In February 2003, Sheik Ahmed Yassin denounced the Bush administration's campaign against Saddam's regime as "a new crusade against the Muslim nation." Yassin called for Muslims worldwide to "strike American interests...everywhere." In early December 2003, Jamal Akkal, 23, a Palestinian Arab living in Windsor, Ontario, confessed to being a trained assassin for Hamas, his assignment to assassinate a high-ranking Israeli official during his visit to North America, to booby-trap cars that belonged to Israeli officials and diplomats and "to kill Jews."

Paradoxically, a coup d'etat by Hamas in the post-Arafat era could represent a major positive turning point in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. Under an Arafat administration (for a host of reasons), Israel is being forced to endure the murder of its citizenry, the destruction of its economy, and the universal condemnation of its actions ranging from building a security fence to its incursions into PA-controlled territory in search of terrorists, arms factories, tunnels and katyusha rocket launchers. But, under an Islamic administration dedicated to the expulsion of all Western influence from the area, there exists the possibility that the Bush administration might signal Israel to end Islamic influence in that area once and for all, especially given the failure of the Road Map and the absence of any other reasonable alternatives.

Paradoxically, a coup d'etat by Hamas in the post-Arafat era could represent a major positive turning point in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

How is this to be achieved? Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a liberal Egyptian intellectual, once wrote: "Wars, bad as they are, break empires, break dictators, and leave the ground clear for new systems to be created." Real war is nasty business, but it has the dramatic effect of breaking new ground for a better future. Many times over, Israel has demonstrated its capability of waging "total war," but it has been prevented from doing so for many reasons, not the least of which is America's fear of what could follow Arafat. If an Islamic regime follows Arafat's demise, real war becomes a distinct possibility.

Marwan Barghouti, the military architect of the current intifada (now in Israeli custody) has stated: "I'm ready to make peace with Israel, but only after we've militarily defeated Israel." In fact, the exact reverse could occur. If Hamas assumes control over the Palestinian Authority, Israel (should America acquiesce) is capable of destroying the Islamic presence totally and completely and, in the process, would "leave the ground clear" (as Ibrahim has noted) for a new infrastructure to take root.

So how does one define "total defeat?" For this, we need to look no further than the American civil war experience. "No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted," General Ulysses S. Grant famously replied to requests for conditions from the trapped Confederate defenders of Fort Donelson in February 1862. Grant's bluntness was later reflected in Lincoln's tough policy toward Lee's troops after their surrender at Appomattox three years later. The result: The Confederacy was forced not simply to admit military defeat, but also to end slavery, to accept any and all terms of defeat without conditions, and to forego their dream of a separate confederacy.

In the case of a Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority, an Israeli onslaught would continue until the Palestinian Arabs recognize that all is lost; that their dream of destroying Israel is futile; and that there is no other alternative but to accept defeat. The history of the 20th century has shown that only overwhelming and absolute military force can achieve the kind of "total victory" to which Ibrahim refers. The world witnessed it with the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. These defeated nations were totally and unconditionally vanquished (both militarily and psychologically). Their regimes and infrastructures were dismantled; their capacity to wage further war was eliminated; fascist militias were hunted down and destroyed and those responsible for igniting the conflict were removed from power, tried, imprisoned and/or executed.

Foreign aid then poured in; human and financial resources were channeled back into social and economic programs and services; educational systems were transformed and modernized; a new judiciary was installed; new laws were promulgated; a new moderate, progressive, and indigenous leadership was installed; and a new system of governance was introduced and nurtured over the following decades -- much like we are attempting to do in post-war Iraq today.

Hamas's ascension to power could thus mark the end of Islamic extremism and the beginning of a new era in the immediate region. It is important to remember that between 1967 and 1993 (that is, in the pre-Oslo period), Israelis enjoyed a high degree of personal security at the same time that Israel created a relatively humane society for Palestinian Arabs, raised their standard of living, improved housing, improved medical facilities, vastly improved education, increased social service, and promoted individual freedom in a way impossible elsewhere in the Arab world.

In the post-Arafat and post-Hamas era, it can do so again.  

Mark Silverberg is executive director of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Outpost               - 4 -               February 2004