"PRAGMATIC HAMAS" -- NOT VERY LIKELY
By GERALD M. STEINBERG
Twenty years ago, they told us that Arafat and PLO were becoming pragmatic, and
were ready to give up terror and make peace with Israel. It turned out that
these hopeful predictions were wrong, but the same people are now appearing on
radio and television, to declare that the leaders of Hamas will form a pragmatic
Palestinian government. The odds that they will get this one right are not very
high. Their optimism is based on the theory that when members of terrorist,
liberation or revolutionary groups gain political power, they are forced to deal
with the realities of the governing process. According to this model, the need
to provide jobs, housing, health and education, and security will also require
cooperation with enemies and neighbors, including Israel. This cooperation, in
turn, is supposed to foster ideological moderation, and a transition from
violence to peaceful coexistence. But like many appealing diplomatic theories,
this one has a poor track record in the real world, particularly in the case of
radical Islamist groups, such as Hamas. In Afghanistan, when the Taliban took
power after decades of warfare and terror, the extremist mullahs were expected
to become pragmatic. But instead of moderation, they converted their power into
a reign of terror used to impose the most extreme form of Islam on the entire
population.
The Taliban leaders never bought into the concepts of responsible government.
And social services health, education and economic development were not high on
their list of priorities. And instead of cooperation with the West, Mullah Omar
and the rest of the Taliban leadership used their control over Afghanistan to
provide Osama bin Laden with a safe haven and a base for operations. The same
theory has been used to predict the transformation of Hizbullah from a
Iranian-linked Shi'ite terror group focused on attacking Israeli and Western
targets into a political party focusing on internal Lebanese issues. But in this
case as well, the hard evidence has proven stronger than the soft theory, at
least in the five years since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
Instead of ending its terror activities and investing more in social services,
Hizbullah engaged in kidnapping Israeli soldiers, the deployment of 12,000
rockets, and in providing direct support for Palestinian terror attacks. So
while Hizbullah pursues political power in Lebanon in parallel with terrorism,
the declarations of leaders such as Hassan Nasrallah, rejecting all disarmament
proposals, appear entirely credible. In the face of repeated failures, what
accounts for the persistence of diplomacy based on wishful thinking, and the
artificial dichotomy between political power and the use of terror? In part, it
is what academics (realists, at least) refer to as "mirror imaging," in which
Western diplomats project their own pragmatism and compromise onto leaders of
terror groups from other cultures.
The West has adopted an idealism that
reflects its own history, including the tolerance resulting from the
Enlightenment, and centuries of devastating religious and ideological warfare.
But from this specific experience, the intellectual and political trend-setters
have attempted to universalize the process. Europeans, in particular, place
themselves at the vanguard of a universal process in which religion, ideology
and nationalism have lost their power of persuasion. In the place of these dark
forces of primitive human nature, Europeans see pragmatism, tolerance,
reconciliation and compromise as being on the ascendant. So to gain aid, access
and weapons, "revolutionary" leaders tell Westerners what they want to hear that
they, too, share these goals. These factors helped push the Middle East "peace
process" beginning with the secret Oslo talks and ending in disaster. Here too,
wishful thinking presented an image of Yasser Arafat having made the transition
from terrorist leader to pragmatic statesman seeking the best for his people.
The mountain of evidence demonstrating that Arafat remained stuck in 1947
rejectionism was overlooked it was inconsistent with the messianism of instant
peace.
Now, many of the same people who enthusiastically promoted Oslo are pushing for
a political dialogue with Hamas, assuming that this group will take power from
the corrupt and ineffectual Fatah faction. At the same time, Hamas is still
planning terror attacks and continuing in its rejection of the legitimacy of
Israel, regardless of borders. As in Arafat's case, Hamas leaders might
reasonably conclude that they can receive recognition and control of the aid
funds for the Palestinian Authority without disarming or halting their "armed
struggle." If European and American statements about pragmatism and peace are
more than empty rhetoric, they will have to link any further aid to the
Palestinian Authority to ending terror and incitement. More broadly, the time
has come for Europe and America to learn from the experience in Iran,
Afghanistan, Iraq and with Hizbollah, and check their theories, based largely on
wishful thinking, against the realities of the Middle East. Perhaps Hamas break
the mold, and act like a European political party instead of a terrorist group,
but at this stage, this is only wishful thinking. And such thin hopes are no
substitute for realistic policies in response to the new realities in the
Palestinian Authority, and the rise of Islamist extremism.
The writer heads the Program on Conflict
Management at Bar Ilan University and is the editor of NGO Monitor