Middle East Planning: The Next Step

June 18, 2007 — -- ABC's Dean Reynolds was previously stationed in the Middle East for nine years.

The United States policy, hammered out in accordance with Israel, of isolating the Hamas-led government of the Palestinians has failed in the view of many observers. It is now time, they say, to engage Hamas -- however indirectly -- to deal with the humanitarian issues first, and any hope of a peace settlement second -- if not tenth.

"We have to begin to come to grips with the reality that this is not going to be a problem that is going to go away and it cannot be framed in simplistic terms: terror, not terror. You're with me. You're against me," said former negotiator Sen. George Mitchell.

Hamas is the reality. After routing the security forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, it now controls Gaza totally and is making incremental inroads in the West Bank, where Fatah -- the secular Palestinian movement -- is believed to hold sway.

Ironically, Fatah prevails largely with the help of the Israeli Army, which is still occupying the West Bank and has more than 400 military checkpoints dotting the landscape there.

Because Abbas supports a peace process and acknowledges Israel's right to exist, the last thing he wants to see is a West Bank in support of the fanatical fundamentalists of Hamas who reject the existence of the Jewish State.

But he and the new Palestinian Emergency Government he has just appointed need help. And on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said they are going to get it. "We intend to lift our financial restrictions on the Palestinian government, which has accepted previous agreements with Israel and rejects the path of violence," she told reporters.

But Hamas leaders point out that they won the elections in the territories a year and a half ago and they say the new government is illegitimate. Moreover, it will be very hard to open the financial spigot to the territories without helping Hamas at lest indirectly.

"Hamas is going to be able to show that whatever actually reaches people is what they are responsible for. And what doesn't reach people is what the West and Israel are responsible for," said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Same Old Strategy?

The Americans and Israelis hope that enhancing the new government's stature by allowing it to claim it alone can deliver the goods, will undermine support for Hamas. In addition to more financial aid, the Israelis may curb construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, or they could release Palestinian prisoners -- or both.

But there's a problem. This strategy has been tried before, with varying degrees of commitment and almost no signs of success.

"My sense is that when all the dust settles," Alterman said, "we're going to find ourselves with the same Mahmoud Abbas who has frustrated us for years and the same Mahmoud Abbas who has ultimately frustrated Palestinians for years."

Abbas has named as prime minister, Salam Fayad, whose Third Road party, won about three percent of the vote in the 2006 elections. His selection points up a continuing problem for America.

Successive U.S. governments have found themselves backing weak leaders. From Lebanon to Palestine to Iraq, the elected leaders Washington has supported have ultimately proven unpopular or at least besieged by political and at times military insurgents.

Experts argue that the Bush Administration has confused elections with democracy. They argue that the building blocks of democracy, such as a free and impartial judiciary, women's voting rights, and a civil society must be in place before asking a nation to vote. Without them, you get well organized often anti-democratic anti-Western fanatics.

Asked what kind of options the U.S. has now, one analyst said: "They're all bad."