I heard an interview with a Palestinian on the Bush administration's halting non-humanitarian aid pending further review. The Palestinian felt that the Bush administration was being hypocritical by encouraging democracy in the middle east, but then not liking its result. His comment kept me thinking most of the way into work, I'm really quite torn on the issue. I understand the guys stance to a degree. The west wants democracy, Palestine has democratic elections and then we refuse existing aid because we don't like who the Palestinians' picked as leader. However, this seems to be an oversimplification. Yes it is wonderful that Palestine had free and democratic elections, but isn't that the point? It's not as though the Bush administration made a shock move by stopping the aid, it's part of US law not to fund terrorist groups. The Palestinian people should have, and if they didn't could have, known this and factored it into their decision. This could be thought of as a form of bribing the voters, but if Hamas is who the Palestinians think will lead them to prosperity then they must factor in that Hamas will be doing it without much foreign aid.
I feel an analogy can be drawn with the private sector funding research projects. Company X can offer a great deal of money to anyone who wants to do research in a particular area. Researchers can either work in that area knowing they'll be well funded, or if it's not what they want to research then they accept the funding risk and/or try to find funding elsewhere.
If Hamas wants to not accept Israel then that's their choice. If the Palestinian people agree with Hamas, then that's their choice. But, they also have to accept that it doesn't fit with a typically accepted world view and work with what they have.
