Do Americans and Israelis Prefer Hamas?

By Suha Sabbagh

Palestinians are re-evaluating some of the positions adopted by their leadership during the Gulf war, but they are nonetheless aware that these positions enjoyed the fervent support of Palestinians living in the occupied territories and in Jordan. If mistakes were made, they reflect joint choices of the Palestinian people and their leadership, and, despite the severity of the economic hardships currently endured in the occupied territories as a result of choices made in the war, Chairman Yasser Arafat and the PLO have never been more popular there.

When members of the US administration propose that Palestinians need new leadership, the implication is that if the old leadership would somehow fade into the background, the US would "view with favor" the establishment of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza.

If the US is willing to support the liberation of the Israeli-occupied territories—even if it is with less zeal than this was pursued in Kuwait—the US should say so plainly and unequivocally. If Palestinians have new leadership, what can they expect from the United States?

The PLO is not the intransigent party. Like Moses who led his people for 40 years in the desert, no one would be happier than Arafat to see his people arrive at the promised land. While this is not the first time Americans have suggested removal of the PLO, the persistence of the US suggestion warrants consideration.

In the just-concluded war in the Gulf, the Manichaean perception of the world in terms of good and evil locked the administration into a course of no return. Evil had to be routed out of this world and only the forces of Good were capable of doing the job.

There was no room for a third alternative, as there was no room for a critical point of view. The peace movement found itself locked into an impossible situation: one was either on the side of the administration or against it and, therefore, on the side of Saddam.

All countries and their governments, the United Nations, and all representative bodies came to be perceived through the prism of the administration's bifocal lens. It was in this atmosphere that Arafat tried to play the role of the mediator, flying desperately from one capital of the Arab world to another. While condemning the occupation of Kuwait, he also condemned the presence of US troops in the area. As time went by, the administration's point of view would become the world's point of view and one could only be with the war or risk being on the side of evil. Many Arab capitals closed their doors to Arafat, and he eventually was forced to choose sides. His decision was motivated by the long history of US support of Israel and by US unwillingness to allow the UN to extend its protection to the occupied territories.

Ritualistic Decapitation

In ancient times, no battle was truly won unless the victorious male generals could walk the vanquished through the streets of the conquered city, where they were first recognized for their bravery prior to their decapitation. This ritual served to emphasize the virility of the captors. In these civilized times, such images must be recaptured in a symbolic way and President Bush's call for killing or tumbling Saddam must be seen as a ritualistic decapitation.

The same fate awaits the Palestinians. Should President Bush's desires to remove. the leadership be heeded, the occupied territories may be ruled by Hamas, the fundamentalist movement that has managed so far to force all women in Gaza to go back to the Hijab and to abandon the gains that women made during the intifada. Harnas was also one of the groups that refused to meet with Baker during his last visits to the occupied territories. All this would suit Israel's purposes. If it also suits American purposes, then Palestinians will reach their own conclusions as to the sincerity of the current US peace effort.

Suha Sabbagh is executive director of the Institute for Arab Women Is Studies in Washington, DC