Like all religious movements, Hamas is driven by faith and therefore cannot compromise.

We can hope that he is wrong. His article is titled, "Hamas' win brings new era of uncertainty." Maybe he is really uncertain, or maybe he is afraid to face the truth. He doesn't sound like his is uncertain though.  I do not necessarily agree with Ray Hanania that religious movements never compromise. The Catholic Church compromised with European lay society. It didn't take long. Only about a thousand years. In any case, this religious movement is not built for compromise, certainly not at this time. Their leaders keep making it quite clear, though some deny it. The following is an example of the sort of  statement that is often taken as a harbinger of peace and good will.

"We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist state that was established on our land," Khaled Meshal told the Palestinian newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida, in comments published Friday. "If you [Israel] are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce then we will be ready to negotiate with you over the conditions of such a truce."

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/678109.html

Neither Israel nor any other self-respecting state would be likely to negotiate with anybody under those conditions. Essentially Mashaal is saying, "We want to kill you all, but we are not strong enough now. Give us a few years of peace and quiet so we can get it all together and then we will murder you."

Even the most dovish Israeli and the greatest supporter of the peace process has to admit that we have been had. We were told that the PLO is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and that if the PLO makes peace with Israel there will be peace. PLO legitimacy is recognized by the United Nations. The Palestine National Authority is supposedly the body that would negotiate this peace. Now there is no peace and perhaps there is no PLO to speak of, and the UN resolutions are just bits of worthless paper.

Hamas is basically a Fascist movement as well as a religious movement. The history of compromise of Fascist movements, and of their response to appeasement and indifference, is if anything, worse than the history of compromise of religious movements. The Hamas charter labels the French revolution a product of the machinations of the Freemasons and the international Zionist conspiracy, so we know quite well what they think regarding human rights. Therefore, claims that the world must honor Palestinian "democracy" seem to be somewhat out of place, and hope for human rights in Palestinian society is virtually absent.

The problem with democracy is that it is a fairly accurate reflection of the society on which it is based, on its norms and education system. If, in the Middle Ages, there had been a democratic vote in Europe, people would have voted for the party that promised to burn the most heretics, Jews and witches. We could scarcely call that "democracy."  However, the conception of democracy prevailing in the Middle East in many places is not much different. Before the Hamas catastrophe, I had many discussions with Muslims (and Jews too) who believe that if a country were to vote for a party of religious fanatics who want to establish a Sharia-based Islamic state or a Jewish state based on Halachic law, that would be quite democratic, even if such states trampled freedom of conscience and rights of women and minorities. The Hamas has been in existence since 1988. Through its much praised "charitable" work it has educated a generation of people, and this is in part the result of that education. The Hamas however, reflects elements in Palestinian society that have been in place for a long time. It has its roots in the Ikhwan and the related Muslim Brotherhood.  Its racist extremism is not that different, or perhaps a bit worse, than that of the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, who was responsible in large part for the extremist bent of Palestinian politics after 1936. 

The rise of the Hamas is a watershed. It means the end of the dominance of the PLO-Fateh secular ideology that attracted Western "progressive" thinkers. Palestinian society will be represented to the world by Islamists. Palestinians must recognize that an era has dawned in which they are no longer going to be the darlings of the left. It is also hard to imagine that liberal Christian churches will continue to embrace the Palestinian cause with enthusiasm, when Palestine is run by Islamist religious fanatics who plan to institute Muslim Sharia religious law. This would come, we are promised, only after a referendum. We all know the nature of such referenda. For the tiny embattled Christian minority in Palestine, the victory of Hamas is undoubtedly a debacle. Sharia law will make them dhimmi, second class citizens. In a tolerant interpretation of Sharia, the status of Jews and Christians is reasonable, as it was for much of the Muslim era in Spain. The Hamas, however, are not tolerant.

The "moderate" Hamas campaign platform warned against 'normalization' of relations with Israel. The charter states that negotiations and international conferences are a waste of time. There is therefore not much point hope for compromise with Israel.

There are many who minimize the significance of the Hamas win, and who have illusions about compromise. Make no mistake. For whatever the reason, the Palestinians have made a very bad choice. They knew the principles of the Hamas, which were repeated in somewhat prettified terms in the Hamas campaign platform: Sharia law, no 'normalization' with Israel, no compromise on the "principle" that all of Palestine belongs to the Arab Palestinians.

There do not seem to be good options for dealing with Hamas. There are those who argue that withholding economic aid will cause suffering to the Palestinians and chaos and turn them against the West. They will get money from Iran instead. On the other hand, giving a Hamas government aid is going to help the Hamas succeed, and perpetuate their government. Annexing territory, as Israeli right-wing extremists argue, is not going to help. Why would Israel want a million or more Hamas supporters as citizens? What good could it possibly do to have more settlements like Amona or Izhar, which are security liabilities and hostages to terrorism? On the other hand, unilateral withdrawal raises the now clear and present danger of a Hamas state. It is no longer theoretical, nor is it a bogey-man of the Zionist right. This state would probably be happy, for example, to host Iranian troops on its soil as well as al-Qaeda.

It is all very well to call for renovating the Fateh PLO and rebuilding a secular opposition. However we have to understand that if there was a real support basis for secular and moderate ideology, then if if Fateh was discredited, a different secular and moderate party would have been its competition, not the Hamas. The surveys were wrong about the elections, but every survey should that Palestinians agreed that the religiousness of candidates was very important to the. Too, we have to recognize that these may have been the last democratic elections in Palestinian society. If Iran is the model, the next elections will feature only candidates who are sufficiently "Islamic," if there ever are any next elections.

Thus far, as usual, people of different political opinions have reacted to the rise of the Hamas as expected (for a review of US opinion see   The Week Magazine ).  Some argue that Hamas will be moderated by its experience in government and should be given a chance. Others point out that the same anodynes were offered regarding the German National Socialist Party and its leader when they came to power. The same sort of 'proofs' were trotted out about the moderate aims and statesmanlike conduct of Hitler. What nobody says is that the behavior of the Hamas just might depend on what Israel and the West do. Israel should offer negotiations, but these must be negotiations for peace and acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, and a profound change in Hamas' declared aims and educational system. The West should offer aid, but this aid must come with conditions as well, that protect the rights of Women, of  Palestinian Christians and of Israel, as well as holding out the hope of a Palestinian state, but not a state based on Sharia law. For Israelis, and for Jordanians and Egyptians too, a Hamas state is nightmare. For Palestinians, as Hanania points out, "A Hamas Palestinian State is no state at all."

Of course the Hamas might be brought to compromise, but it will not happen spontaneously. It requires both positive and negative incentives. The most important thing perhaps, is to ensure the continued existence of a modicum of basic freedoms as well as the possibility of fair elections in Palestine. As long as society is relatively free, there is hope that the voters will realize their errors. But the Palestinians will not realize their errors if the Hamas can show them that genocidal slogans and maximalist demands produce rewards in the form of international aid and Israeli concessions.

If the Palestinians suffer, it will be a pity, but they will be suffering because of their own errors. In a democracy people must accept the consequences of their democratic decisions. The Palestinians gave a majority of their votes to a genocidal and anti-democratic party, and that cannot be without consequences for them. With freedom comes responsibility. Nobody can argue that the Palestinians are not under occupation. However, nobody can argue that the Israeli occupation forced the Palestinians to vote for Hamas.

Regarding the Hamas itself, it is clear what it is. There is no uncertainty there, despite the title of Hanania's article. It will certainly be bad. Bad for Palestinians, bad for Israel, bad for peace, bad for democracy.

 Ami Isseroff

Source:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3208471,00.html