Banning Islamist politicians is not the answer

Israel has learnt nothing from the Arab Spring. This week, its army commander, Avi Mizrahi, issued a military order classifying the Islamist Change and Reform bloc as an illegal and proscribed organisation. The order was based on the Defence (Emergency) Regulations which were first promulgated in mandatory Palestine by the British authorities in 1945. Mizrahi should know that across the Middle East, despots have enacted similar laws to suppress fundamental rights and freedoms; nowhere have they been successful.

In the short term, these extraordinary measures will give some gratification to the Israeli occupation in Palestine. Ultimately, they will be just as ineffective, as the success of the Tunisian and Egyptian Islamist parties demonstrated.

Hamas parliamentarians in the West Bank are now bracing themselves for a campaign of arrests. The last general round-up of this kind took place immediately after the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, in June 2006, while he was on active service against the Palestinians of Gaza. At the time, 56 Hamas parliamentarians were taken into so-called administrative detention; today, 22 remain captive in Israeli jails, held without charge or trial.
Not even the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council has parliamentary immunity from arbitrary arrest. Dr Aziz Dweik, 62, has been imprisoned on three separate occasions since his party won the general election in 2006. The third period behind bars lasted six months and has just ended.

By issuing this new military order the Israeli occupation is clearly attempting to lay down new ground rules for dealing with Hamas politicians in the occupied West Bank. The purpose was outlined in an article written by the former deputy defence minister, Ephraim Sneh, under the heading, “How to stop Hamas” (Ha’aretz, 13 July). In so many ways he reflected the current thinking within the establishment when he wrote, “The most urgent and important mission for Israel at this time is preventing a Hamas takeover of the West Bank”.

Whatever its weaknesses, Sneh emphasised the need to ensure the effective functioning of the Palestinian government led by Salam Fayyad; and the creation of conditions for the total failure of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip.

While that may be the underlying political motive, the military order was also informed by a certain practical need. Since Israel can neither morally nor legally justify the indefinite incarceration of elected officials under the administrative detention laws, this new order offers it a framework for “legal” sentences that will silence the Islamist opposition to Fayyad’s pro-Western administration and exclude Hamas from the political arena.

Not surprisingly, there have been mixed reactions among Palestinians to the Israeli decree. Hamas politicians and a number of human rights organisations have roundly condemned it. They maintain that because it was issued by an illegal occupation it has no validity and should be neither observed nor respected. A statement from Hamas called on all factions to resist the order and take immediate steps to activate the parliament as an appropriate response. They also urged parliamentarians from the region and beyond to condemn and oppose the measure.

That’s all well and good, but while the validity of the new order remains questionable in theory, there is no doubt that in practice it allows for summary military trials and long prison sentences.

Moreover, Israel’s latest military order appears to complement this week’s announcement by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority of its intention to conduct local elections across the occupied West Bank. Indeed, the synchronised roles of Tel Aviv and Ramallah were revealed on Wednesday when the PA arrested and detained the Director of the Office of the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

If nothing else, these developments confirm two things. One, that Israel and its client entity in Ramallah will leave no stone unturned to obstruct the workings of the democratically elected parliament. The second observation, which is even more important, is that they are both committed to eliminate any political force that is capable of championing the rights of the Palestinian people. In effect, there must be no space for a credible opposition to the Judaisation of Jerusalem, expansion of settlements, desecration of religious sites, settler violence, house demolitions and uprooting of olive trees. On the whole, any and all popular opposition to Israel’s brutal military occupation must be suppressed.

From the outside, the West Bank may seem quiet, but this may well be the calm before the storm. The Ramallah authority is so financially bankrupt that it only managed to pay civil servants 60 per cent of their salaries last month, prompting Fayyad to cry that his administration is being “marginalised”.

As it stands, the objective conditions that existed in other parts of the Middle East and which led to the uprisings now exist in Palestine. Earlier this month, protesters in Ramallah forced the former Israeli defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, to cancel a planned meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in the city. The signs are not good for Abbas.

The message to the Palestinian people from the Israelis and Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, therefore, is that they will not be allowed, under any circumstances, to vote for an Islamist government in future. This tells us all we need to know about Israel’s democratic credentials and, indeed, for those of Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel and its backers haven’t learnt from their past mistakes. When Gaza was declared a “hostile entity” in 2007 and placed under a crippling blockade the Islamic resistance grew stronger. The same will happen in the occupied West Bank, because when a people decide they’ve had enough of bondage, nothing will stop their march towards freedom.