Palestinian vote jolts the imperialists

U.S. imperialist policy and its plans for the Middle East have been in more disarray and failing at a faster rate with every explosion and guerrilla ambush in Iraq. Now every election in Palestine is adding to the misery in the Bush administration and all its generously funded government think-tanks and pseudo-research institutions full of recycled State Department bureaucrats, retired Pentagon officers and right-wing academics.

For the second time in a six-week period Palestinians have voted in elections that they have run themselves. The results were not what the Bush administration had expected or had wanted them to be.

The elections were conducted much more fairly and efficiently than those held in Florida and Ohio during the U.S. presidential elections of 2000 and 2004. In the U.S., millions of African-Americans, Latin@s, immigrants, youth and a transient working class in general face a gauntlet of local, state and federal laws regarding residency and past experiences with the police, courts and jails that effectively prohibit them from voting.

In Palestine, only Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem—areas occupied in June 1967 by the U.S.-armed and U.S.-financed Zionist settler movement—were allowed to vote. Millions living in areas of Palestine occupied in 1948; in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; and in a diaspora that stretches from Paterson, N.J., to Sydney, Australia, were denied the right to vote through a combination of apartheid-like Zionist election laws and the 1993 U.S.-sponsored Oslo Accords.

Municipal elections were conducted in the West Bank on Dec. 15. On Jan. 25, elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council were held in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The U.S. favored the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, or Fatah, in both elections. Fatah was given millions of dollars, both above ground and under the table, to help fund its campaign. While many in its leadership have been cultivated by the U.S. since the early 1990s and have overtly cooperated with the Pentagon and CIA, rank-and-file members—especially youth—have been militant, heroic and self-sacrificing in confronting the Zionist occupation since the resistance group’s first military operation on Jan. 3, 1965.

The organization has recently split into at least two factions and is in the midst of a serious internal crisis. Marwan Barghouti is the most popular and charismatic leader of Fatah. He has been imprisoned by the Zionists since April 2002.

The big winner in both elections was the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas. It was organized in 1987 by a current in Palestinian society based in the religious community that was not comfortable working in secular political organizations. It has always shown a willingness to adapt to changing circumstances, however.

In the past it refused to take part in any Palestinian election because of its association with Annex 1 of the Oslo Accords. The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of the Zionist colonial enterprise. It also bars negotiating, recognizing or making any compromise with the so-called state of Israel.

Support for the Zionist occupation of Palestine has been a fundamental tenet of U.S. imperialism since the 1930s. Like the resistance in Iraq, the victory of Hamas calls into question the future of U.S. imperialism and its allies in the region.

There are many reasons for the recent electoral successes of Hamas. Palestinian voters were fed up with the rampant corruption and disorganization of the Fatah-led government of the recent period. Fifteen years of negotiations and compromises with the Zionists had not produced any improvement in daily life.

Thousands are jailed. Precious land continues to be ruined or confiscated and turned over to Zionist settlers—many of whom are new arrivals from the U.S. and Russia. The monstrosity of the apartheid wall that cuts through Palestinian towns insults the senses of all who love Palestine.

Hamas has a high level of organizational ability and has established an extensive social service network in Gaza. The distribution of material, educational and medical aid is done with great efficiency. This is what the population demands.

Within hours of the outcome of the election the Bush administration began demanding that Hamas recognize the Israeli settler state and end armed resistance to occupation or else face a cutoff of all aid from the U.S. and European Union. Hamas has refused these demands.

At this time it is most important for all those active in the Palestine solidarity movement, as well as anti-Zionists and peace activists, to maintain and continue their work. U.S. imperialism will try its best to encourage civil war in Palestine. Its allies are already trying to divide the solidarity and peace movements by raising certain contradictions in the religious-based social program of Hamas, as well as historical inaccuracies in its charter.

Imperialism must not be allowed to succeed.