Soccer Dad: Giving the keys back to the drunk

February 16, 2006

Giving the keys back to the drunk

The other day I heard a news report that Israel and the United States were working to undermine a Hamas led PA. Not surprisingly the source of the report was a story in the New York Times U.S. and Israelis Are Said to Talk of Hamas Ouster. Of the article, the less said the better. Besides Roger L. Simon said it very well in How Many Anonymous Sources can you fit on the Head of a Pin?

The piece, which, needless to say, is not listed in the paper as opinion, is much talked about in the blogosphere this morning, but it's hard to say why. Besides it's meretricious journalistic techniques, it has nothing to add that has not been written about a hundred times. Everyone knows it's being debated how much aid money to pass to Hamas. Everyone knows it's being linked to Hamas' behavior. So nothing is new in this article other than the usual anonymous sources (hello, State Department!) grinding their usual axes in the pages of the ever cooperative New York Times. [That's not new either.-ed. No it's not.]

(In Fatah Knows Best, Daled Amos highlights another part of the article that argues that Hamas's victory wasn't really as sweeping as it seemed at first blush. One of the annoying aspects of the media's coverage is that they hype Hamas as good government and deserving to win, but then when it becomes clear that they are unreformed terrorists, the media backs off, well the win wasn't really that great. Never mind. It's the Roseanne Roseanandanna school of reporting.)

In retrospect the Erlanger article, seems less reporting than a straw man the Times could use in yesterday's editorial The Right Way to Pressure Hamas

On the wrong side lies the kind of deliberate destabilization that, according to a report by our Times colleague Steven Erlanger, Washington and Jerusalem are now discussing. That would involve a joint American-Israeli campaign to undermine a Hamas government by putting impossible demands on it, starving it of money and putting even greater restrictions on the Palestinians with an eye toward forcing new elections that might propel the defeated and discredited Fatah Party back to power.

Let's get this straight. It would be wrong to withhold funds as a way of bringing Fatah back to power. But it wouldn't be wrong to continue funding Hamas a terrorist organization that is unembarrassed to declare its true intent? The effect here is unimportant. The election of a terrorist organization to lead the PA is reason enough to hold back funds. We must not fund a terrorist government. Fatah wasn't better but there was a charade going on with both Arafat and Abbas. That charade is over. The Palestinian electorate voted to destroy Israel.

There is no pretending that Arafat isn't strong enough politically to take on Hamas. There is no pretending that Arafat is answerable to other Arab leaders. There is no pretending that Abbas is a figurehead. That's all beside the point now. The PA's government is not relevant. The electorate is. And it is that electorate that has said: we don't want peace.

The editorial continues

Set aside the hypocrisy such a course would represent on the part of the two countries that have shouted the loudest about the need for Arab democracy, and consider the probable impact of such an approach on the Palestinians. They are already driven to distraction by fury, frustration and poverty. Is it really possible to expect that more punishment from the Israelis and the Americans, this time for not voting the way we wanted them to, would lead them to abandon Hamas?

Governance isn't simply being elected and receiving largesse from taxes or foreign aid. Governance means taking responsibility too. Cutting off the PA is precisely the proper response to people who have received more foreign aid per capita than any other and refused to make the peace that aid was supposed to buy. As Daniel Pipes wrote

Aid-wise, residents of the West Bank and Gaza have hardly been neglected until now. They receive about $300 per person, making them, per capita, the world's greatest beneficiaries of foreign aid. Strangely, their efforts to destroy Israel have not inspired efforts to crush this hideous ambition but rather to subsidize it. Money being fungible, foreign aid effectively funds the Palestinian Arabs' bellicose propaganda machine, their arsenal, their army, and their suicide bombers.

This, however, does not faze international-aid types. Nigel Roberts, the World Bank's director for the West Bank and Gaza, blows off past failures. Addressing himself to donors, he says, "Maybe your $1 billion a year hasn't produced much, but we think there's a case for doing even more in the next three or four years."

Mr. Roberts is saying, in effect: Yes, your money enabled Arafat's corruption, jihad ideology, and suicide factories, but those are yesterday's problems; now, let's hope the new leadership uses donations for better purposes. Please lavish more funds on it to enhance its prestige and power, then hope for the best.

Or as Barry Rubin put it in an e-mail fisking the editorial

I'm not sure the Palestinians have been driven to fury by poverty. Actually, they rejected peace in 2000--or at least their leadership did--at a time when their economy was doing much better. And they turned to radicalization and intifada after six years of the highest per capita foreign aid levels in history. Even if a lot of money was stolen, Palestinians were on the PA payroll funded by the West and Israel. At least the NYT should point out that a strategy of material incentives for peace (which the Oslo agreement was based on) failed pretty clearly. At the same time, it can be argued that economic desperation helped bring to an end both intifadas. But that would require the NYT to think about the doctrine that poverty creates revolution and terrorism which--though clearly wrong--is an idea too fondly held by it to examine. By the way, what experience teaches that economic desperation leads to radicalization? Pity the NYT does not cite examples. And if they voted for Hamas, according to the NYT, because of corruption and impatience at Fatah incompetence, then they did not vote for Hamas because of poverty. But then logical consistency (as opposed to constistancy of mythology) is not a strong point for NYT editorials.

The money until now hasn't alleviated Palestinian poverty as its gone to corrupt officials and a terrorist infrastructure. The most Hamas is likely to do is do away with the corrupt officials. The Palestinians have never been accountable. That must end now.

And there's no hypocrisy in taking action against the PA now that it will be run by Hamas. True, President Bush to his great discredit has seemingly retreated from his wise policy about not supporting any Palestinian government that is tainted by terror and made elections alone what determines legitimacy.

But reporters for the past year have been touting local Hamas officials as cuddly Western style policy wonks who get the trains running on time. And by the way, they want to throw the Jews into the sea. As if the latter quality had no bearing on his commitment towards peace.

The election of Hamas is a defeat for the president to the degree that he got away from his condition that the PA be run by someone not tainted by terror.

One of the obligations of the PA as a government was to confront Hamas and disarm or jail its members who refused to give up terrorism. It failed to do its job. Had it done its job as a government there would have been no Hamas to challenge Fatah at the polls. And yet the NY Times's recommendation is to treat the PA generously and further empower it and give it more chances to redeem itself when the electoral success of Hamas demonstrates that as a government the PA failed to fulfill one of its fundamental functions. It's like giving the keys back to the drunk before he gets sober and promises to stop drinking.

Giving a pass to Hamas as a terror organization or to the Palestinians as an electorate is to reward their embrace of violence.

Might they start getting funds from Iran instead of the United States. Yes. So what? Were the funds from the West and from Israel moderating the Palestinians? Were they helping prevent terror?

Did the Palestinians even acknowledge the money gratefully? No they took the money as if it were a favor to the West and to Israel that they were taking it. How much longer can the Times advocate more chances?

The right way to pressure Hamas is to demand change before dealing with the new PA. And not just demand change; insist on it. The time for illusions is over. Pretending that there was compliance just allowed more terror. The time for aid is over. The Palestinians said they didn't want the responsibilities that go with the aid. The time for a Palestinian state is over. Israel and the world owe them nothing anymore.

Technorati tags: Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority.