I bet this one will piss a lot of people off...
Are the US-Brit-Israeli policies of non-cooperation with the relatively sensible policies of the Arab League in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the cause of the present instability? It wouldn't require a stretch of the imagination. I don't know if the recommendations of the Arab League for a bi-national state as a resolution for the I-P conflict are the international consensus; but then again, they don't have to be.
Henry Kissinger speaks of a consensus, stating, "No, the right of return, only to the Palestinian state. I think there is a sort of a general agreement of a settlement based on the '67 borders, plus the settlements around Jerusalem to be compensated by some Israeli territory. The right of return of Palestinians to the Palestinian state but not to Israel, and the capital of the Palestinian state in the Arab part of Jerusalem, which remains to be defined what that is, in a negotiation. I think there's a considerable consensus emerging on both the Israeli side and on the Arab side, minus, perhaps, Hamas" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/america/web-rose.php?page=6). This sounds a bit more confining for the Palestinians than the dual-national federalism that I think has been envisioned for the embattled region.
Yesterday PM Blair addressed the Knights of the Round and said, unequivocally, that Hamas has been recognized as a legitimately mandated government in Palestine. He said that it was "propagandar" on the part of some undefined entity that asserted that efforts were made to undermine the Hamas government. This was perhaps contrary to the perceptions of many denizens of the region, but I won't venture a guess. He said simply that Britain and the United States were disinclined to extending material support to Hamas if they were going to use it to purchase weapons.
This strikes me as a claim as vacuous as that made against the Iranian government for allegedly providing materiel to the Afghans through the drug trade. Virtually every country subsumably engages in drug trading with Afghanistan, they supply 90% of the world's heroin. It gets to the streets somehow, doesn't it? Fortunately for those in the defense apparatus any item of probative value in regard to these claims is classified.
Zbigniew Brzezinski actually refutes this claim that no attempt was made to undermine the Hamas government, which is patently false. Brzezinski says, "We have exercised our power to insist on elections in Palestine, which Hamas did win. Once they won, we then engaged in a policy not only of ostracism, but by financial boycott, in effect of undermining it, and creating more tension and radicalism and poverty in Gaza, which was susceptible to exploitation by Hamas" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/america/web-rose.php?page=5).
Brzezinski continues, "Could we have done otherwise? Hamas refused to recognize Israel, but it is also a fact that it declared a cease-fire, which is a kind of a de facto accommodation to an existing reality. I think it would have been wiser to pursue a policy of exploring the degree of flexibility, of dealing with them, trying to expand the cease-fire into some sort of security negotiations, and then eventually move towards recognition. I think the boycott, the ostracism, contributed to this climate, which is now exploding into escalating violence."
This actually addresses the question I have sought to answer, whether or not US-Brit-Israeli policies of non-cooperation are demonstrably the cause of the current instability in Gaza. Brent Scowcroft expounded on this, "But I also agree with Zbig that we thought we could deal with Hamas being in the government by driving them out, and the result is a near civil war. The external head of Hamas, Mashaal, who is in Damascus, he didn't recognize Israel but he says, "We must realize Israel is a fact, and it's a fact which we'll endure" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/america/web-rose.php?page=6).
Brzezinski sounds off on the Iranian issue, quite reasonably, by commenting, "On the nuclear issue, we have a very different position. We're insisting that the Iranians, as the price for negotiating with us, abandon something to which they actually have under international law, a right, which is to enrich up to 5 or so percent, which is exactly all that they're doing at this stage, because we are afraid that if they do that, they will gain greater capacity to acquire nuclear weapons" (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/18/america/web-rose.php?page=6).
Furthermore, Blair defended his position saying that there was no contradiction between democracy promotion efforts in Iraq and the official positions taken on Palestine. He would not even concede, at least based on my limited understanding, that the case for liberal intervention (in, say, the Sudan) has been made more difficult due to the adventure in Iraq.
British government discussions are so much more meaningful than those held here--where the ethical and philosophical foundations of intervention in Iraq are not debated, merely tactical errors in the prosecution of absolutely acceptable (and monstrous) liberal interventions.
With Hamas assuming the reigns of power in Gaza, the US seems to be making an ironic attempt to normalize relations with Abbas' Palestinian Authority government and the much maligned Fatah party (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/19/america/NA-GEN-US-Mideast.php). Abbas’ unelected Palestinian emergency government is going to have an international banker as its front man. Tough times call for tough measures, so perhaps the Palestinian people are willing to give up some of their civil liberties due to the threats to their national security.
Now, I am not saying that I am glad that a republicanistically mandated government is coming to power in Gaza (because then I would be considered a terrorist sympathizer). But even if the Hamas party was not legitimately elected by the domestic populace of the immediate area of Gaza, perhaps this is an exercise of liberal intervention on the part of Hamas. Perhaps they have decided that it is time for legitimate governments like themselves who are capable of standing up against being undermined, should export democracy to other areas. Time will tell if their democracy promotion efforts are successful. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to be deported to Guatanamo.