On Condi Rice, General Ripper and the Middle East

U.S. Amnesia in the Middle East

Published 3/14/08 Daily Hampshire Gazette

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s fruitless visit to the Middle East last week
has brought to mind General Ripper from the movie “Doctor Strangelove”. The demented Ripper, you might recall, starts a nuclear war because he is convinced the “Ruskies” have poisoned America’s “purity of essence” by fluoridating its water supply.
And while the film remains a sly allegory for our time, there does seem to be something contaminating America’s essence which causes a kind of political amnesia when it comes to brokering peace in that part of the world.
In her frantic shuttle diplomacy to bring about some kind of settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians which might dilute History’s utter condemnation of her president, Rice has been sidelined by events on the ground in Gaza where the Islamist Hamas trades bombs and casualties with the Israeli Defense Forces.
And that is precisely where amnesia comes in. The latest roadblock in the road map to peace was setup, we seem to have forgotten, not with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the late ‘60s; nor the first nor even the second Intifada in the ‘80s and ‘90s; but in 2006 when Hamas handily won about the freest and fairest elections ever held in that part of the Arab world.
But the crisis which derailed Bush’s hope for “redemption” – and worse, makes it less likely the next administration can broker a real peace – began after the election, we seem to have forgotten, when Israel, the U.S. and even the European Union began a campaign to undermine and delegitimize that impeccably democratic vote. Why? Because Hamas is a “terrorist” organization – meaning it will not give up guns and bombs as a way to fight an occupying power? Because only the US and EU and Israel get to vote for whomever they want and the rest of the world must merely do as it is told?
Again, amnesia as much as hypocrisy seems to be in play.
Don’t we remember that in a tiny corner of Europe there has long been a deadly political battle over rights and territory which seems to be religious war? In Northern Ireland – now blessedly if uneasily at peace for almost 10 years – a “terrorist” group known as the IRA took up both the ballot as well as the bullet in 1981 when a “terrorist” named Bobby Sands won a seat in the British parliament while on hunger strike for POW status. He died, and in 1983 Gerry Adams, the leader of the “terrorist” Sinn Fein won that same seat.
The Protestant Unionists refused to negotiate with the Catholic Terrorists unless the IRA renounced violence and their desire to drive the British into the sea. The IRA refused to surrender its founding principles until irreversible negotiations were underway.
Sound familiar?
But Sinn Fein, with Gerry Adams elected to parliament but refusing to take a seat there, kept standing in mostly local elections and winning. As it did, more and more of its supporters were drawn to a negotiated peace deal, and away from armed struggle. And when that peace was finally made it was between the “extremist” camps of the hard line protestant Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, whose leaders were so-called terrorists. Today these implacable enemies run the government together, while the once favored moderate parties of both camps have virtually ceased to exist. (Which may be why the Palestinian Authority went along with the subversion of Hamas’ victory – the hidebound, corrupt PA may fear the same future.)
But peace would not have happened had those democratic elections which brought the IRA to public office been subverted. Instead the proponents of armed-struggle-forever would’ve prevailed.
What amnesia, what loss of political essence, makes the powers-that-be and the citizenry overlook such a successful formula for peace in Palestine? Is it that the Northern Irish are white Christians and the Palestinians are Arab Muslims?
The Palestinians knew perfectly well what they were doing when they voted for Hamas. As did the Catholics of West Belfast when they voted for the IRA. As the latter’s vote was honored, so must the former’s be. All democratically cast ballots are equally sacred, or democracy is just another word for flim-flam.
What peace in the long, sectarian war in Northern Ireland reminds us is that you do not insist an armed group with a legitimate grievance give up its guns and grievances before real peace is offered. Rather, you draw it further and further into elected politics so that, as happened in Northern Ireland, the moderates in the extremist camp can show results from the democratic process. But you certainly don’t teach it that it is a waste of time to engage in democratic politics. And the real extremists in Hamas are trying to make precisely that case – having tried the ballot and been overthrown, there is a rational argument to be made that nothing is left but the bullet and the bomb.
The tangled obstacles now thwarting Rice’s frantic efforts can only be removed by restoring those election results and pledging to let whomsoever the Palestinians choose as their leaders, lead the way to negotiations between enemies. Rice and Bush will not do that, the next Administration must.
Only that will restore the peace process’ purity of essence.