Arafat was often painted as a villan, but he succeeded in spreading internal power around Palestine to keep it out of one group's hands, as the NY Times noted yesterday, and he tried to keep peace. Will this change? Time will tell.
Groups in the Middle East, while having some ties to terrorist activities, or at least remaining on our list of terrorist-related organizations, have assumed political and social roles in last decade to provide services to the people the government won't or can't. That is how they come into power.
Palestinians often trace the appeal of Hamas to its network of social services, which largely supplanted the crumbling and feeble institutions of the Palestinian Authority. Thus a poor Palestinian family in the West Bank or Gaza might send a child to a Hamas school on a Hamas bus, use a low-cost Hamas medical clinic, play soccer at a Hamas sports club and perhaps rely on a ration of Hamas rice.
While still saying "We don't negotiate with terrorists," the Administration remains hopeful that Middle East peace is possible.
Administration officials said that even in the analysis of Israelis, Hamas's behavior in accepting a period of "calm" in the last year--ceasing its attacks on Israeli civilians--meant that it was willing to break with other groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli and American officials felt that such a trend was to be encouraged.
As for Mr. Abbas's position on disarming Hamas after the elections, an administration official said: "Our sense was that there was a certain logic to his presentation, and we did not see that we could force an alternative on him. But we were also skeptical."
The administration then immediately began working with European and other allies to set up "normative standards" for any group participating in the political process. Those standards are to be the focus of the talks in London, with the financing cutoff an implicit threat to Hamas. But a cutoff could force Hamas to turn to other sources, like Iran, for help.
Ms. Rice told reporters that she was convinced of the wisdom of instilling democracy in the Middle East. Elections have brought into office anti-American Islamic radicals in Egypt, Lebanon and Iran, but Ms. Rice said the alternative was trying to bottle up seething anger in the region that could lead to more terrorist attacks in the West.
So, we are going to deal with Hamas. We have no choice. Will we cut off the $300+M in foreign aid we sent to Palestine? Or will we send them, hat in hand, to Iran, whose newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reputed to be one of the 1979-81 hostage takers.
It all depends upon what your definition of "terrorist" is; or how that definition is going to subtly change over time as circumstances warrant, or the ends justify the means. President-elect Reagan, after all, negotiated with Iran when not yet elected to free the hostages as Iran pandered to him. The Reagan Administration also traded arms for hostages, and his supporters thought that was just fine. So, we do, in fact, deal with terrorists when we think it is expedient.
If we want peace in the Middle East, we have to keep Palestine and Israel in balance. The EU has already said it will do its part.
The question now is whether the U.S. has painted itself into a corner on this one, or is Rice finding a way out? Condi may be the only sane person in the White House.
