A tale of two countries

With Hamas essentially executing a military takeover of the Gaza Strip, and President Mahmoud Abbas responding by dissolving the government and creating a new one in the West Bank, we now effectively have two semi-autonomous Palestines - one which the US and Israel (and other bodies, such as the European Union) have announced they will work with, once which they ... well, they aren't quite sure what to do with.

Ever since Hamas gained a large majority in the national elections about 18 months ago, both the US and Israel have been pointing out that while, yes, free elections are great and all, they also have consequences. In this case, the consequences have included withholding money and goods needed by Palestinians, particularly in the strip, where 1.5 million people are crowded into 139 square miles. By comparison, Tucson has about 1/3 the population in more than 1-1/2 times the space.

Hamas has attempted to blame the deteriorating conditions, especially in the Strip, on US and Israeli influences, particularly the refusal to turn over funds earmarked for Palestine, and needed to support the government. While the lack of funds has certainly been among the main contributors to the problem, it's hard to argue with the US/Israel stance in this matter, given Hamas' expressed intent to destroy Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state. Given Hamas has offered a 10-year truce but has never backed off this founding principle of the organization, has never given any recognition of Israel's right to exist, it seems ridiculous to then be surprised at Israel's reaction. "Yes, we plan to destroy you. In the meantime, would you mind forking over some money for a few years so we can stabilize and improve our national infrastructure, the better to carry out our aims in a decade or so?"

So, barring intensive Israeli military intervention in Gaza with the intent to crush Hamas and weaken it for some time to come, we are going to be left with a competition of sorts: which version of Palestine will turn out better? The "Islamist" Gaza area, or the western-backed West Bank?

Given Gaza is effectively cut off and under siege (Israel controls checkpoints in and out, even on the Egyptian border) this shouldn't be much of a competition. It's hard to see how anything can turn out well in Gaza, and it certainly behooves all interested western parties to do their utmost to see things turn out not just better than Gaza (after all, nearly anythung would be better than Gaza in it's current state), but exceedingly well under Abbas. However, there are several reasons this may not be that easy:

1) Corruption. The reason the voters went with Hamas in the first place was because, even though they were aware of the probable repercussions of a Hamas-led government, they were even more fed up with the long-standing history of corruption in the Abbas-led Fatah movement. What good was having international funding come in if that money went to line the pockets of ministers and other officials?

2) Syria. The despotic government here has no interest in seeing any kind of flourishing, semi-democratic state along its borders. Any such state would simply be a symbol to it's own people of how much better off they might be. Syria has already shown a willingness to intervene in Lebanon, and while they would be less explicit in their actions in the West Bank (no troops would be sent, for example), they certainly wouldn't hesitate to act (i.e., more assassinations).

3) Fervent Islamists. As with Syria, these people have no interest in seeing a flourishing semi-democracy anywhere in the Middle East. They don't have anything better to offer, they just don't want the "corruption" of western ways. Unlike even Syria, which at least has it's own national status to consider, these individuals have nothing to lose, are only interested in destruction, and are currently demonstrating this every day in Iraq.

Sadly, even if things in the West Bank start off well, I am afraid, over time, individuals who fall under category three above will begin to arrive in the area, and the faster things might improve, the sooner the response. I expect, within a year, to be reading about suicide bombers killing Palestinians. The more things change ...