According to the repeated statements of official representatives of United states and Europ, International interest in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is based on historical responsibilities to both sides of the conflict, the interests of western countries in the region, the "global war against terrorism" and the desire to diffuse the conflict and support a diplomatic process as the only way to solve the conflict.
The historical responsibility stems out of some EU countries and the United States wrong doings that dictated the modern history of both Palestinians and Jews; and accordingly, severely influenced their relation during the past hundred years.
To address the historical responsibility and the desire to defuse the problem, a thick pile of purposefully ambiguous United Nations resolutions and initiatives have been passed during the past 50 years. The purposeful ambiguity reflected the lack of will from the side of the international community to forcefully impose a solution to the problem.
Even when historical responsibilities are not possible to be completely avoided, and with the obvious bias in favor of one party of the conflict, the lack of interest or the lack of will to impose a solution to the crisis kept Western countries in a relatively non-allied position.
Yet, the recently seen active international involvement in the diplomatic process that followed the gulf war in 1991, registered a radical change of stand of the United States in particular and the EU countries to a lesser extent.
Apparently, the above mentioned active involvement came as a result of the "need" for direct military interventions in the region and the following rise of radical Middle Eastern groups that targeted Western Societies and interests. One could say that the link between keeping the Palestinian-Israeli crisis open and the radicalization of the Middle East became more obvious to policy makers in Western countries.
The window of opportunity opened by the increasing international will to actively engage in searching for a diplomatic solution to the crisis was, I believe shattered by political stupidity.
The first stupid move came as the definition of terrorism was broadened to the level of fully dismissing the right of occupied nations to resist occupiers, and to a level that legitimizes structured state violence and de-legitimizing violence used by unofficial resistance groups. Doing so, left no room for any discussion about the legitimate right of self defense, that was strictly kept to states regardless of means used and denied to resisting groups that has been fighting military occupations for almost a decade. The apparently complete ban enforced, left no room for such groups to modify their means of resistance and forced on them a defensive stand.
In perusing a pragmatic solution to the problem, western countries made the second stupid move. Firstly, and in contradiction to United Nations resolutions that serves as the reference principles to all political initiatives, the United States diplomatically departed a non-allied position and handed letters of guarantees to Israel. Following the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections, Europe made its own stupid move and followed the United States in the path of politically blackmailing Palestinians.
Needless to say that there exist a huge difference between declaring freezing relations with the newly elected Palestinian government due to political differences or reservations towards the ideological identity of the elected government and between conditioning assistance with demanding political concessions. Also, while it might be legitimate to demand that the newly elected government continue to fulfill obligations signed by the previous government, but it is by no means legitimate to condition aid to adherence to a pre-dictated political stand.
Such a move has also moved the Europeans to depart their ambiguous non-allied position towards taking sides. In effect, this is almost a declaration of enmity towards a democratically elected government. The question is: why would Europe is interested in gaining an unnecessary enemy?
In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who publicly opposed the signed Oslo accords and all subsequent agreements, came to power through democratic elections. He was given the space and time to deal with governmental issues without any imposed conditions or sanctions. Netanyahu brought with him his weird concept of reciprocity; the same concept Hamas is sanctioned as they attempt to introduce, and he was given not only time but also support in his attempts to modify already signed agreements.
I personally disagree with the political program of Hamas, but I do feel that reactive political stupidity from the side of the United States and Europe is more harmful to the prospects of achieving peace in the Middle East than the radical attitudes, stubbornness, and brutality of both sides of the conflict.
Palestinians would not have elected Hamas if they did not feel that something fundamental is wrong with the proposed, but under total freeze, diplomatic process. To deny them the right to attempt to modify the process is the most stupid of all stupidities.
