The international community employs a double standard in its reaction to Israeli extremism. While the democratically elected Hamas government in Palestine is shunned for its refusal to live up to one set of standards, extremists in the Israeli government are largely tolerated and judged according to another set of standards.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) won 74 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections of January 2006, winning the right to form a government. Although observers universally hailed the election as fair and democratic, the international community refused to recognise and engage with the new government. This treatment of the Hamas-led government by the international community meant it could not translate its election success into any sort of practical policy implementation.
The Middle East Quartet (the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia) issued conditions for recognising the Hamas movement in an attempt to fix what had become an impossible situation. The Quartet pledged to refuse any contact with Hamas unless it recognised Israels right to exist, renounced violence and agreed to abide by all previous agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Hamas rejected these conditions.
There is no doubt that Western countries have strongly supported Israel since its establishment more than 60 years ago. We as Palestinians cannot oppose this. Western countries are free to support any country they wish. However, this support should not cost Palestinians the loss of their rights and lands. It is often forgotten that the UN decision that ultimately founded the state of Israel included a condition that a state for the Palestinian people should also be established.
When the world refuses to recognise organisations like Hamas on the grounds that they do not recognise the state of Israel, it is only fair that the same standards should be applied to Israeli parties and politicians that do not recognise the Palestinian right to a state, or who hold other extremist views. Such a move would include politicians such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman.
In his latest interview with the Washington Post, Israeli Prime Minister-designate and leader of the right wing Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu avoided any mention of a Palestinian state. This omission has been understood by many analysts as a refusal to recognise the right of the Palestinian people to their own state.
Expected to join Netanyahus government is Avigdor Lieberman, who, during the recent war between Israel and Hamas, asserted: "We must continue to fight Hamas just like the United States did with the Japanese in World War II... Then, too, the occupation of the country was unnecessary." (During World War II, a ground invasion of Japan was planned but was not implemented, because the Japanese surrendered to the United States unconditionally following two atomic bomb attacks.)
While the next government of Israel appears to be unwilling to recognise Palestine, the Hamas movement is taking steps in the opposite direction. In an April 2008 statement, the Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said that his organisation would agree to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital.
Although this statement did not explicitly accept Israels right to exist, it was nevertheless seen by many as implicitly accepting an Israeli state as its neighbour. Hamas leaders are also discussing a long-term truce indirectly with Israel. In this way, Hamas is moving toward meeting the stipulations set out by the Quartet in 2006.
Although the international community continues to put pressure on the Palestinians, its response toward Israeli extremism has been muted. The reaction of the international community is unfair, immoral and hypocritical. The time has come for the world to support the Palestinian right to statehood and pressure Israeli extremists to do the same, ending the international double standard.
*Rashid Shahin is a Palestinian writer and journalist based in Bethlehem.
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