Peace in our time?

The World Peace Forum is coming to Vancouver this month. Locals will be able to discuss the potential for "peace and sustainability in our lifetime". Hopefully, the wording of this theme only bears a coincidental similarity to British PM Neville Chamberlaine's infamous proclamation after helping hand Czechoslovakia to the Nazis, of "peace in our time". I wish the participants in this conference the best of luck in coming up with solutions to the world's conflicts.

But half a world away, in one of the world's hottest flashpoints, one impossible-to-hope-for peace may be in the making. The Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories (officially classified as a terrorist organization by the West) is struggling just to maintain order amongst its people as it faces crippling economic sanctions.

Sanctions are a non-violent means of pressuring countries to change their ways. They have been condemned by some for making ordinary people suffer while the regime simply digs in and rewards its own loyalists with the scarce resources that remain.

But if sanctions are going to work anywhere, they should work in Palestine. The Gaza Strip and Palestinian-run West Bank were already suffering from decades of corruption and economic mismanagement. With Western funding cut off and financial institutions unwilling to process payments from Arab donors, the newly-elected Hamas regime is unable to pay salaries - most importantly, the salaries of the men with guns.

The leaders of Hamas are in a different situation from that of Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe, or even Saddam Hussein before the invasion of Iraq. While the leaders of the Fatah movement siphoned off international investment into their own bank accounts, Hamas has only been in power for a few months. They have no gold-fixtured palaces within which they can take cover from the masses.

They've had no time to consolidate their power. Their shows of force seem more like the spontaneous uprising of an armed mob than the strategic placement of military forces to enforce order.

Hamas is vulnerable to the people's fury in a way that no other Arab regime is. Hamas has guns, but so does Fatah and the heads of many ordinary households.

Meanwhile, the solution to the current chaos has been staring ordinary Palestinians and their elected officials in the face since before Hamas even came to power: renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept peace deals negotiated under the Arafat-Fatah regime.

The world is united against an impoverished thugocracy smaller than Vancouver Island, without contiguous borders, watched over by the most technologically advanced military in the region. If sanctions won't work here to change a regime, or even change its policies, then they won't work anywhere.

Here's hoping that this part of the world can give peace a chance.

tags: Vancouver, peace, World Peace Forum, 2006, Hamas, Palestine, Palestinian, Israeli, Israel, Middle East, terrorist, violence, war, conflict, thugocracy