I am forwarding to you a fascinating article by a middle east expert and professor at University of San Francisco. I knew a little about this subject, but here is a fascinasting piece of hidden history background to the Gaza crisis. Please spread it around . . .
thanks,
Dickie
Thanks, Dickie for this informative article
Subject: America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
From: John Roberts
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 11:43:00 -0500
Here is documented the role that the US and Israel had in creating and supporting Hamas early on. Just as the US supported Sadam Hussein when he carried water for the US, so Hamas was supported to undermine the secular PLO.
This is as important to read if you want to understand some of the internal politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
John
America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
By Stephen Zunes,
AlterNet
January 3, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/audits/116855/?page=3
No one in the mainstream media or government is willing
to acknowledge America's sordid role interfering in
Palestinian politics.
The United States bears much of the blame for the
ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of
Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and
American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the
territory in the first place.
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian
Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine
Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed
of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist
movements. Beginning in the early 1980s, with generous
funding from the U.S.-backed family dictatorship in
Saudi Arabia, the antecedents of Hamas began to emerge
through the establishment of schools, health care
clinics, social service organizations and other
entities that stressed an ultraconservative
interpretation of Islam, which up to that point had not
been very common among the Palestinian population. The
hope was that if people spent more time praying in
mosques, they would be less prone to enlist in left-
wing nationalist movements challenging the Israeli
occupation.
While supporters of the secular PLO were denied their
own media or right to hold political gatherings, the
Israeli occupation authorities allowed radical Islamic
groups to hold rallies, publish uncensored newspapers
and even have their own radio station. For example, in
the occupied Palestinian city of Gaza in 1981, Israeli
soldiers -- who had shown no hesitation in brutally
suppressing peaceful pro-PLO demonstrations -- stood by
when a group of Islamic extremists attacked and burned
a PLO-affiliated health clinic in Gaza for offering
family-planning services for women.
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya
(Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who had been freed from prison when
Israel conquered the Gaza Strip 20 years earlier.
Israel's priorities in suppressing Palestinian dissent
during this period were revealing: In 1988, Israel
forcibly exiled Palestinian activist Mubarak Awad, a
Christian pacifist who advocated the use of Gandhian-
style resistance to the Israeli occupation and Israeli-
Palestinian peace, while allowing Yassin to circulate
anti-Jewish hate literature and publicly call for the
destruction of Israel by force of arms.
American policy was not much different: Up until 1993,
U.S. officials in the consular office in Jerusalem met
periodically with Hamas leaders, while they were barred
from meeting with anyone from the PLO, including
leading moderates within the coalition. This policy
continued despite the fact that the PLO had renounced
terrorism and unilaterally recognized Israel as far
back as 1988.
One of the early major boosts for Hamas came when the
Israeli government expelled more than 400 Palestinian
Muslims in late 1992. While most of the exiles were
associated with Hamas-affiliated social service
agencies, very few had been accused of any violent
crimes. Since such expulsions are a direct
contravention to international law, the U.N. Security
Council unanimously condemned the action and called for
their immediate return. The incoming Clinton
administration, however, blocked the United Nations
from enforcing its resolution and falsely claimed that
an Israeli offer to eventually allow some of exiles
back constituted a fulfillment of the U.N. mandate. The
result of the Israeli and American actions was that the
exiles became heroes and martyrs, and the credibility
of Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinians grew
enormously -- and so did its political strength.
Still, at the time of the Oslo Agreement between Israel
and the PLO in 1993, polls showed that Hamas had the
support of only 15 percent of the Palestinian
community. Support for Hamas grew, however, as promises
of a viable Palestinian state faded as Israel continued
to expand its colonization drive on the West Bank
without apparent U.S. objections, doubling the amount
of settlers over the next dozen years. The rule of
Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Yassir
Arafat and his cronies proved to be corrupt and inept,
while Hamas leaders were seen to be more honest and in
keeping with the needs of ordinary Palestinians. In
early 2001, Israel cut off all substantive negotiations
with the Palestinians, and a devastating U.S.-backed
Israeli offensive the following year destroyed much of
the Palestinian Authority's infrastructure, making
prospects for peace and statehood even more remote.
Israeli closures and blockades sank the Palestinian
economy into a serious depression, and Hamas-run social
services became all the more important for ordinary
Palestinians.
Seeing how Fatah's 1993 decision to end the armed
struggle and rely on a U.S.-led peace process had
resulted in increased suffering, Hamas' popularity grew
well beyond its hard-line fundamentalist base and its
use of terrorism against Israel -- despite being
immoral, illegal and counterproductive -- seemed to
express the sense of anger and impotence of wide
segments of the Palestinian population. Meanwhile -- in
a policy defended by the Bush administration and
Democratic leaders in Congress -- Israel's use of death
squads resulted in the deaths of Yassin and scores of
other Hamas leaders, turning them into martyrs in the
eyes of many Palestinians and increasing Hamas' support
still further.
Hamas Comes to Power
With the Bush administration insisting that the
Palestinians stage free and fair elections after the
death of Arafat in 2004, Fatah leaders hoped that
coaxing Hamas into the electoral process would help
weaken its more radical elements. Despite U.S.
objections, the Palestinian parliamentary elections
went ahead in January 2006 with Hamas' participation.
They were monitored closely by international observers
and were universally recognized as free and fair. With
reformist and leftist parties divided into a half-dozen
competing slates, Hamas was seen by many Palestinians
disgusted with the status quo as the only viable
alternative to the corrupt Fatah incumbents, and with
Israel refusing to engage in substantive peace
negotiations with Abbas' Fatah-led government, they
figured there was little to lose in electing Hamas. In
addition, factionalism within the ruling party led a
number of districts to have competing Fatah candidates.
As a result, even though Hamas only received 44 percent
of the vote, it captured a majority of parliament and
the right to select the prime minister and form a new
government.
Ironically, the position of prime minister did not
exist under the original constitution of the
Palestinian Authority, but was added in March 2003 at
the insistence of the United States, which desired a
counterweight to President Arafat. As a result, while
the elections allowed Abbas to remain as president, he
was forced to share power with Ismail Haniya, the Hamas
prime minister.
Despite claiming support for free elections, the United
States tried from the outset to undermine the Hamas
government. It was largely due to U.S. pressure that
Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a
national unity government that would include Fatah and
from which some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders
would have presumably been marginalized. The Bush
administration pressured the Canadians, Europeans and
others in the international community to impose stiff
sanctions on the Palestine Authority, although a
limited amount of aid continued to flow to government
offices controlled by Abbas.
Once one of the more-prosperous regions in the Arab
world, decades of Israeli occupation had resulted in
the destruction of much of the indigenous Palestinian
economy, making the Palestinian Authority dependent on
foreign aid to provide basic functions for its people.
The impact of these sanctions, therefore, was
devastating. The Iranian regime rushed in to partially
fulfill the void, providing millions of dollars to run
basic services and giving the Islamic republic -- which
until then had not been allied with Hamas and had not
been a major player in Palestinian politics --
unprecedented leverage.
Meanwhile, record unemployment led angry and hungry
young men to become easy recruits for Hamas militants.
One leading Fatah official noted how, "For many people,
this was the only way to make money." Some Palestinian
police, unpaid by their bankrupt government,
clandestinely joined the Hamas militia as a second job,
creating a dual loyalty.
The demands imposed at the insistence of the Bush
administration and Congress on the Palestinian
Authority in order to lift the sanctions appeared to
have been designed to be rejected and were widely
interpreted as a pretext for punishing the Palestinian
population for voting the wrong way. For example, the
United States demanded that the Hamas-led government
unilaterally recognize the right of the state of Israel
to exist, even though Israel has never recognized the
right of the Palestinians to have a viable state on the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, or anywhere else. Other
demands included an end of attacks on civilians in
Israel while not demanding that Israel likewise end its
attacks on civilian areas in the Gaza Strip. They also
demanded that the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority
accept all previously negotiated agreements, even as
Israel continued to violate key components of the Wye
River Agreement and other negotiated deals with the
Palestinians.
While Hamas honored a unilateral cease-fire regarding
suicide bombings in Israel, border clashes and rocket
attacks into Israel continued. Israel, meanwhile, with
the support of the Bush administration, engaged in
devastating air strikes against crowded urban
neighborhoods, resulting in hundreds of civilian
casualties. Congress also went on record defending the
Israeli assaults -- which were widely condemned in the
international community as excessive and in violation
of international humanitarian law -- as legitimate acts
of self-defense.
A Siege, Not a Withdrawal
The myth perpetuated by both the Bush administration
and congressional leaders of both parties was that
Israel's 2005 dismantling of its illegal settlements in
the Gaza Strip and the withdrawal of military units
that supported them constituted effective freedom for
the Palestinians of the territory. American political
leaders from President George W. Bush to House Speaker
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have repeatedly praised
Israel for its belated compliance with a series of U.N.
Security Council resolutions calling for its withdrawal
of these illegal settlements (despite Israel's ongoing
violations of these same resolutions by maintaining and
expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank and
Golan Heights).
In reality, however, the Gaza Strip has remained
effectively under siege. Even prior to the Hamas
victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in
2006, the Israeli government not only severely
restricted -- as is its right -- entry from the Gaza
Strip into Israel, but also controlled passage through
the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt,
as well. Israel also refused to allow the Palestinians
to open their airport or seaport. This not only led to
periodic shortages of basic necessities imported
through Egypt, but resulted in the widespread wasting
of perishable exports -- such as fruits, vegetables and
cut flowers -- vital to the territory's economy.
Furthermore, Gaza residents were cut off from family
members and compatriots in the West Bank and elsewhere
in what many have referred to as the world's largest
open-air prison.
In retaliation, Hamas and allied militias began
launching rocket attacks into civilian areas of Israel.
Israel responded by bombing, shelling and periodic
incursions in civilian areas in the Gaza Strip, which,
by the time of the 2006 cease-fire, had killed over 200
civilians, including scores of children. Bush
administration officials, echoed by congressional
leaders of both parties, justifiably condemned the
rocket attacks by Hamas-allied units into civilian
areas of Israel (which at that time had resulted in
scores of injuries but only one death), but defended
Israel's far more devastating attacks against civilian
targets in the Gaza Strip. This created a reaction that
strengthened Hamas' support in the territory even more.
The Gaza Strip's population consists primarily of
refugees from Israel's ethnic cleansing of most of
Palestine almost 60 years ago and their descendents,
most of whom have had no gainful employment since
Israel sealed the border from most day laborers in the
late 1980s. Crowded into only 140 square miles and
subjected to extreme violence and poverty, it is not
surprising that many would become susceptible to
extremist politics, such as those of the Islamist Hamas
movement. Nor is it surprising that under such
conditions, people with guns would turn on each other.
Undermining the Unity Government
When factional fighting between armed Fatah and Hamas
groups broke out in early 2007, Saudi officials
negotiated a power-sharing agreement between the two
leading Palestinian political movements. U.S.
officials, however, unsuccessfully encouraged Abbas to
renounce the agreement and dismiss the entire
government. Indeed, ever since the election of a Hamas
parliamentary majority, the Bush administration began
pressuring Fatah to stage a coup and abolish
parliament.
The national unity government put key ministries in the
hands of Fatah members and independent technocrats and
removed some of the more hard-line Hamas leaders and,
while falling well short of Western demands, Hamas did
indicate an unprecedented willingness to engage with
Israel, accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and negotiate a long-term cease-fire with
Israel. For the first time, this could have allowed
Israel and the United States the opportunity to bring
into peace talks a national unity government
representing virtually all the factions and parties
active in Palestinian politics on the basis of the Arab
League peace initiative for a two-state solution and
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. However, both the
Israeli and American governments refused.
Instead, the Bush administration decided to escalate
the conflict by ordering Israel to ship large
quantities or weapons to armed Fatah groups to enable
them to fight Hamas and stage a coup. Israeli military
leaders initially resisted the idea, fearing that much
of these arms would end up in the hands of Hamas, but
-- as Israeli journalist Uri Avnery put it -- "our
government obeyed American orders, as usual.' That
Fatah was being supplied with weapons from Israel while
Hamas was fighting the Israelis led many Palestinians
-- even those who don't share Hamas' extremist ideology
-- to see Fatah as collaborators and Hamas as
liberation fighters. This was a major factor leading
Hamas to launch what it saw as a preventive war or a
countercoup by overrunning the offices of the Fatah
militias in June 2007 and, just as the Israelis feared,
many of these newly supplied weapons have indeed ended
up in the hands of Hamas militants. Hamas has ruled the
Gaza Strip ever since.
The United States also threw its support to Mohammed
Dahlan, the notorious Fatah security chief in Gaza, who
-- despite being labeled by American officials as
"moderate" and "pragmatic" -- oversaw the detention,
torture and execution of Hamas activists and others,
leading to widespread popular outrage against Fatah and
its supporters.
Alvaro de Soto, former U.N. special coordinator for the
Middle East peace process, stated in his confidential
final report leaked to the press a few weeks before the
Hamas takeover that "the Americans clearly encouraged a
confrontation between Fatah and Hamas" and "worked to
isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with
recognition and weaponry." De Soto also recalled how in
the midst of Egyptian efforts to arrange a cease-fire
following a flare-up in factional fighting earlier this
year, a U.S. official told him that "I like this
violence . it means that other Palestinians are
resisting Hamas."
Weakening Palestinian Moderates
For moderate forces to overcome extremist forces, the
moderates must be able to provide their population with
what they most need: in this case, the end of Israel's
siege of the Gaza Strip and its occupation and
colonizing of the remaining Palestinian territories.
However, Israeli policies -- backed by the Bush
administration and Congress -- seem calculated to make
this impossible. The noted Israeli policy analyst
Gershon Baskin observed, in an article in the Jerusalem
Post just prior to Hamas' electoral victory, how
"Israel 's unilateralism and determination not to
negotiate and engage President Mahmoud Abbas and the
Palestinian Authority has strengthened the claims of
Hamas and weakened Abbas and his authority, which was
already severely crippled by . Israeli actions that
demolished the infrastructures of Palestinian Authority
governing bodies and institutions."
Bush and an overwhelming bipartisan majority in
Congress have also thrown their support to the Israeli
government's unilateral disengagement policy that,
while withdrawing Israeli settlements from the Gaza
Strip, has expanded them in the occupied West Bank as
part of an effort to illegally annex large swaths of
Palestinian territory. In addition, neither Congress
nor the Bush administration has pushed the Israelis to
engage in serious peace negotiations with the
Palestinians, which have been suspended for over six
years, despite calls by Abbas and the international
community that they resume. Given that Fatah's emphasis
on negotiations has failed to stop Israel's occupation
and colonization of large parts of the West Bank, it's
not surprising that Hamas' claim that the U.S.-managed
peace process is working against Palestinian interests
has resonance, even among Palestinians who recognize
that terrorism by Hamas' armed wing is both morally
reprehensible and has hurt the nationalist cause.
Following Hamas' armed takeover of Gaza, the highly
respected Israeli journalist Roni Shaked, writing in
the June 15 issue of Yediot Ahronoth, noted that "The
U.S. and Israel had a decisive contribution to this
failure." Despite claims by Israel and the United
States that they wanted to strengthen Abbas, "in
practice, zero was done for this to happen. The
meetings with him turned into an Israeli political
tool, and Olmert's kisses and backslapping turned Abbas
into a collaborator and a source of jokes on the
Palestinian street."
De Soto's report to the U.N. Secretary-General, in
which he referred to Hamas' stance toward Israel as
"abominable," also noted that "Israeli policies seemed
perversely designed to encourage the continued action
by Palestinian militants." Regarding the U.S.-
instigated international sanctions against the
Palestinian Authority, the former Peruvian diplomat
also observed that "the steps taken by the
international community with the presumed purpose of
bringing about a Palestinian entity that will live in
peace with its neighbor Israel have had precisely the
opposite effect."
Some Israeli commentators saw this strategy as
deliberate. Avnery noted, "Our government has worked
for year to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need
to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to
the withdrawal form the occupied territories and the
settlements there." Similarly, M.J. Rosenberg of the
Israel Policy Center observed, "the fact is that
Israeli (and American) right-wingers are rooting for
the Palestinian extremists" since "supplanting ...
Fatah with Islamic fundamentalists would prevent a
situation under which Israel would be forced to
negotiate with moderates.' The problem, Avnery wrote at
that time, is that "now, when it seems that this aim
has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about
the Hamas victory."
Since then, the Israeli strategy has been to increase
the blockade on the Gaza Strip, regardless of the
disastrous humanitarian consequences, and more recently
to launch devastating attacks that have killed hundreds
of people, as many as one-quarter of whom have been
civilians. The Bush administration and leaders of both
parties in Congress have defended Israeli policies on
the grounds that the extremist Hamas governs the
territory.
Yet no one seems willing to acknowledge the role the
United States had in making it possible for Hamas to
come to power in Gaza in the first place.
_____________________
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and chairman
of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San
Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for
Foreign Policy in Focus.
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