Looks like the promise Arab/Muslim aid isn’t coming, after all. Lots of words, though.
Israel and the Western nations have demanded Hamas renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist. Hamas leaders have resisted calls to moderate and said they would make up for the lost funds with new donations from Arab and Muslim nations.
That plan, however, hit a serious setback when Arab League foreign ministers failed to agree on new aid for the Palestinians. “The aid is destined for the Palestinian people and not for Hamas,” Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said in an appeal for donations during a meeting in Algeria that ended late Monday.
Trying to drum up support for the coming government, Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal visited Iran, whose leaders called on Muslim nations around the world to make up the Palestinians’ budget shortfall.
“Since the divine treasures are infinite, you should not be concerned about economic issues,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as telling Mashaal on Monday. “If you work for God, he will provide for you.”
So, the Arab League and OIC are mouthing empty promises, and then Hamas goes to Iran, and Gorilla Boy tells them that the Lord will provide. I’m not seeing any dollar signs in that.
The squeeze is on. The question is, who is going to break first, Israel or Hamas? CNN thinks Hamas will. Just look at this pile of crap masquerading as objective analysis. How much more anti-Israel can you spin this? And pro-Hamas. Yes. Pro-Hamas.
Hamas’ 1988 foundation charter, to say the least, is problematic. It is viciously anti-Jewish and filled with conspiracy theories.
But as one Hamas leader recently pointed out, “The charter is not the Quran … it can be changed.”
Under what circumstances?
Here is where Israel must decide whether it will pursue a policy that risks short-term gain and long-term disaster or a more nuanced form of strategic thinking.
You see, Hamas is willing to deal. It’s Israel that’s holding up negotiations by being unable to see the long-term disaster of enabling a Hamas terror authority.
The basic lesson here is that, ultimately, the march of history determines political outcomes far more than short-term policy. In Israel’s case, imposing wide-ranging economic sanctions on the Hamas-led government may ultimately play directly into the movement’s hands.
Hamas will not be under public pressure to reform the government if it can’t pay for those reforms.
The movement will seek to broaden its ties to the wider Islamic world, threatening to increase the chances that the Arab-Israeli conflict becomes less one about nations and more one about religions.
And finally, and most importantly, it is probably wrong to think that ordinary Palestinians will become more moderate if their government is isolated. The election of Hamas is a case in point.
Ordinary Palestinians are unlikely to seek solace in the less-strident Fatah party if Hamas fails to achieve diplomatic victories. There is no historic precedent that shows a people under economic siege become more moderate as a result of external pressure.
I believe the purpose of sanctions are to starve the regime. Or at least to be able to sleep with a clear conscience at night. But CNN wouldn’t know anything about that, what with holding back information that makes their totalitarian hosts look bad.
Update: Cynic points out in the comments that the economic siege of South Africa moderated the white minority to give up its power. Looks like CNN is wrong again.
“Many” years ago I caught by chance a report by Andrea Koppel on CNN from China in which she stated something to the effect that the demise of Israel in the future made it a waste of resources supplied to support the Jews there.
As for
this just goes to show how ignorant of recent history CNN is if they cannot remember South Africa and sanctions.
But of course we must remember that the UN was not involved in
“sanctions busting”!filling their pockets.I’m not looking forward to Bush dumping a ton of funds into UNRWA and then UNRWA openly handing the money to Hamas as usual.
I’d also point out that political pressure encouraged Austria to shunt Haider aside.
BTW, maybe direct aid from the Arabs won’t come. But they still expect the West to provide it!
But if we give victories to Hamas, they surely will never have any incentive to moderate
Ah, but Meryl, once again you fail to demonstrate true multiculturalism. Lucky for you that you have readers like me to enlighten you.
You see, Hamas’s language is just part of the Arab world’s colorful rhetoric; they don’t mean what they seem to. They’re just expressing themselves in their vivid idiom. When Hamas talks about exterminating Israel and killing Jews–their charter in several places doesn’t bother with distinctions among “Zionists,” “Israelis,” and “Jews”–that’s just the picturesque way Arabs express themselves.
Israel’s hard line will only make it more difficult for them to compromise, and as we all know the main reason why sweetness and light have not broken out over the Middle East is Israeli intransigence. Nor will economic pressure moderate the Palestinians’ thinking; recent opinion polls show the depth of Palestinian willingness to meet Israel half way and to at least recognize its existence as legitimate.
As has been proven by the last fifty-eight years, the road to peace is Arab statements and Israeli concessions.