Hamas Victory

[Nirvana-Eld]

I know this is a little late in relation to "current events" but here are a few questions for debate.

As we all (hopefully) know, one of the United States biggest exports (according to Stephen Colbert) is democracy. We pushed for democracy in Palestine and we got Hamas.

Is it hypocritical of the United States to still condem Hamas and refuse funding and recognition after being such advocates for self-determination and democracy?

[Wyvern]

Is it hypocritical of the United States to still condem Hamas and refuse funding and recognition after being such advocates for self-determination and democracy?

Whether the actions by the U.S. may indeed be considered hypocritical is beside the point. The point is that the U.S. had no choice in their actions due to previous legislation, in this case existing law disallowed aid to be given to any terrorist organization and Hamas has been considered to be one for some time.
Personally I think that Hamas taking the reins of power is the best thing that could happen. If nothing else hopefully they will learn a basic lesson, that being if you are getting aid from other nations you can't keep your same message when you were nothing but a terrorist group(yes I realize that within Palestine they acted more as an NGO).
Within international politics any nation giving aid or other monies to another nation has the right to revoke such aid as they see fit as long as they are willing to pay any consequences. In this case what does the U.S. or the E.U. have to lose? Palestine has nearly no resources or standard military, and Hamas is already considered a terrorist group so everyone knows if there are repercussions what to expect. On the other hand look how Iran or North Korea are being handled. One has massive oil resources and the other has a large standing army and possibly nukes.

On a side note I think to be fair it should be mentioned that the E.U. was the largest aid giver to Hamas and they also have withdrawn funding.

[juliod]

Is it hypocritical of the United States to still condem Hamas and refuse funding and recognition after being such advocates for self-determination and democracy?

Yes, it is hypocritical, and an appalling lack of foresight and strategy. We are linking "democracy" with "anti-Islam", and thus making any person in the east who supports democracy seem like a western puppet. Increased theocracy can be the only result.

And it also encourages the other islamic nations to support Hamas. Previously, the amount of money Hamas could get would be limited by the need of the arab/islamic nations to officially "condemn" terrorism. Now Hamas will be getting much more support under the cover of replacing the funds the west has stopped. It's like watching a train-wreck in slow motion.

I don't understand the position of the west in this. It seems we expect the Palestinians of "collapse" or something, as if they were a political party dependant on corporate special interest money. Our leaders seem to be engaging in fantasy that if they cause hardship to the Palestinian people that those people will blame Hamas. That seems extraordinary unlikely.

It's like they can't even imagine what a political movement motivated by politics (rather than the agenda of their major donors) would be like.

DanZ

[youngborean]

Hamas did have political donors for a long time, they were the more extreme elements of Islam throughout the world, that is why the Americans were able to freeze much of their income. I think if the Americans were really smart they would do what they did with Barak's Election in israel during the clinton years. They should send in an unlimited amount of money to the most peaceful element of the Palestinians along with a political strategist to run a complete non-violence platform, just prop up a fake candidate if one doesn't exist. Either their death would spark international condemnation or they'd actually take power. A real dream scenario though. I really believe that it's a mob mentality in Palestine, I wish it wasn't. But if anyone really wanted to change things they would make sure the money made it to peaceful Palestinians while defending them. This has been Israel's faliure, to not ensure that everything possible (including offering Israeli citizenship) was done for the Palestinians who truly want peace.

[Nirvana-Eld]

If nothing else hopefully they will learn a basic lesson, that being if you are getting aid from other nations you can't keep your same message when you were nothing but a terrorist group(yes I realize that within Palestine they acted more as an NGO).

So our rigid legislation is not only preventing aid to a true democracy, but we are teaching Hamas a lesson now? You're forgetting that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if anyone is the victim, it is the Palestinians. They wanted self-determination, we supported it, Hamas was elected. I don't if pulling out aid is sending the right message to the fledgeling Palestinian democracy and the Middle-East as a whole. I don't think that they need any lessons other than that other nations don't make the rules for them. They are a self-determining democracy and deserve to act as they wish, and I personally think it was foolish for the U.S. and the west as a whole to condem the elected party.

Within international politics any nation giving aid or other monies to another nation has the right to revoke such aid as they see fit as long as they are willing to pay any consequences.

The quesiton is not whether or not they have the right, its whether or not it was foolish and wrong to do it. I say it was foolish because the consequences paid down the road are most likey going to out way any possible good right now.

Palestine has nearly no resources or standard military, and Hamas is already considered a terrorist group so everyone knows if there are repercussions what to expect.

Which is exacly why we should have continued aid. If they have no resources how can we expect to foster any kind of soveriegn nation there. Aid is obviously necesary. And now instead of a Western backed democracy, we have an Iranian backed democracy. I'm curious as to what reprocusions you are talking about. Those experienced by Hamas? or the U.S.?

Juliod

We are linking "democracy" with "anti-Islam", and thus making any person in the east who supports democracy seem like a western puppet. Increased theocracy can be the only result.

I personally don't think the ideals supported by a true democracy (self-determination) and those of Islam are mutually exclusive. I also think that our support of democracy in the middle east does not equate to anti-Islam. I do think that the way it has been executed in places such as Iraq and Palestine it does foster anit-West sentiments. I would venture to say that self-determination does the opposite of increase theocracy when implemented correctly (I think Afganistan is a fair example of a good middle eastern democracy).

It seems we expect the Palestinians of "collapse" or something, as if they were a political party dependant on corporate special interest money.

What exctly do you mean by this?

[Wyvern]

So our rigid legislation is not only preventing aid to a true democracy, but we are teaching Hamas a lesson now? You're forgetting that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if anyone is the victim, it is the Palestinians. They wanted self-determination, we supported it, Hamas was elected. I don't if pulling out aid is sending the right message to the fledgeling Palestinian democracy and the Middle-East as a whole. I don't think that they need any lessons other than that other nations don't make the rules for them. They are a self-determining democracy and deserve to act as they wish, and I personally think it was foolish for the U.S. and the west as a whole to condem the elected party.

I'm not denying that Hamas was democratically elected or that they can do mostly what they want internally, however when their foreign policy contains a pledge to destroy another country, this is not supportable by another country. Giving aid to a country with these stated goals effectively means you are giving tacit approval of these goals. Any country can do whatever it wants as long as it can endure the consequences.
I don't think anyone would disagree with saying that the palestinian people are the ones being made to suffer. Unfortunately in politics the people almost always are the ones to suffer for their governments actions.

The quesiton is not whether or not they have the right, its whether or not it was foolish and wrong to do it. I say it was foolish because the consequences paid down the road are most likey going to out way any possible good right now.

Unfortunately due to Palestines foreign policy stance, neither the E.U. or the U.S. had much choice in the matter. Rigid policies have nothing to do with this matter.

Which is exacly why we should have continued aid. If they have no resources how can we expect to foster any kind of soveriegn nation there. Aid is obviously necesary. And now instead of a Western backed democracy, we have an Iranian backed democracy. I'm curious as to what reprocusions you are talking about. Those experienced by Hamas? or the U.S.?

Palestine does in fact need a large amount of funding. Strangely enough no arab or muslim nation has stepped in to fill in the aid gap(the arab league gave enough money to satisfy payroll but nothing more). Effectively the palestinians have become a pawn in the middle easts political games. Any repercussions will more than likely happen to Israel and Hamas will likely be tauted as heroes among certain factions, although I doubt any of these groups will actually back up the words with money.

[Vladd44]

By removing ourselves from the situation (once again) we only further limit our ability to affect the situation. Hamas' victory was not a referendum on terrorism, it's root goes to the basic core of all politics, the politics of Bread.

Hamas had done a more effective job of providing social services to the palestinian people than the ruling government. There is great need in gaza and the west bank, decades of neglect have taken their toll.

It would serve the best interest of everyone involved to see Hamas in a position of needing to deal with more moderate influences, Aid could be a great tool to help them moderate their own views in an effort to improve their ability to hold onto power.

There was a time that parties like Likud were hardline outsiders in Israeli govt, which held positions that were essentially promoting the destruction of any concept of a palestinian state, but that didn't stop us from supporting Likud governments.

For me, it is just a repeat of what we are currently doing in Iran. By isolating them we are only losing our ability to change things. Nothing would please me more than Washington opening dialogue with Tehran. I only wish that the current administrations actions reflected a desire to do such a thing. A President with more intestinal fortitude could do wonders in the Arab world by promoting a official state visit from the President to Iran. Even if nothing was resolved regarding their nuclear program, it would be a significant statement to our resolve in finding a solution.

This go it alone, do what you want to do when and how you want needs to go. War is the result when reasonable men and women fail. While there is a great divide between our two cultures, I am unwilling to accept the idea that there is not common ground for us to build from. At present we are only setting ourselves up for disaster, I would hate to think that we pass up a chance to talk.

[juliod]

It seems we expect the Palestinians of "collapse" or something, as if they were a political party dependant on corporate special interest money.


What exctly do you mean by this?

That should have read "expect the Palestinians to collapse."

What I meant was that we seem to think we can "win" this situation and make the Palestinians disappear. I think our leaders are visualizing them as if they were a western political party, dependant on corporations and donors. Withdraw the money and the party collapses.

I'm not sure that our leaders can imagine a party that is motivated by political activism over an actual cause (Palestinian liberation and statehood, in this case) rather than the policy dictated by special interests and corporate sponsorship.

How does a corporation express it's disapproval of a politcal act? It witholds the money. That's what we are doing to Hamas. I think our leaders expect Hamas and their constituents to come running back to us, hat in hand.

In reality, any hardship felt by the Palestinians at this time will further unify them with Hamas. Hamas already blames all problems on the Us and Israel. Now we've demonstrated it openly and in public.

DanZ

[youngborean]

I somewhat agree with what you are saying. But the US never got anything out of giving the Palestinians money either. This is evident in your last line.

Hamas already blames all problems on the Us and Israel. Now we've demonstrated it openly and in public.

Palestinians have openly and publicy demonstrated their hatred of America and Israel despite their recieving money. America was never accepted as part of the solution according to the Palestinians. Even when they were handing out cheques. I think it is more realistic to have the arab league be the financial support of the Palestinians, unless the Palestinians suddenly became accountable to the people providing them money. After all, the countries of the arab league used the palestinians by promising them liberation that they never delivered, they should now shoulder most of the financial burden if they cared as much as they claimed throughout history. If the Palestinians are driven by politics and not money, the US will never be on their side regardless of whether they give them money or don't. Their election of Hamas simply showed that they weren't happy with getting US money anyway (since Fatah was keeping a lot of it), or the general public just didn't understand where the money was coming from or how to access it.

[Dion]

Is it hypocritical of the United States to still condem Hamas and refuse funding and recognition after being such advocates for self-determination and democracy?

No.

Democracy gives power to the people, but it also gives responsibility. The palestinian people have failed to understand this. The electorate must choose their government wisely. They must choose a government that will act in their best interests. I don't believe that the palestinians have done so. They have chosen with their hearts rather than with their heads.

That a government has been elected democratically does not mean that the West should go along with anything that happens thereafter.

Hitler was democratically elected ...!