However, during the registration drive it was Hamas rather than Fateh that supported the process by shepherding its supporters out to the centres. Hamas has already said that it would participate in municipal elections slated for December, and has hinted that under the right circumstances it might put forward candidates for legislative seats. However, at the moment, the Palestinian Authority’s current leadership has done little more than issue a vague promise for parliamentary elections in the first half of 2005.
Unfortunately, other than funding the cec’s voter registration program, the international community has done next to nothing to build Palestinian democracy. The Palestinians themselves are skeptical about the prospects for democratic renewal. The quasi-state that Arafat built fits the model of corrupt and autocratic regimes typical throughout the Arab world. Paradoxically, if there is an element of pluralism in Palestinian politics, it can be put down to the strength of the violent militias, including Hamas.
Yet a closer look suggests that Palestinians may be the Arab world’s best democratic bet. The leading Palestinian expert on public opinion, Khalil Shikaki, states that by a wide margin Palestinians have told pollsters they preferred the Israeli or the American system as a model for a sovereign Palestinian state. Unlike other Arabs, Palestinians have watched democracy work at close quarters, and though their own media are closely controlled, they have access to the boisterous and argumentative Israeli press.
In focus groups conducted by ndi earlier this year, even Hamas supporters advocated a multi-party legislature. Very few said they favoured a clerically dominated government in the style of the Ayatollahs’ Iran, perhaps because they understand that their movement, even today, is very much in a minority among Palestinians. Most Hamas supporters said they were drawn to the faction’s incorruptibility and its commitment to resisting Israeli occupation, not to its religious or political vision.
The alternative facing Palestinians (and the world) in the post-Arafat era is not between men of peace and men with guns. No leadership that has stood aloof from what Palestinians call “resistance” to Israeli occupation will have much legitimacy to rule, or, for that matter, to strike a deal with Israel. The only real choice is between a new leadership that wins by force of arms, and one that wins, with international support, at the ballot box. Anyone who still nurtures hope for eventual peace between Israel and Palestine will pray for the latter.
