Hamas invited to form government
Friday, January 27th, 2006The BBC is reporting that Hamas had been invited to form a government by Mahmoud Abbas. This is all highly ironic.
The Americans spent years while Yasser Arafat was President trying to wrest power away from him and into the hands of the Palestinian parliament, which at the time was weak compared to the powerful president.
They succeeded eventually, and by the time of Arafat’s death the parliament had much greater powers than it had had previously.
However, now the situation is reversed. Mahmoud Abbas is the moderate President which America wants to deal with, and the parliament is controlled by Hamas, whose stated main aim is the destruction of Israel. Maybe America wishes they’d never pushed for the increase in power of the parliament.
America has claimed that the ballot box is a panacea - “give the people a vote and freedom will triumph”. Well, the Palestinians have had their vote, and America doesn’t like the outcome.
How are they going to respond?