HOBBLING HAMAS

In Hobbling Hamas, (Weekly Standard) Robert Satloff makes some very good points.

• Since the triumph of Hamas, the Bush administration has taken what appears to be a hard line. Washington’s mantra is “no recognition, no dialogue, and no financial aid” to a Hamas-led PA until Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and terror, and accepts all previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.
• Indeed, on close inspection, the Three No’s of U.S. policy actually mask a passive, often confused approach. This was most evident in the odd juxtaposition of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveling around the Middle East urging Arab governments to deny all funding to a Hamas-led PA—and James Wolfensohn, envoy of the Quartet (created in 2002 by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations to spur Middle East peace), visiting those very same Arab capitals urging leaders to donate as much as they could to the PA. Washington may have terminated its own direct financial support of the PA, but it did little to stop America’s European allies as well as the World Bank, in whose decisions the United States has a major say, from sending tens of millions of dollars to the same address.
• At the core, the problem is that the Bush administration has a policy on Hamas but no real strategy.
• My own view is that Hamas’s success poses such a threat to vital U.S. interests that we should do everything possible to abort Hamas rule. We should do this as quickly and peacefully as circumstances allow. We should work both openly and clandestinely with allies and partners who share our concern. The U.S. interest is not that Hamas slowly wither on the vine. That would require many years of containment, during which Hamas could foil our efforts by tightening its grip on power as the ayatollahs have in Iran. To the contrary, the U.S. interest is that Hamas collapse speedily and spectacularly.
• Israel’s role is critical. Jerusalem controls virtually the entire Palestinian economy and provides access into the Palestinian territories for all goods. Israel has the right to sever all economic ties with Gaza so as not to be responsible for sustaining Hamas rule; a case can be made that Israel is even duty-bound to prevent the emergence of a terrorist regime on territory it controls. (Israel has no role inside Gaza; in the West Bank, its troops operate relatively unfettered.) If Israel chooses to choke off a Hamas government, Washington should stand with Jerusalem.
• But, critics will say, targeting the Hamas-led PA with punitive measures would punish the Palestinian people. That’s right. If Hamas had come to power via a military coup, then it
  would be wrong to impose sanctions on the Palestinian people. But Hamas has come to power precisely because Palestinian voters chose it. If this isn’t a moment when the populace itself should bear the repercussions of its actions, then what is? And isn’t it more humane to level a swift blow than to inflict a thousand slow and painful cuts?
• And what about democracy, the critics will say? Doesn’t the Palestinian democratic process deserve our respect? The messy answer is that Washington made a mistake by acceding
  to an election in which Hamas could participate without first renouncing violence and recognizing Israel. Every democracy requires its participants to play by the rules, but we ignored the most basic rule of all: the choice of ballots over bullets. The Oslo Accords themselves had well-defined candidacy requirements for would-be legislative aspirants. But we foolishly acceded to PA president Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to waive those requirements for Hamas. Admitting our mistake now is a bitter pill to swallow, but, in the long run, it will strengthen our ability to advance democracy among Palestinians and elsewhere in the Middle East.
• At the moment, Palestinians pay little price for choosing a terrorist leadership. A new strategy based on vigorous efforts to stop international financial transactions and block all but narrowly defined humanitarian assistance would tell them that their actions have consequences.