Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Rossobruni sul LAT

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-makdisi20jun20,0,2672122.story?coll=la-opinion-center
West chooses Fatah, but Palestinians don't
They prefer Hamas, which represents an alternative to Fatah's acceptance of
the Israeli occupation.
By Saree Makdisi, SAREE MAKDISI, a professor of English and comparative
literature at UCLA, writes often about the Middle East.
June 20, 2007
IN THE WEST, there's a huge sense of relief. The Hamas-led government that
has been causing everyone so much trouble has been isolated in Gaza, and a
new government has been appointed in the West Bank by the "moderate,"
peace-loving Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.
So why then do Palestinians not share in the relief? Well, for one thing,
the old government had been democratically elected; now it has been
dismissed out of hand by presidential fiat. There's also the fact that the
new prime minister appointed by Abbas - Salam Fayyad - has the support of
the West, but his election list won only 2% of the votes in the same
election that swept Hamas to victory. Fayyad and Abbas have the support of
Israel, but it is no secret that they lack the backing of their own people.
There is a reason the people threw out Abbas' Fatah party in last year's
election. Palestinians see the leading Fatah politicians as unimaginative,
self-serving and corrupt, satisfied with the emoluments of power.
Worse yet, Palestinians came to realize that the so-called peace process
championed by Abbas (and by Yasser Arafat before him) had led to the
permanent institutionalization - rather than the termination - of Israel's
4-decade-old military occupation of their land. Why should they feel
otherwise? There are today twice as many settlers in the occupied
territories as there were when Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat first shook hands in
the White House Rose Garden. Israel has divided the West Bank into besieged
cantons, worked diligently to increase the number of Jewish settlers in East
Jerusalem (while stripping Palestinian Jerusalemites of their residency
rights in the city) and turned Gaza into a virtual prison.
People voted for Hamas last year not because they approved of the party's
sloganeering, not because they wanted to live in an Islamic state, not
because they support attacks on Israeli civilians, but because Hamas was
untainted by Fatah's complacency and corruption, untainted by its
willingness to continue pandering to Israel. Fatah leaders were viewed as
mere policemen of the perpetual occupation, and the Palestinian Authority
had willingly taken on the role of administering the population on behalf of
the Israelis. Hamas offered an alternative.
Here in the U.S., Hamas is routinely demonized, known primarily for its
attacks on civilians. Depictions of Hamas portray its "rejectionism" as an
end in itself rather than as a refusal to go along with a political process
that has proved catastrophic for Palestinians on the ground.
Has Hamas done unspeakable things? Yes, but so has Fatah, and so too has
Israel (on a much larger scale). There are no saints in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinians, frankly, see a lot of hypocrisy in the West's anti-Hamas
stance. Since last year's election, for example, the West has denied aid to
the Hamas government, arguing, among other things, that Hamas refuses to
recognize Israel. But that's absurd; after all, Israel does not recognize
Palestine either. Hamas is accused of not abiding by previous agreements.
But Israel's suspension of tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian
Authority, and its refusal to implement a Gaza-West Bank road link agreement
brokered by the U.S. in November 2005, are practical, rather than merely
rhetorical, violations of previous agreements, causing infinitely more
damage to ordinary people. Hamas is accused of mixing religion and politics,
but no one has explained why its version of that mixture is any worse than
Israel's - or why a Jewish state is acceptable but a Muslim one is not.
I am a secular humanist, and I personally find religiously identified
political movements - and states - unappealing, to say the least.
But let's be honest. Hamas did not run into Western opposition because of
its Islamic ideology but because of its opposition to (and resistance to)
the Israeli occupation.
A genuine peace based on the two-state solution would require an end to the
Israeli occupation and the creation of a territorially contiguous, truly
independent Palestinian state.
But that is not happening. Fatah seems to have given up, its leaders
preferring to rest comfortably with the power they already have. Ironically,
it is Hamas that is taking the stands that would be prerequisites for a true
two-state peace plan: refusing to go along with the permanent breakup of
Palestine and not accepting the sacrifice of control over borders, airspace,
water, taxes and even the population registry to Israel.
Embracing the "moderation" of Abbas allows the Palestinian Authority to
resume servicing the occupation on Israel's behalf, for now. In the long
run, though, the two-state solution is finished because Fatah is either
unable or unwilling to stop the ongoing dismemberment of the territory once
intended for a Palestinian state.
The only realistic choice remaining will be the one between a single
democratic, secular state offering equal rights for both Israelis and
Palestinians - or permanent apartheid.

 literature at UCLA, writes often about the Middle East.
Quoto entusiasticamente il subject.
Tb
-- 
E la vecchia sign non c'è più

 Quoto entusiasticamente il subject.
eh, l'entusiasmo dei rosabrunopugnettari...
-- 
visitate 
http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/frames/index.htm
 
http://www.italia-cuba.it/associazione/associazione.htm
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appare irrilevante, perderci tempo è stupido.
Infatti.  La trovo una cosa molto ma molto ipocrita. (Persio)

 They prefer Hamas,
per carità, uno è anche libero di buttarsi giù dal ventesimo piano, eh
liberi altri di non farlo, però
A