The Dog that Caught the Car

     Four years ago last month Israelis intercepted the Palestinian freighter Karine A carrying 50 tons of Iranian manufactured weapons. Yasser Arafat told President George Bush he knew nothing about it. When Bush caught him in the lie he refused to have further dealings with the old terrorist, leaving him to spend the last two years of his life rotting in his office in Ramallah under Israeli house arrest. It was the right thing to do. For over forty years American Presidents had been trying to broker a peace between Israel and a Palestinian leadership that didn’t want peace. Now we have had free elections and Palestinians have elected Hamas, essentially telling the world it isn’t just the leadership that doesn’t want peace. Or have they?
     Those sad people had an awful choice. The ruling Fatah party had been in charge of their political destiny for as long as anyone could remember and had delivered only misery.  They gave them a kleptocracy that could not pick up the garbage, maintain law and order, or operate the schools. And they were every bit as belligerent toward Israel as Hamas is. The difference is that Hamas is up front about it and may be less corrupt. The question is whether they can govern any more effectively than Fatah.
     It’s going to be interesting to see what they do now. By all appearances they never expected to actually win an election. Now they have lost the luxury of criticizing from the sidelines. The responsibility is all theirs and they may surprise us. If I can believe what I read they have demonstrated an ability to deliver community services with a degree of competence Arafat’s organization could never approach. And from Israel’s perspective they will have a government to deal with that may actually be in charge. If Hamas should decide to stop the lawlessness they just might be able to pull it off. If they don’t, well they will be easy to find.
     When Bush told Arafat to take a hike he put a pin into one of the most enduring hot air balloons of late twentieth century conventional wisdom. Squeals went up from around the world and on a trip through the Middle East then Secretary of State Collin Powell got a public dressing down from every potentate he met with. The United States had to deal with Yasser Arafat. Baloney, the old buzzard was exposed as a hapless fraud and when if came right down to it no one of any consequence was prepared to go to his aid.
     Now Bush has told Hamas that unless they clean up their act he will treat them as he treated Arafat. He will ignore them. He has the credibility to be taken seriously. With Iran hard at work building a bomb in the neighborhood even Europeans appear to be prepared to follow Bush’s lead, that is if they aren’t intimidated by a few broken windows in their embassies. That remains to be seen. Europeans haven’t been known lately for the stiffness of their spines.
     But back to Hamas; they have some fundamental choices to make over the next few weeks that will determine the future of Palestinians for years to come. It would be a shock if they suddenly acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and renounced violence. But if they decide to focus on the basic functions of government, clean up some of the corruption and leave the Israelis alone while they withdraw to the relative security of their fence they just might gain a few international friends.