Inducing a failed state in Palestine

In: Survival: global politics and strategy, Band 49, Heft 3, S. 7-40

Abstract

The policies of the Quartet of the United States, the UN, the EU and Russia have contributed materially to systemic, probably irreversible collapse - 'state failure' - in the Palestinian Authority. The Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007 underlined the consequences of applying sweeping, punitive sanctions against an entity and a population already exhibiting signs of severe political, social and economic stress. The risk is that this approach will polarise Palestinian politics even further, expanding the scope and scale of internecine violence. If Hamas is brought down in the Gaza Strip neither the Palestinian Authority emergency government nor the government of Israel would be able genuinely to govern the area. But the alternative is that Hamas will succeed in consolidating its power in Gaza. A resumption of external trade or even a ceasefire agreement may allow a power-sharing deal to be reached once more with Fatah, but will not endure in the absence of a diplomatic initiative that reinstates firm benchmarks and detailed goalposts for the two-state solution. This is unlikely as long as the international community will not engage in forceful political intervention. The fact that the Quartet confined the mandate of its new special envoy, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, to assisting Palestinian political and economic reform suggests that it has opted for the default choice of persevering in a failed policy. (Survival / SWP)