Where is this going?

Are America and the Quartet prepared for the consequences of the humanitarian disaster in the occupied territories, or will they back down and honour the results of democracy, asks Khaled Amayreh

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Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Ismail Haniyeh meet in Gaza

Clashes that claimed the lives of three young men in Gaza this week are an expression of growing nervousness in the Palestinian street. Many observers fear that the situation may sooner rather than later degenerate further, possibly into a wider conflagration affecting neighbouring countries, including Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and even Egypt.

"A starving person is a desperate and angry person. His behaviour is unpredictable; he loses mental equanimity and can be very dangerous," Palestinian Finance Minister Omar Abdul-Razeq warned this week. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Abdul-Razeq warned that, "the entire region will catch fire if the Palestinian people are pushed to a situation where they have nothing to lose."

Abdul-Razeq is not a prophet of doom and gloom. He knows well what he is saying. "I assure you," he said, in grave tone, "we won't suffer alone; everyone -- yes everyone -- will suffer as well."

This week, a previously unknown group calling itself the "Mujahideen of Al-Qaeda" (Holy Warriors of Al-Qaeda) declared it was creating a "presence" in Palestine. It is difficult at this time to ascertain the credibility of the declaration as most Palestinians, probably an overwhelming majority, are not enthusiastic about Al-Qaeda's ideology and openly deplore its bloody tactics, which they view as incompatible with Islam.

Regardless, desperation has its own rules, and the circumstances that pushed many young Palestinians to carry out suicide bombing attacks in the streets of Israeli cities in reaction to Israel's gratuitous slaughter of Palestinian civilians might very well prompt others to join ranks with Al-Qaeda.

This is more than just a theoretical issue. Accumulated indignation among ordinary Palestinians at the Western policy of narrowing their horizons, in connivance with Israel, is reaching unprecedented levels. In the face of collective punishment, can any have faith in Western democracy?

In Hebron, the largest town in the West Bank, members of the Islamic Liberation Party (ILP) have taken advantage of American and Western efforts to undercut the democratically elected Hamas-led government to tell the people that, "democracy is a Western lie."

"We told you so, we told you that democracy is a big lie and that the West would accept democracy only if and when it suits its interests and serves its goals," said an ILP leader before thousands of worshipers at a local mosque. "It would be foolish to evoke this Western lie called democracy. I thank God Almighty for exposing this big lie to the Muslim masses who thought the West would accept the outcome of democracy in the Muslim world."

Such talk, coming mainly from rival Islamists, actually puts moderate Islamists who believe in democracy on the defensive and vindicates the position of hardliners within Hamas who advocate unrelenting and open-ended resistance and armed struggle against Israel.

In its nearly hysterical fixation on Hamas, matched by indiscrete efforts to topple its government, the Bush administration hopes the current financial and humanitarian blockade of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will prompt Palestinians to turn against the resistance movement. Thus, American and Israeli officials reacted gleefully to public protests, organised mainly by Fatah activists and which took place in Hebron and Nablus, demanding payment of due salaries.

The Israeli media featured these protests prominently, expressing hope that they would herald an all-out revolt against Hamas and its government. On the contrary, however, the bulk of Palestinians, including large sections of Fatah's supporters and sympathisers, are blaming Israel and the US, not Hamas, for the present predicament.

Even the likes of Saeb Erekat, stalwart of the Fatah movement, believe the real motive behind the American-led and Israeli-enforced siege on the Palestinians is tactical and strategic and has little to do with Hamas's refusal to recognise Israel.

"The International community knows very well that we are under a foreign military occupation, that we don't have a real economy, that we don't have a treasury, that we don't have an authority... [that] we are merely prisoners in our homeland," Erekat told the Weekly. "Yet the world is ganging up on the democratically elected government and nearly completely forgetting the Israeli factor," he added.

The Palestinians, including the Hamas-led government and the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, are not surrendering. Hamas and the PA are planning to open crucial national unity talks 22 May, to reach a collective vision on how to overcome the current crisis.

Several proposals have been made in this regard, including forming a national Fatah-Hamas coalition government; at any rate a government in which Hamas's representation is less conspicuous. In light of past experience, however, it is difficult to see a Fatah-Hamas partnership emerging, especially given that a number of influential Fatah leaders, such as Nabil Amr, are engaged in an aggressive drive to overthrow the Hamas-led government by hook or by crook. Some elements within Fatah propose dissolving parliament and holding fresh elections in the hope that Palestinians elect Fatah, not Hamas.

Meanwhile, Palestinians are awaiting the outcome of the Quartet's meeting in New York Tuesday, which was slated to discuss several proposals to deal with the accelerating humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the crippling American- Israeli-European blockade.

In its meeting, the Quartet (the US, EU, Russia and UN) will listen to testimonies on the present humanitarian catastrophe; one from the World Bank and the other from Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA.

The World Bank issued a grim report Monday, stating that the Palestinian economic crisis was more alarming than earlier projected, and that it was liable to provoke an increase in violence and perhaps precipitate the collapse of the PA. "2006 is shaping to be the worst year in the West Bank and Gaza's dismal recent economic history," the report said.

Similarly, Abbas sent the Quartet an SOS letter carrying the following message: "If you don't lift the siege, disaster will be inevitable."

Abbas is right. The important question is whether the US is willing run the gauntlet of such a disaster, and its inevitable consequences, or moderate its vindictiveness vis-à-vis Hamas and open channels of dialogue with what is, after all, a democratically elected movement in government.