A State of One's Own

What do we do now, in a post-Fatah Gaza Strip? In a brazenly realpolitik maneuver, the NY Times is now reporting that Israel and the United States are attempting to bolster Mahmoud Abbas and, Fatah, the same organization vilified under Yasser Arafat. This a day after that the European Union announced that, as Hamas was no longer represented in the Palestinian government, aid would resume being given to Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

This is a strange legerdemain, given the history of Hamas. Hamas, it is well known, was funneled money by the Israeli government--Ariel Sharon himself initiated this tactic--in order to sow discord between Palestinians (commonly referred to in those days simply as "the Arabs" in order to deny them national aspirations) and prevent a cohesive national movement from forming from--and between--the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

And now the Israeli's are victims of their own success, and Hamas has won itself a giant cage for 1 1/2 million people. The Palestinian national movement is now at a dangerous ebb, as they have turned inward, the gnawing pit of of frustration and deprivation, of roadblocks and blocked visas, turning them away from their paramount aim--statehood--to internecine blood lust.

Ironically, Hamas's takeover of Gaza has now empowered Fatah in ways that Yasser Arafat could only have dreamed of. If only he had created a shadow Islamist army first, negotiating with this kaffiyah-masked alternative lurking in the background, perhaps he would have lived to see Palestine. For the stereotype often cast upon Palestinians (and Arabs in general) that "they only understand force", seems to work doubly well on the Israeli political establishment.

Then again, the IDF could simply use the event as a security pretext for reentering Gaza and further isolating Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

It is a banality when discussing Israel and Palestine to assert how critical the present moment is. But it would be negligent for us, in this truly critical moment, to allow the shrieking invective that so often characterizes discourse on the topic to distract us from the exigencies of the situation. We need a fundamental change in U.S. policy in the region--and fast--because we may be witnessing the end of the idea of both Israel (as a democratic and Jewish state) and Palestine (as a viable state at all). And that would neither serve the fervent supporters of either, or those of us whose hearts ache for the peaceful coexistence between the two.