The politics of peace and fear

By Emily L. Hauser
January 29, 2006

As an American-Israeli Jew, actively involved in the Israeli/Palestinian peace movement for nearly 20 years, I have had many moments of despair. Today, I face another.

The Hamas victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections does not, to put it mildly, bode well for peace. For more than a decade, Hamas has used human beings as bomb delivery systems in a ghastly effort to impose its ideology on the region. How does one make peace with that?

One suicide bombing in particular stands out in my memory: three young mothers, splattered across a Tel Aviv restaurant not a block from my home, killed for drinking coffee.

I remember, also, the ferocity of Israel's subsequent response.

We Israelis tend to see Palestinian politics as a monolith, expressing varying degrees of one thing: hatred. As such, these election results will be seen by many as validation of their fears, support for the notion that "they" can't be trusted.

Yet, this flies in the face of the well-established fact that a consistent majority of Palestinians say they want to put an end to the conflict. A United States Institute for Peace report compiled by highly respected Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki found that in 2005, 60 percent of Palestinians were opposed to attacks against Israeli civilians; 63 percent said they support the establishment of two, mutually recognized states.

Doubtless the Hamas victory does reveal hatred of Israel, at least for some, but if close to two-thirds of Palestinians both recognize Israel and oppose violence against non-military targets, these elections must surely reflect something other than a clear mandate for Hamas' extremism.

Simply put, for a large number of Palestinians, it reflects anger. Anger not with the occupation, but with their own leadership.

Saddled for too long with a group of leaders who were once revolutionary zealots but in recent years have seemed more interested in maintaining power and filling their bank accounts, the Palestinian people have been getting fed up for a long time.

A survey by Shikaki's Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that poverty and unemployment were the Palestinians' primary concerns as they approached these elections, more so even than the occupation.

Moreover, we Israelis too often seem unwilling to consider the role we have played in creating the hatred so many Palestinians do, indeed, feel. We choose not to see what we have done to their cities; how we have destroyed their infrastructure, police stations to education offices; how we have de-developed their economy; how often little girls and boys have been shot. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak once said that if he lived in a refugee camp, he too would throw stones.

Further, my governments--Israeli and American--have consistently treated the Palestinian leadership and people with contempt. We talk with each other about "granting" concessions; we argue among ourselves about who is a "legitimate" Palestinian leader; Israel grabs more land to expand settlements, and the U.S. turns a blind eye. The moderate Palestinians we claimed to want to see re-elected had virtually nothing to show for their efforts--because we dug in our heels and wouldn't give them a thing.

And yet. And yet, for all that, I am left reeling by the fact that the Palestinians have put in office people openly dedicated to the destruction of my home. It matters almost not at all to anyone that Hamas does not, by any measure, have the means to do what its leaders say--what matters is that they say it.

When Israelis go to the polls this spring, it is now almost certain that we will elect our own hard-line government, and the cycle of madness will continue: death and destruction, bloodshed and hatred, hopelessness and despair.

The simple truth is that we have no choice but to share the land. Eventually, there will be two sovereign states. The question is--has always been--how we will get there: How many people will die horrific deaths, how battered will our economies and cultures be, how far down into hell will we go, before we refuse to go any further. The Palestinians have handed us Hamas. I can give in to my own anger and fear, or I can move ahead with the many Palestinians who would forge with me a measure of hope for the future. I do so with a heavy, frightened heart, but it is all I can do.

Emily L. Hauser is an American-Israeli peace activist and writer. She lives in Oak Park.