In her HSFK-Standpunkt 5/2006 „Wählen lassen bis es passt? Demokratieförderung und Terrorismusbekämpfung in den palästinensischen Gebieten“ (A New Quartet's Strategy Towards Hamas? The promotion of democracy and the fight against terrorism in the Palestinian territories), Susanne Fischer analyzes the perceived dilemma Western democracies face with the Palestinian conflict: The demanded democratic elections have indeed taken place, but the winner was, as is well-known, Hamas – an organisation that EU and US regard to be a terrorist one. For that reason, the “West” ceased its support of the Palestine National Authority. But this fuelled the inner-Palestinian conflict which has since then escalated to the verge of civil war several times. In spite of the recent agreement of Fatah and Hamas on a unity government, peace in the region remains fragile and the Western countries, especially the Middle East Quartet, have to find new strategies to promote democracy and to fight terrorism in the Palestinan territories at the same time. In her text, Susanne Fischer shows ways how these strategies could look like and how they could work.
To Publication
The text has been pre-printed in a short version in the Frankfurter Rundschau of February 13th, 2007, under the title Das eine tun und das andere nicht lassen (Do the one thing without refraining from the other).