Gaza must be saved from Hamas

With the UK and Canada preparing to follow France in recognising a Palestinian state, the Albanese government may believe it has cover to do the same. Such an outcome would not lead to aid flowing or the fighting stopping, and is very bad news for the Palestinian people because it ignores the question that must be answered to secure their safety: Who can govern Gaza as a civil society and not as an armed camp?

French President Emmanuel Macron wants a ceasefire and will recognise a Palestinian state, as will Prime Minister Mark Carney in Canada. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has conditions for a ceasefire; the release of Israeli hostages and ensuring Hamas has no role in a future state. Anthony Albanese appears to be preparing to follow suit, telling Labor MPs a Palestinian state will exist without Hamas.

The leaders are all acting in the context of the appalling circumstances of the people of Gaza and undoubted political pressure at home to do something to end them. But they are looking no further than seeking a reason to make Israel stand down.

And if this happens, who governs Gaza? The choice is catastrophic. Hamas is not a nationalist organisation using war as politics to achieve specific goals. It is a well-equipped crime/terrorist gang, using religious rhetoric to entrench its authority and enrich its leaders at the expense of the people of Gaza.

It won government in Gaza in an election in which the vote was a rejection of the corrupt cronyism of the Fatah faction in Palestinian politics. But that was in 2006 and the people have not been allowed to go to the polls since. Its other aspect is far worse; Hamas is controlled by theocrats with a messianic goal to destroy Israel and create a caliphate.

Anyone wanting to know what Gaza and the West Bank would look like under a Hamas dictatorship should look at Iran. Its venal, violent regime is controlled by clerics and by power blocs that run police and paramilitary forces as profit centres.

The alternative to Hamas is the Palestinian Authority, a diplomatic name for Fatah, which rules the West Bank. But suggesting it “governs” implies a competence in the provision of basic services it lacks. The PA looks (relatively) good only because it is not as resolute as Hamas in its desire to destroy Israel. There have been times down the decades where Fatah and Israel, which was ready to make concessions, could have made peace.

A deal was almost done under US auspices at the Camp David talks in 2000, but Palestinian president Yasser Arafat walked away. What followed was the intifada, a campaign that used suicide bombers to kill innocent people on the streets and in the cafes of Israeli cities. The Palestinian Authority paid pensions to the killers’ families. Today, Fatah still has one message – everything is Israel’s fault.

If the Palestinian people had a functioning democracy other than this appalling pair, a two-state solution would be more than a possibility. Democratic nations rarely go to war against each other, because a majority of voters on both sides will not stand for it. In Israel today there are protests against the condition of Gaza, even though the existential threat to the nation endures. And the people of Gaza did not vote for the war that Hamas has brought on them.

What could bring peace in the Middle East is giving people a chance to vote for people with platforms that consist of more than chanting “death to Israel”. This will take time but, without Hamas, not necessarily that much time. The people of Germany and Japan quickly got the hang of democracy and peace among nations after 1945.

Mr Albanese was optimistic recently in citing Nelson Mandela’s achievements as an example of the way apparently endless and intractable conflicts can end. Mandela enabled South Africa to change, but there is no such figure on the horizon in Palestine. For now, the best chance to make it happen is for well-intentioned Western leaders to abandon naive hopes that Hamas will go quietly and leave the Palestinian people to find a way to peace. This is not the time for a ceasefire; it is the time for Hamas to be forced into unconditional surrender, like the Allies imposed on Germany and Japan.

With the malignancy of Hamas gone, politics that hopefully serves Palestinians will begin to take shape. The leaders are there; they may not know it yet, but they will emerge if Western leaders do not let them down by leaving their Hamas oppressors in place. Rushing into premature recognition of a Palestinian state could prove counter-productive, delaying the emergence of a sustainable, functioning government able to lead its people to develop a country and play a constructive role in the region.