|
 government, thus potentially undermining any conciliatory government gesture.
Although Prime Minister Haniya has more popular support, Meshaal controls the militias and the money. If financing (perhaps from moderate Arab states) could be channelled to Haniya's government for social services like salaries, fuel, food, building repairs and so on, then Meshaal's (mostly Iranian) bankroll would be less of a factor, and popular pressure could help rein in Hamas's military wing. Simply trying to starve or destroy Hamas will likely only further radicalise the Palestinian population and fuel global jihad.
Haniya has asked that Americans and Europeans acknowledge that people welcome Hamas's election to power as a genuine exercise in democracy.
If America were to engage with his government, he believes it would be the West's best opportunity to reverse its steep decline in the esteem of Arabs and Muslims everywhere: "We need a dialogue of civilisations, not a clash of civilisations," he told me in his Gaza City office, shortly before
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Simply trying to starve Hamas will only further radicalise the Palestinian population |
|
|
|
an Israeli missile destroyed it.
A June survey by the Pew Center's Global Attitudes Project showed that Muslim opinions about the West worsened over the past year. Many commentators, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, think a "dialogue of civilisations" is urgent.
Khurshid Ahmad, a senator in Pakistan and leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the world's oldest and most important Islamist movements, recently told me that if Hamas were to accept a two-state solution, "with both Palestine and Israel having full economic, political and military sovereignty over their pre-1967 territories, and with Palestinians allowed into Palestine and Jews into Israel, then I would recommend this solution to the entire Muslim world."
Given prevailing stereotypes, this is a remarkable statement by a self-proclaimed "Islamic fundamentalist". As he said, such a solution is key to narrowing the widening gulf between Muslim and Western societies and to marginalising al-Qaeda. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 30, 2006
 The Looming Tower: the book telling how 9/11 nearly didn't happen
Our Middle East fact file
|
