Hamas-Fatah unity: The liberal case against
Jamie Kirchick, who has published in Commentary, is not a "liberal", at least not in the tribal sense.
But this week in Ha'aretz he makes an interesting case against the Fatah-Hamas pact, based on liberal arguments.
He says Western boosters of the pact, like Jimmy Carter, Robert Malley and Daniel Levy, focus too much on the particulars of how unity might advance the peace process, and ignore the bigger picture of how enabling a repressive, Islamist group runs counter to everything positive about the Arab Spring:
Hamas is everything that self-professed liberals should be "prejudiced" toward: obscurantist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, warlike and rejectionist. It calls for the death of homosexuals and bans dancing. Its charter beckons Muslims to hunt down Jews from "behind rocks and trees," claims that Muslims "have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad" and, in a prescient use of the rhetoric that has since united the radical Western left and the reactionary Islamic right, accused Jews of "Nazism." It picks fights with Israel that result in the needless deaths of Palestinian civilians. It could end the blockade in Gaza tomorrow if it wanted to, simply by laying down arms, renouncing terrorism and accepting Israel's right to exist - but no amount of Palestinian suffering will ever cause it to do so.
This unity deal breathes new life not only into Palestinian rejectionists but Israeli ones as well. A gift to the Israeli right, a unity government with Hamas will only strengthen the claims of Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas that there is no Palestinian partner for peace and thus no reason for making further concessions. Palestinian unity is indeed a prerequisite for a two-state solution, but it's fair to ask at what price that unity should come. Israelis, the majority of whom have long supported a two-state solution, cannot be expected to make deals with an organization constitutionally bound to the genocide of Jews.
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Jeremiah Haber
05/06/11 12:11 PM
Hamas-Fatah Unity—The Illiberal Case Against
James Kirchik advocates disregarding the results of a fairly-conducted election, jailing elected officials of a party recognized as legitimate by the world community during those elections , splitting a people in two, and imposing sanctions and siege on a million and a half people. for the reasons that the party that was elected a) does not recognize the State of Israel; b) takes illiberal social positions; and c) employs violence to achieve its aims.
And he criticizes liberals for excusing these points.
True liberals, however, though they despise narrowminded religious fundamentalism, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, realize that in many countries there are religious political parties, and the way to fight against them is not through jailing their leaders or outlawing them, but through insisting upon democratic institutions and their playing by the rules of that democracy.
Mr. Kirchick may regret the suffering brought on by Palestinians who, sick of Fatah corruption, voted for a credible, albeit ultra-nationalist and illiberal, alternative. I understand that. Whenever Shas gets posts in the Israeli government, I, an orthodox Jew, weep.
But it is not liberal to want to give Palestinians a demilitarized state on a fraction of Palestine.
It is also not liberal to demand one side forswear violence when the other side in the negotiation has one of the most powerful armies in the world and uses it frequently.
And it is certainly not liberal to bully one side by asymmetric demands that will considerably weaken its already weak bargaining position. Nobody told Ben Gurion that he wouldn’t get a state until he recognized the Palestinian’s right to a state and forswore violence.
Mr. Kirchick doesn’t like Hamas? Then why does he advocate US policies that ensure its growth and survival? Why does he allow Israel to elect religious fundamentalists that drag its country to the right, but not the Palestinians?
Sorry, Ron, this is not a liberal argument against the unity pact. This is a Zionist argument against ceding control of the Palestinian destiny to the Palestinian people.
A true liberal believes in equal fairness to both sides.
Kirchick is a Zionist hawk in liberal’s clothing.