Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: Hamas Encounters Reality


"WE'LL eat za'atar leaves, weeds and salt, but we won't be
traitors and we won't be humiliated!" So spoke Ismail
Haniyeh, the new Palestinian Prime Minister, who is thought
to be among the moderate leaders of Hamas. Before a crowd in
the Gaza Strip on April 14, 2006, Haniyeh was responding to a
decision by international donors to stop funding the
Palestinian Authority (PA) because Hamas had won the
election.
But Gaza isn't Stalingrad. An opinion poll published ten days
later by Khalil Shkaki did indeed show 47% of Palestinians
backing Hamas and 39% the rival Fatah. But the poll also
showed that the support for Hamas is not for its political
positions. Quite the contrary. Three- quarters of the Hamas
backers want negotiations with Israel. Moreover, they want
Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State and
Israeli recognition of a Palestinian State in the
Territories. In that case, why did they elect Hamas? Because
they hated the corruption in Fatah. They weren't opting for
Hamas politics, rather for Hamas purity. One is reminded of
the correspondence between dancer Isadora Duncan and scrawny
playwright George Bernard Shaw. Duncan proposed that they
engender a child together. "Think of it!" she exclaimed.
"With my body and your brains, what a wonder it would be!"
"Yes," Shaw answered, "but what if it turns out to have my
body and your brains?"
The Palestinian people got the Hamas politics, which brings
international isolation and punishment. (As for purity, this
remains to be seen, but the question may soon be irrelevant.)
After six years of bloody Intifada, unemployment and poverty,
it's doubtful whether the people can afford to go on
supporting this group. Hamas's landslide victory reflected
its lack of forethought. It was counting on a result that
would make it a large minority in a government led by PA
President Abu Mazen, who would continue to negotiate with
Israel.
But reality played false with all involved. Now the Fatah
leaders, headed by Abu Mazen, accuse the Hamas government of
bringing on financial disaster. Not that the situation was
idyllic before, but at least the Fatah-led government worked
with the international community, using the miniscule
salaries of the 150,000 PA employees (a third of the labor
force) to purchase relative calm. The Hamas government
attacks the international community for canceling its
obligations to the PA; it ignores the fact that the donor
nations committed themselves only on condition that the PA
abide by its recognition of Israel and the Oslo Accords. If
the new Palestinian regime isn't willing to recognize Israel,
how can it expect money from the European Union? Or in the
words of journalist Abed al-Rahman al-Rashed (Sharq al-Awsat,
April 12): "Hamas made its decisions, entered the election
campaign and asked to become the government. Yet it knew that
the Palestinian government, lacking oil or an economy, lives
from aid. It wants the aid, but at the same time it rejects
the commitments which make the aid possible in the first
place, aid on which the entire Palestinian political and
financial regime is based."
Hamas has tried to find alternative sources of aid in Iran
and the Arab states. This hasn't worked. The promised money
amounts to $200 million at most, compared to $610 million
withheld by the EU. Besides, Israel may be counted on to keep
even these funds from entering.
Not a month has passed since Haniyeh was sworn in as PM, and
from one day to the next it gets harder to see how his
government can survive. Hamas cannot live in a bubble. If it
wants to manage a state, it can't retain the stance that it
held as a militant opposition.
TRUE, Hamas never promised the voters a peace agreement with
Israel. It promised an end to corruption and to the growing
anarchy. Instead, it has entered the vortex of a war of all
against all. The coffers are empty. The police from the Fatah
days, still armed but unpaid, have taken to the streets. Amid
all this, Hamas isn't even able to convene as a government.
Israel won't let the legislators leave Gaza for Ramallah or
vice-versa, so parliamentary sessions must be conducted by
video camera before the eyes of the world. Transparency
indeed!
The single toughest problem is the growing internal struggle
between Fatah and Hamas. Fatah's decision not to join
Haniyeh's government was a bad portent. It signifies a will
to undermine the Hamas regime by opposing it in parliament --
or worse, in the streets. One speaks today of two regimes.
For instance, President Abu Mazen's insistence on controlling
the security forces moved Hamas to establish a force of its
own. Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the resistance committees
(and among the first on Israel's "most wanted" list) has been
named to run the apparatus for enforcing order in Gaza. The
appointment has sparked large protests from the side of
Fatah, and it isn't altogether clear, at this point, whether
Hamas will back it up. We can say this: In the days when Abu
Mazen controlled the legislature, Hamas made sure to direct
its struggle toward Israel; it took care not to point its
guns at Fatah or the security forces. In contrast, now that
the tables have turned, the ousted Fatah people appear to
have no such scruples -- and they are quick on the trigger.
There is an additional difficulty impeding Hamas's ability to
govern. Differences of approach have appeared between its
local leaders and those outside. The suicide bombing by an
Islamic Jihadist in Tel Aviv on April 17 (the first since
Hamas took power) got a lukewarm reception from the local
Hamas leadership: "This is only a natural reaction to the
deeds carried out by Israel." Abu Mazen, for his part, called
the act "repulsive." This reaction drove Khaled Mashal into
frenzy. Based in Damascus, Mashal heads the Hamas political
wing. His hotheaded proclamations have both isolated Hamas
internationally and fueled the internal struggle. In a speech
on April 22, he behaved true to form: "Where's the low point?
That someone blows himself up in Tel Aviv? Or that PA leaders
go feast and get drunk in the restaurants of Tel Aviv?" Then
Mashal dropped a verbal bomb on Fatah: "We won't let Israel's
helpers come to power on the Israeli-American carpet. Whoever
wants to govern, let him take over by ballots in the ballot
box. We won't let it happen by a military coup." These words
moved Fatah supporters into the streets to clash with Hamas.
Dozens were wounded.
As if all that were not enough, Hamas is caught in yet
another complication. Because of its official hostility
toward Israel, and because it won its public support by
launching armed attacks, it is in no position to oppose the
Jihad or other groups that continue to hit Israel with
rockets or suicide bombings. In its view, the struggle
against the Occupation is also legitimate when implemented by
others. Now, however, this is not just a movement, rather it
is a government tolerating attacks from within its
jurisdiction. Israel can use this fact as a pretext for
unrestrained reprisals. This month it maimed and killed
dozens of innocent people in Gaza, including children.
The other militant organizations are cooking the same kind of
broth for Hamas that it brewed for its Fatah colleagues in
the nineties, during Oslo, when they were trying to stabilize
the situation for the new PA.
Hamas, in short, has painted itself into a corner, and this
fact has begun to percolate through its leaders' heads.
Muhammad Younis, a reporter for Al Hayat in Ramallah, quotes
a senior Hamas official (April 24): "We find ourselves facing
two alternatives. Either we'll ask some figure from outside
to form a government of technocrats who aren't affiliated
with the movement, or we'll go back to Square One. It looks
like we'll choose the latter. But the significance of this
will be that Hamas won't take part in the next elections and
won't recognize the result. We shall determine our priorities
without connection to those of the PA -- [this could mean]
for example, cancellation of the cease fire and refusal to
cooperate with the PA concerning problems like the
deterioration in security."
Hamas claims that even if it changed its stripes, becoming as
docile as Abu Mazen, Israel would not provide the necessary
conditions to create a sustainable sovereign state. This is
doubtless true, but Hamas is using the point as an excuse. If
it wants to advance the interests of the Palestinian people,
it should stop playing rhetorical games (like talk of a
thousand-year cease-fire). It should declare its readiness to
negotiate with Israel on the basis of a complete end to the
Occupation. Its leaders should stop venting fiery
proclamations, which only help Israel to isolate the
Palestinian people and to justify its violence. The
Palestinians don't need feel-good verbal fireworks. They need
a period of political stability in order to strengthen their
cohesiveness, their institutions and their economy.
-- 
www.iaciners.org
Uncle Rico: What about your girlfriend?
Kip: Well, things are getting pretty serious right now. I mean, we chat
online for, like, two hours every day so I guess you could say things are
gettin' pretty serious.

Non ricordo la tua posizione riguardo al tag [OT]

 Non ricordo la tua posizione riguardo al tag [OT]
che vale per tutti, tranne che per il Migliore

 Non ricordo la tua posizione riguardo al tag [OT]
che quando mi ricordo ce lo metto, ma solo per tacere gli stupidi.
Considero che tutti gli altri capiscano che "Hamas Encounters Reality" sia
un articolo sul medio oriente.

 un articolo sul medio oriente.
Guarda che a volte sei assurdo. A me personalmente non dà nessun fastidio,
ma a te, che ti costa metterlo?

 ma a te, che ti costa metterlo?
Se ci penso troppo mi sembra addirittura offensivo, ma di solito, come ho
detto, se mi ricordo metto [MO]. Se vado di premura copio e incollo rapido.