On 1/16/07, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Yoshie wrote:
> On 1/16/07, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Fatah - or rather, the PLO, which it dominates - still represents the
>> Palestinian left, such as it is, against Hamas and the rest of the
>> Islamist
>> movement, which was set up in opposition to it.
>
> So, that means Tel Aviv and Washington are supporting the left against
> Hamas, in your view? I very much doubt that's the way the
> Palestinians see it.
===============================
Depends which Palestinians, I suppose. The ones who would like to see more
Western investment, an end to the state of war with Israel, a Western-style
judiciary and political system, and who look to European social democrats as
political allies would still see Fatah as representing their aspirations -
even while acknowledging that that the party is corrupt and badly in need of
reform - and of being to the "left" of Hamas. There's probably a sizeable
Palestinian constituency of this sort, which extends beyond the nascent
bourgeosie, as there was in the USSR and Eastern Europe, which harbours the
same illusions about the benefits of being a "normal" society in the Western
orbit. The more devout Moslems who support Hamas because of its Islamic
ideology would also agree that Fatah is on the political "left", with all of
the negative connotations whichthat implies for them, including that its
supporters are being seduced by the material comfort and decadent culture of
the West.
But have you found any actually-existing Palestinian, pro-Western or
anti-Western, secular or religious, who speaks of Fatah as the left
and Hamas as the right (or whatever)? The idea of Fatah = the left
seems to me to be your own creation.
But I don't know if the Palestinians are still as ideological as they once
were.
Terms such as left and right matter probably only to people who still
belong to such currents as the PFLP and the Palestinian People's
Party, but they don't speak of Fatah as the left.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that many are politically worn out
and distinguish between Hamas and Fatah less in relation to their political
programs than in their potential to relieve the desperate living conditions
in the occupied territories.
The problem that most Palestinians think of as most urgent is the
Israeli occupation, and the distinctions among political forces they
make are probably based, first and foremost, on different relations
they have to the Israeli occupation.
If despair and exhaustion have overtaken
struggle and steadfastness as the predominant political mood, then Fatah
will have an advantage, even if the West supports it - and perhaps even
because the West supports it. I don't know how reliable it is, but Ulhas on
the LBO list today posted a Reuters report of a survey of Palestinian
opinion showing that Fatah would decisively defeat Hamas if new elections
were held, as Abbas is threatening to do. The punishing sanctions will have
then accomplished what they were designed to do.
If they vote against Hamas and for Fatah, they will do so for the same
reason that the Nicaraguans voted against the Sandinistas and for
Violeta Chamorro and UNO in 1990. That doesn't make Fatah the left in
Palestine any more than it did Chamorro and UNO the left in Nicaragua.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
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