Hamas Election: Respected But Not Respectable

The Wall Street Journal has a great piece on OpinionJournal entitled Friends of Hamas: Democracy must be respected, but that doesn't make the terror group respectable. Though both Russia and Venezuela have agreed to meet with Hamas, and both Spain and France have supported Putin's invitaation to Hamas--all because of Hamas' election victory, nevertheless there is a distinction:

We agree that the results of those elections must be "respected," in the narrow sense that they reflect the outcome of a lawful democratic process. But just because something is respected does not make it respectable: Recall the diplomatic quarantine the European Union slapped on Austria in 2000 when elections there put the proto-fascist Freedom Party in government.

The end result of these and further invitations to meet with Hamas will isolate the US--while the US and Israel are trying to isolate Hamas and deprive it of funds.

Nor is there any shame in doing so: Donors have the right to impose conditions on their beneficiaries, and so far Hamas has rejected international calls that it disarm, forswear terrorism and accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state. As Hamas leader Khalid Mish'al wrote in Britain's Guardian immediately after the election, "We shall never recognize the legitimacy of a Zionist state. . . . We shall not seek friendships at the expense of our legitimate rights."

Palestinians need to understand that the exercise of self-government carries consequences. For too long, the international community has failed to extract a price for the Palestinian recourse to terror. That failure has not brought peace, but far worse it has produced the "Palestine" we have now: destitute, savage against both Israelis and moderate Arabs, and, so far, incapable of managing its internal affairs peacefully and competently. By refusing to render Hamas respectable, the U.S. and Israel aren't punishing the Palestinians. They're educating them.

The problem is that no one cares about such neat distinctions between respected and respectable, or about accountability. Until the West is ready to turn the corner and stop putting up with the threats and intimidation under the cover of good old fashioned Western 'tolerance'--until that point the West will not be of much help to itself, let alone Israel.


Technorati Tag: Israel and Hamas and Putin and Chavez and Palestinians.