Yay for...Hamas?

It's a strange fact of life that politics in the tiny proto-micro-anarcho-state of Palestine should obsess America's public sphere to the degree it does. But with dictatorships in Muslim states using Palestine as an excuse to repress demcocracy, terrorists using the issue to rally recruits to their banner, and Israel entangled in the increasingly scary Iran showdown, Palestine's upcoming election is one of the more important on the face of the Earth. That's why I'm saying...

Go Hamas!

(What? But Hamas are a bunch of bloodthirsty terrorists...they blow up school buses! They don't even recognize Israel! They have ties to Iran! Has Noah gone crazy? Who's he going to support next, Bin Laden? Emperor Palpatine?)

It may sound crazy that I'm hoping Hamas wins the Palestinian elections. But I think I have a pretty good list of reasons. To wit:

1. If Hamas, which is widely recognized as Israel's most prolific and extreme terror group (pace Palestinian Islamic Jihad), wins the election, then the entire world will know that the Palestinian population largely supports terrorism. This will take the wind out of the sails of those who draw a sort of moral equivalence between Palestine and Israel regardless of the actions of either one; when faced with an Israeli government ready to unilaterally uproot Jewish settlements opposite a Palestinian government headed by a terror group, world powers like Europe (and Palestine's backers in the U.S.) will be forced to be more sympathetic to the democratic, U.S.-allied Israel.

2. As many in America's media have also noted, there is a chance that Hamas' status as a legitimate governing political party will cause the group to moderate its approach to Israel, much as Fatah was forced to do during the Oslo days. Already, there are rumors of Hamas inching toward recognition of Israel's right to exist, and most of the terror bombings taking place in Israel these days seem to be planned not by Hamas, but by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Moderation by Hamas would be a step toward ending the seemingly endless Israel-Palestine feud.

3. A Hamas victory might actually be good for the daily lives of Palestinians themselves. Hamas doesn't just blow up Israeli schoolkids, it provides services such as education and health care to ordinary Palestinians (this is probably the main root of the group's popularity). As Gaza descends into anarchy, it's obvious that the Palestinians need a government that can both keep the peace and provide impoverished citizens with the services they desperately need. With Fatah divided and riddled with corrpution, Hamas, with its social-service network and heavily armed militia, might be the only Palestinian group capable of doing those things.

4. Hamas' victory is inevitable anyway. Fatah is dying, with its main leaders either discredited (Abbas) or jailed for life (Barghouti). Hamas, with its grassroots support and religious angle, is the next governing party of Palestine. Better that this inevitable transition happens sooner or later. The sooner Palestine works out its multitude of issues, the sooner it can consolidate itself as a functioning polity and join the community of nations. That would be a boon to the entire Earth.

Thus, Noahpinion supports Hamas for governing party of Palestine. Wow, never thought I'd write those words...


Bonus Reading Guide:

1.Here's a note about how, under the current administration, the U.S. government's attitude toward privacy is converging toward that of China...

2. And here's an extremely excellent article describing how the U.S., which periodically shifts between isolationism and international intervention, is moving toward isolationism once again. The article is by Peter Beinart, my favorite political writer, and he really comes through once again.