Hamas & Democracy in the Middle East

One of the issues central to the debate over the war on terror is whether the Middle East is ready for and/or capable of democratic governance. Elements who believe, for whatever reason, the region is culturally inhospitable to democracy, on both the right and left, point to Hamas’ success in recent parliamentary elections within the Palestinian territories as evidence of the tenet that democracy is not the ultimate solution there; it is unpredictable and dangerous in a region permeated with discontent and radicalism and, ergo, may produce leaders openly hostile towards the United States and western democracies.

I reject this conclusion. It is true the Middle East is ripe with discontent and radicalism. But this is why democracy promotion should be America’s policy in the Middle East, not why we should avoid it. Hamas’ success in the Palestinian elections demonstrates only that elections alone do not a democracy make. A democracy is a nation-state with an educated citizenry, one properly disposed to defend their rights and freedoms and to secure the well-being of themselves, their children, their neighbors, and their posterity. It also has certain hallmarks and institutions, which I will enumerate later. Elections are simply a function of a legitimate democracy; a sign, but not proof, that one exists.

Immediately following Yasser Arafat’s death in December ‘04 I and many others believed the years of indoctrination he instigated and sponsored within the Palestinian territories would prevent the Palestinians from forming a legitimate democracy in the foreseeable future. Under Arafat textbooks taught anti-Semitic/anti-Israel propaganda to Palestinian children, dissent was stifled, legitimate news and information was prevented from being disseminated. The Palestinians had been so conditioned to point the blame for their poverty and misery on Israel—not on Arafat’s authoritarian rule, where it belonged—and to support terror as a viable political tool that reversing this mind-set would and will take years.

Hamas’ popularly-endowed majority is no surprise, for it reflects the undemocratic society that Arafat so carefully contrived. With an atmosphere such as this popular elections will always produce men and leaders antithetical to American and other western democracies’ interests.

Democracy, legitimate democracy, is the only solution to this. Fostering the rise of democratic societies in the Middle East will curtail the atmosphere that prompts the democratic ascension of individuals and factions such as Hamas to power. It will also re-cultivate the soil which terrorism finds so fertile. Tyranny fosters poverty and discontent, which in turn fosters radicalism and terrorism. To eradicate radical Islamic terrorism it’s root cause, the fires of tyranny, will have to be extinguished, replaced by a new fire capable of consuming an entire country and region once lit. The birth of democracy within Iraq and it’s effects on it’s neighbors in the Middle East affirm this.

If elections in the greater Middle East are ever to be more than the popular expression of undemocratic societies a democratic culture and a free and open society have to be developed. An open and free flow of information must be allowed. Democratic dissidents must be empowered. Meaningful political discourse must transpire. Tyrants and despots must be de-legitimized and weakened. A free press, an independent judiciary, religious freedom, etc., will have to be established. Then, and only then, will popular elections bear desirable fruit.

Democracy can work in the Middle East, and it must work if the region is ever to cease breeding radical Islamic terrorism. Given the chance and the support it will work, and is working. However, as the Palestinian elections exhibit, popular elections will only reflect a legitimate democracy if the institutions and traits defining one already exist.