercise even the limited authority it has granted it and has arrested so many of its elected representatives.

There are many good reasons from a Palestinian perspective, legally and politically, to disband the Palestinian Authority, but not without first recreating the PLO and a government in exile. The Oslo Agreements effectively allowed Israel to subcontract the cost of the occupation in full to Europe and the Arab countries. While the United States would subsidize Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and its construction of settlements throughout the territory, Palestinian taxes, Europe and the Arab countries could pay for social services for the captive Palestinian public. This made sense for Palestinians as long as they could use this exercise to develop the institutions of a free nation – originally scheduled for 1999. If that is no longer the goal of such an administration, and it is not allowed to pay salaries, or provide services, then it serves no Palestinian purpose while continuing to serve an Israeli purpose.

So now, we have come full circle. No matter how much some would wish the occupation of Palestinian territory not to become part and parcel of the "regional conflicts," the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now – more than ever – part of a much more complicated mosaic that involves US policy in the region, its desire to influence change in Iran (militarily or otherwise), the failed war in Iraq, the failing war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, Hezballah’s success in Lebanon, the success of Islamist movements in Somalia, and the continued, if diminished, operation of al-Qaeda.

There are many ways that U.S. policy could be changed in order to at least mitigate the damage of current policies in the region and potentially promote a positive outcome in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine and redirect efforts against al-Qaeda, but all would necessitate a radical re-thinking of U.S. policy, particularly in a more positive and engaging way towards Iran and the Palestinians, and in a more negative way towards al-Qaeda, but such a discussion is outside the scope of this lecture.

If we assume, however, that US policy will not appreciably change over the next two years and that Europe will be unable to muster an independent policy, then what options exist for the Palestinians?

The Marwan-Hamas wings seem to hold the most promise under those specific conditions. A strategy for the rapid re-creation of the PLO outside of the areas under direct Israeli control including all factions, the disbanding of the Palestinian Authority as one of its first acts, and re-opening of a wide ranging discussion on Palestinian strategic goals and legitimate tactics that can be used to obtain those goals could re-energize Palestinian intellectual energy around the world. The adoption of legitimate tactics of resistance, as opposed to attacks against non-combatants, would also re-energize the support of an international solidarity movement across many countries thereby potentially transforming Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and its discrimination against non-Jews in Israel into an international and domestic issue. It would also better position the Palestinians to be able to take advantage of any re-thinking that might occur in the United States, or any change in European policy, in the years ahead as instability throughout the Middle East increases.

There is no easy fix. The dissolution of the Palestinian Authority in and of itself solves nothing. Israel is unlikely to re-assume the cost of the occupation and will most likely request Europe to run Palestinian ministries in a Kosovo-minus style operation where Israel maintains its exercise of overall control over the occupied territory and Europe, or the United Nations, or the World Bank, or some combination thereof administers Palestinian population centers on Israel’s behalf. In light of the general humanitarian and political collapse of Palestinian society, this will be a costly and ultimately self-defeating effort for involved nations if pursued without a plan for independence.

However, such a transformation might free up Palestinian parties from their distraction of trying to create a state within a state, to focusing instead on obtaining Palestinian freedom and equality.

By contrast, the default policy currently under discussion between Fatah and Hamas of creating a unity government within the Palestinian Authority would only work under three very unlikely conditions – 1. the unity government received the support of Israel which then would release Palestinian tax money to the government and would authorize the United State, Europe, and international institutions to lift their siege of the Palestinian government, 2. Hamas and Fatah would work together to regain control over Palestinian internal security with Israel’s support, and 3. a timetable for either a unilateral Israeli withdrawal or for negotiations on permanent status is announced by the international community and supported by Israel. Since so much is dependent on Israeli acceptance, it is unlikely that any Palestinian unity government could exist that could simultaneously press for Palestinian freedom and equality and work with Israel to support either its unilateral withdrawal plan or its continued full occupation.

The Palestinians, like others in the region, will need to be quick on their feet and in their thinking to respond to the chaos that U.S. policy is feeding in the region, if they hope to one day live in freedom and equality. Success is never a certainty, except in campaign slogans, and the Palestinians may fail against the formidable obstacles before them. However, anyone with the capacity to change and adapt has a chance. That should be remembered in Ramallah, Gaza City, Tel Aviv, London, and Washington, D.C.

Thank you.

The Palestine Center brings together people and resources within the American and Palestinian communities to educate about Palestine and the Palestinian people’s ongoing quest for sovereignty on their land, civil and political rights and an end to Israeli occupation.

The need for an organization such as The Palestine Center can be found in the effects of the economic, cultural and political oppression Palestinians have endured and which continues on a daily basis in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the surrounding refugee camps and for Palestinians world-wide as they struggle to retain their homeland.