What partner?

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When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went to Washington to seek approval of his unilateral convergence plan he reiterated the claim that there was no Palestinian partner fit for negotiations. The US is buying the story, even promoting it, to provide political and moral cover for the actions of Olmert and his government.

The problem the US has with Hamas is not that the latter -- as we're told -- is a movement that doesn't recognise Israel and fights for the liberation of Palestine. Hamas leaders have voiced a desire for peace and willingness to negotiate, agreeing to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza within the 1967 borders. The problem is that Hamas is unwilling to make yet further concessions that would harm the interests of its people. Hamas has no intention of letting down the people who voted it into power.

In other words, Hamas negotiators wouldn't be easy to pressure or buy off, for they are beholden to their constituency. This is the same situation Israeli negotiators have cited repeatedly in the past; that they couldn't make concessions unless the Israeli public was ready to back them. Hamas, likewise, cannot offer concessions that run counter to the interests and wishes of Palestinians. What the US and Israel prefer is to deal with absolute leaders, persons willing to make decisions and concessions without consulting the people. Once such a person is in power, Israeli negotiators and US powerbrokers simply bully or bribe until their will is accepted.

Democratic governments are bound by their word. They cannot bow to pressure because they're accountable to their constituency. One recent example of this dilemma comes from Pakistan. When the US tried to pressure former (and democratically elected) President Nawaz Sharif to give up nuclear weapons, he said he couldn't, for that was the choice of the people who put him in office. The US responded by backing a military coup against Sharif. Pervez Musharraf, who succeeded Sharif in office, entered an unconditional alliance with the US and offered the Americans concessions that no elected government could have made.

The US is facing a similar dilemma in Iran. The democratically elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is refusing to humour the Americans. And yet the US cannot just dispose of Ahmadinejad in the manner it did with Saddam Hussein. The Iranian leader was freely elected; Saddam wasn't.

The US and Israel are hoping to do to the Palestinians what they've done to the Pakistanis. They are hoping to bring down the democratic Hamas government and replace it with a malleable autocracy. That's why the Americans and Israelis are waging a campaign to starve the Palestinians and break their will. The criminal onslaught on the Palestinians is likely to continue until Hamas is replaced with a supine oligarchy willing to accept Olmert's convergence plan.