plan B

(updated with a p.p.s.)

Over at Slate, Shmuel Rosner raises the complicated issues involved in the West’s strong support for the “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas (support that now comes also from Israel’s Olmert, as I mentioned earlier today) and the concomitant attempt to squash the radical theocratic Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas (which, inconveniently, was democratically elected in January—oops!).

As the dangerous situation in the Palestinian territories unravels, one question stands out: Who are the good guys? The politicians who are now trying to topple a democratically elected government or the people in power who are trying to pursue their ideology—one that they didn’t hide from the voters who freely chose to elect them? And how come all these world leaders are publicly siding with the revolutionaries?

One word. Ready for it? Realism—as in cynicism and in international relations “realism.”

Whatever you think of the Baker-Hamilton report and its shortcomings, it is realism that is making headway this week in the Palestinian territories. Realism—and a healthy dose of cynicism.

So, the Palestinians who oppose Abbas’ moves will be right when they point to this chain of events as the culmination of Western hypocrisy. But those who support him—in Palestine and around the world—will also be right. Sometimes, hypocrisy is the most basic way to recognize reality.

Hypocrisy: get used to it (although, truth be told, if you’re not used to it by now, you’re living on another plane, not in the plugged-in Globally PC world of the early 21st century).

p.s. I would love to believe that this—plan B, wherein we (Western-style progressive/moderates) lay aside talk of democracy and unite against a common foe (Islamofascist reactionaries)—will work. (I have grave doubts; but there’s always hope.)

As pertains to foreign policy: I think we (liberal hawkish neocon fellow-travelers) should not be wedded to ideology; that we should face the fact that conditions on the ground in Iraq were resistant to the fondest and sincerest hopes of the war planners; that democracy is still a goal but further off from realization in Iraq—and the Middle East, where representative government is stymied by tribalism—than we had hoped; that the chaos in the Middle East can only be (if that) managed (we hope), not solved; that regardless of how we handle Iraq, managing the Middle East would be well served by a concerted effort to make big public gestures to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people (in a way that does not threaten Israeli security any more than it is already threatened); that an improvement in the lot of the Palestinian people is long, long overdue and a good in and of itself; and finally: that a visible improvement in the lot of the Palestinian people would be the biggest PR coup in living memory—and that it would force a change on the region.

But I may be daydreaming. Because that is precisely what our enemies are doing their level best to prevent.

p.p.s. For Rosner, Fatah are the “good guys” and Hamas are the “bad guys.”

For Jimmy Carter, the good guys are the Palestinians and the bad guys are the Israelis: that’s so 20th century.