In a poll published in today’s LA Times Hamas would win presidential elections for the Palestinian Authority. Support for Hamas amongst the Palestinian population has been massively rising over the last few months. The same poll quoted in the above article had Fatah comfortably beating Hamas just last December.
The result, can be seen as a massive failure of US policy as this administration has undermined moderate Palestinians by expecting them to show restraint in the face of overwhelming Israeli pressure. This has made the Fatah party look impotent and ineffective. The great advantage that Fatah had before was that it had the at least nominal support of the US. Palestinians know that if there is one country in the world that can put pressure on Israel when it is acting in an unjust an irresponsible way it is the US. However when the US seems utterly unwilling to pressure Israel to stop policies that it itself disagrees with, such as the building of settlements in the disputed neighborhood of East Jerusalem, this support is worthless. Why should the Palestinians support a movement, when the only thing going for it is the support of a country that is unwilling to help it.
Too often our tactic in the War on Terror has been to admonish a terrorist group and then just expect everyone to abandon them because they are terrorists. All to often we find ourselves surprised when this doesn’t happen, and reach for some pre-conceived and ill thought out answer that does even less to help the situation, such as, “they are fanatics”. This recent poll should demonstrate to us more than ever moderate people who were prepared to support moderate parties can move to political extremes when placed under extraordinary circumstances. If US policy wants to promote moderate politicians, this should be a wake up call. The US should deliver some political victories for moderates in return for their support. Demonstrate to the people that supporting moderates can bring positive results and only then might we be able to reverse this dangerous trend.
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