More Election Aftermath

The recent election of a Hamas majority in the Palestine elections has been making a lot more press internationally than it has here at home. Both the US and Canada have labelled Hamas a terrorist organisation but they are now a legitimate political authority in one of the least stable political situations in the world. I was concerned when I read this.

I'm not at all an expert on the situation in the middle east or the nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but it occurs to me that bankrupting the Palestinian Authority will encourage more extremism rather than less. With the legitimization of Hamas, and the Defeat of a scandal-prone Fatah party, the international community needs to look long and hard at whether received wisdom and convention has any hope of maintaining stability. I'm convinced a rethinking of the issues surrounding this entrenched conflict is the only hope Palestinians or Iraelis have of finding solutions.

Here in Canada, under Paul Martin, our foreign service had been slowly shifting towards support for Israel. It is widely expected that a Conservative government (particularly one with Stockwell Day as Minister of Foreign Affairs) would morph into a group of staunchly pro-Israel cheerleaders. The ascension of Hamas would provide legitimate justification for such a planned policy shift and would encourage similar shifts throughout the EU. It is possible that the future legitimacy of the Authority is in terrific jeopardy.