{"id":311,"date":"2007-06-22T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2007-06-22T20:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=311"},"modified":"2007-06-22T16:39:01","modified_gmt":"2007-06-22T20:39:01","slug":"who-let-hamas-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"Who Let Hamas Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>Prof Cutler<\/title><strong>Prof Cutler&#8217;s Blog will return on July 9th.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As I depart, the news on my mind involves US policy toward Hamas and the  Muslim Brotherhood<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=308\">recent post<\/a>, I  argued that Right Zionists would shed no tears for the collapse of Fatah in  Gaza, but I also suggested that they had no political &#8220;vision&#8221; for post-Fatah  Gaza; only a military &#8220;vision&#8221; of an endless siege.<\/p>\n<p>Such a siege had <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/misc\/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=topNews&#038;storyID=2007-06-20T162306Z_01_L20824672_RTRUKOC_0_US-PALESTINIANS.xml\"> already begun<\/a> by Wednesday, June 20, 2007.<\/p>\n<p>But that same day, two news items appeared that caught me be surprise because  they seemed to suggest that someone&#8211;but <em>who?<\/em>&#8211;actually did have a  &#8220;vision&#8221; for Gaza under Hamas.<\/p>\n<p>The first item was the simultaneous<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/06\/20\/opinion\/20yousef.html?_r=1&#038;oref=slogin\"> New York Times<\/a><\/em> and <em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/06\/19\/AR2007061901736_pf.html\">Washington Post<\/a><\/em> Op-Eds  by Ahmed Yousef arguing for engagement with Hamas.<\/p>\n<p>There are few surprises in the texts.\u00c2\u00a0 The surprise was the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/topNews\/idUSN2248322920070622?sp=true\"> simultaneous, dual  publication<\/a>, especially in the context of the second news item, a story by Eli  Lake in the Right Zionist <em>New York Sun<\/em>, entitled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nysun.com\/pf.php?id=56899&#038;v=7265252811\">Bush  Weighs Reaching Out To \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBrothers.&#8217;<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Bush administration is quietly weighing the prospect of reaching out  \tto the party that founded modern political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n<p>Still in its early stages and below the radar, the current American  \tdeliberations and diplomacy with the organization, known in Arabic as Ikhwan,  \ttake on new significance in light of Hamas&#8217;s successful coup in Gaza last  \tweek. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is widely reported to have helped  \tcreate Hamas in 1982.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Lake&#8217;s story echoes an earlier <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/18109236\/site\/newsweek\/\"><em>Newsweek<\/em>  report<\/a> by Michael Isikoff And Mark Hosenball.<\/p>\n<p>Set aside, for the moment, the <em>likelihood<\/em> of such an overture to Hamas  in Gaza and and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>Who would promote such an idea within the Bush administration?<\/p>\n<p>More to the point, if Right Zionists shed no tears for the collapse of Fatah  in Gaza, would they embrace Hamas, the enemy of their enemy?<\/p>\n<p>And doesn&#8217;t this question, in turn, demand a re-examination of the play of  forces within the Bush administration behind the January 2006 Palestinian  Legislative Council election that brought Hamas to power within the Palestinian  Authority?<\/p>\n<p>Most of those promoting the idea of engaging Hamas are hardly Right Zionists.<\/p>\n<p>These include figures like Robert Leiken of the Nixon Center and co-author of  the <em>Foreign Affairs <\/em>essay, &#8220;The Moderate Muslim Brotherhood&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfr.org\/publication\/10567\/siegman.html\">Henry Siegman<\/a>  of the Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n<p>Figures like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hudson.org\/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&#038;id=4864\"> Zeyno Baran<\/a>, much <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eppc.org\/programs\/islam\/conferences\/eventID.27,programID.36\/conf_detail.asp\"> closer to the Right Zionist world<\/a>, tend to be critical of Leiken and Co.<\/p>\n<p>But there is one figure who <em>is<\/em> <em>very close<\/em> to the Right Zionist  &#8220;family&#8221; who supported the January 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council  elections that ultimately brought Hamas to power.<\/p>\n<p>That figure is <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=227\">Reuel  Marc Gerecht<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Here is Gerecht <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/transcript\/transcript.php?storyId=5176545\"> on NPR, January 28, 2006<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>ELLIOT: Mr. Gerecht, you&#8217;ve actually said that it&#8217;s a good think that  \tHamas came into power this week. Can you explain?<\/p>\n<p>Mr. GERECHT: Yeah, I think it was, the result of that is, one, it was easily  \texpected and two, you should not be discouraged by it. With Fatah in power  \tyou&#8217;re going to have no evolution. You&#8217;re going to have the continued  \tradicalization of the Palestinian society. With Hamas now being the  \tprincipal political party in the Palestinian territories, you actually have  \tthe chance for internal evolution. The issue is not the peace process. The  \tissue is whether Palestinian politics, Palestinian ethics, start to  \tevolve&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I think they will. But I think we have to expect&#8211;and there were some in the  \tBush administration who I think were na\u00c3\u00afve about this, that democratization  \tmoves forward in the Muslim Middle East it is going to increase  \tanti-Americanism. That&#8217;s fine. That is part of the healing process. That&#8217;s  \tpart of the evolution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And here is Gerecht at <a href=\"http:\/\/pewforum.org\/events\/index.php?EventID=87\">a Pew Forum event<\/a>  from all the way back in May 2005:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There are going to be problems with this evolution to a more democratic  \tsociety. And again, I think this could happen a lot quicker than people  \trealize. One of the things we&#8217;re going to have to realize that&#8217;s going to  \thappen is that anti-Americanism is probably going to skyrocket. <strong>If you  \tthink anti-Americanism now is at a high watermark, just wait. When democracy  \ttakes hold, it&#8217;s just going to rip. So is anti-Zionism, so is anti-Semitism<\/strong>.  \tAll of these things for a variety of different reasons are going to  \taccelerate. Don&#8217;t panic. It&#8217;s actually good. It&#8217;s the fever that will break  \tthe disease. You have to let it go.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is something like the Zen of Right Zionism, I suppose.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of skeptics.\u00c2\u00a0 David Brooks, for example, responded to  Gerecht in a July 2006<em> New York Times <\/em>column entitled, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/select.nytimes.com\/2006\/07\/20\/opinion\/20brooks.html?hp\">The  Fever is Winning<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What remains totally unclear is whether or not Cheney has caught the fever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prof CutlerProf Cutler&#8217;s Blog will return on July 9th. As I depart, the news on my mind involves US policy toward Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood In a recent post, I argued that Right Zionists would shed no tears for the collapse of Fatah in Gaza, but I also suggested that they had no political [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,31,10,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}