The Post-Gaza Political Battle

BEIRUT -- The distressed state of the Arab world was on full display last week on two fronts: The massive Arab emotional reaction against Israel's ferocious attack on Gaza, and the slightly ridiculous holding of three separate Arab summit meetings -- with not a single practical result expected from any of them. The deeper reality that plagues the Arab world is that the average Arab citizen faces an unsatisfying choice between a brand of Islamist-nationalist military resistance that triggers enormous Israeli attacks and Arab death and destruction, and a brand of Arab autocratic governance that breeds mediocrity, corruption and perpetual vulnerability and dependence.

The choice is stark: Hamas or Fateh in Palestine; Hizbullah or Hariri in Lebanon; Mubarak & Son or Muslim Brothers in Egypt -- and the list continues through every Arab country. The slow gravitation and polarization of the modern Arab state system over the past three generations into two broad camps of status quo conservatives and resistance fighters is more apparent than ever, and equally frustrating. 

The powerful Islamist-nationalist resistance and social-political movements that have come into being in recent decades are first and foremost a response to the poor performance and low credibility of the power elite that has dominated the modern Arab world. Movements like Hamas and Hizbullah have gained additional strength and legitimacy from fighting the Israeli occupation, which the established Arab power structure has not done very well in most cases, despite half a dozen wars since 1948.

"Resistance" rings powerfully in the ears of ordinary Arab men and women, as we can witness on television screens throughout the region these days. Resistance will continue as long as oppression and occupation persist. But perpetual resistance means constant warfare and repeated Israeli destruction of Lebanese and Palestinian society, given Israel's superiority in conventional weapons and its barbaric willingness to inflict severe pain on civilian populations. The world's powers largely turn a blind eye to, or tacitly support, Israel's savagery against Palestinians and Lebanese, as we witnessed in 2006 and today. Europe and the United States actually joined Israel in its long-term material blockade and political strangulation of Gaza after Hamas' electoral victory in 2006.

The dominant political culture of the ruling Arab elites is totally frozen in the face of Israeli power and brutality, unable to either confront or embrace Israel, or confront or embrace the Arab Islamists. The epitome of Arab incoherence has been on display these weeks in the inability even to agree to a meeting of Arab heads of state on the Gaza predicament that resonates so deeply in Arab hearts and minds.

What should we make of Arab regimes and ruling elites that are unable to confront Israel, unwilling to challenge the United States, and unanxious to show support for Hamas and Hizbullah-style Islamist resistance movements? As long as they remain totally frozen like this, they will continue to find themselves slowly being challenged by a combination of non-state actors that grow into parallel states.

Hamas' resistance to Israel today, like Hizbullah's ability to fire rockets and fight Israeli ground troops for 34 days in 2006, is emotionally powerful and politically significant. But it is not a viable long-term recipe for statecraft, nationhood or political governance. The will and capacity to resist foreign occupation ideally generate respect from the enemy, which triggers a shift into a search for political solutions for the conflicts that gave rise to the need for resistance in the first place.

The current ceasefire in Gaza is to meet the key needs of both sides, ending the immediate causes of the fighting. Hamas has stopped firing mini-rockets into southern Israel, and Israel has stopped killing Palestinians and strangulating them economically. Now what? 

If both sides feel victorious in their own eyes, as seems likely, we will see the region return to the trend it has witnessed for several decades: Ordinary Arab men and women will find themselves before the unsatisfying choice of supporting militant Islamist resistance movements or sclerotic and largely incompetent regimes such as those in Egypt and the West Bank. No viable middle ground can emerge between the intemperate appeal and power of both the resistance and the reactionaries.

Hamas emerges from the Gaza war with heightened political support in the short run, but faces calls for a shift towards political struggle so that the people of Gaza do not again suffer such massive pain, death and destruction. Hamas will reply that only its willingness to fight Israel and suffer attacks forced Israel to lift its siege, and the same attitude will prod Israel to negotiate seriously one day. Multitudes will cheer both positions.

The post-Gaza political battle to come in the Arab world will be far more complex and far-reaching than the military attacks that Gaza has witnessed in the past three weeks.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.