Washington Report, April 2006, pages 38-39

European Press Review

While Applauding Palestinian Elections, European Press Cautious About Result

By Lucy Jones

European newspapers applauded the free and fair elections which took place in the Palestinian territories in January, but wondered what the Hamas victory would mean in practice.

“The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has set the rest of the world a dilemma,” wrote the BBC’s world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, on the news organization’s Web site Jan. 26.

“The Palestinians have chosen Hamas,” he noted, “and therefore the democratic choice has to be accepted, especially as spreading democracy in the ‘Greater Middle East’ is a goal of the Bush administration.

“But Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and the EU,” Reynolds continued, “and unless the group accepts that Israel should exist, it is hard to see how it can be a negotiating partner, even it wants to be,” he added.

“It was not supposed to be like this,” echoed Anton La Guardia in the UK’s Daily Telegraph the following day. “For the past two years, America has pursued the idea that democracy is the answer to Islamist terrorism. Now the Palestinian people have spoken clearly—and they have voted for the terrorists.

“The Middle East enters unknown and dangerous territory,” he added.

However, The Guardian on Jan. 27 was more optimistic, editorializing that “rhetoric and reality may be different.”

“Hamas’s election manifesto did not repeat the call of its charter for the destruction of the Jewish state,” the newspaper pointed out. “It has been disciplined enough to largely observe a year-long cease-fire and has hinted it may continue that indefinitely.

“Its electoral triumph probably owes less to its resistance to occupation—an unequal struggle against Israeli F16’s, Hellfire missiles and targeted assassinations—than to its demand for clean hands and delivery,” it added.

According to that day’s London Times, “Few political parties more fully deserved to lose a democratic election than Fatah, the corrupt, ramshackle Palestinian faction that has held a virtual monopoly on power since the Palestinian territories won a measure of self-government.”

But, the newspaper added, effective government by the Palestinian Authority would be impossible without continued daily interactions with the Israelis.

“It is not only water supplies, fiscal stability, trade and movement that are intertwined with Israel; but Palestinians’ chances of working inside Israel, getting through security barriers or leaving the country are wholly dependent on the overall security relationship,” the newspaper explained.

“Hamas might have been comfortable watching others strike unpalatable bargains,” commented that day’s Financial Times. “Now it cannot avoid the unavoidable choice between paralysis and pragmatism.

“Hamas now cannot avoid the unavoidable choice between paralysis and pragmatism.”

Elsewhere in Europe, newspapers questioned how the EU—a large donor to the Palestinians—should deal with Hamas.

Can the West continue to assist the Palestinian Authority “which will henceforth be in the hands of an organization regarded as terrorist?” wondered Switzerland’s Le Temps of Jan. 27.

Austria’s Die Presse of the same day thought not, arguing that the EU should halt all financial aid until Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to exist, adheres to democratic rules and “renounces terrorism once and for all.”

Washington would not deal with a party which advocates Israel’s destruction, France’s Le Figaro remarked that day, adding that “on the French side, the tone is the same.”

But Italy’s Corriere della Sera of Jan. 27 thought that from now on, ignoring the power of Hamas “is impossible”—adding, however, that the EU should be “determined to confront Hamas with resolve and be ready to react against hate, violence and terror at every opportunity.”

Suggested Austria’s Der Standard that day: “A guiding principle for the EU could be to vehemently demand everything on which Hamas can actually deliver while postponing the rest until later.”

Spain’s El Pais of Jan. 27 concluded that “pragmatism will win out in the end.”

Debate Over Anti-Islam Cartoons

Some European newspapers became part of the news in January, when they reprinted a series of cartoons, several depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, as a gesture of support of the Danish publication Jyllands-Posten, which came under fire after publishing the caricatures on Sept. 30.

Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel of Feb. 2, which re-republished the cartoons, described the resulting Muslim fury as “excessive.”

“When a society allows itself to be guided only by the ‘feelings’ of a group of people, then it is no longer free,” argued the newspaper.

The media are “of course” entitled to subject religious symbols to satirical comment, opined Germany’s Die Tageszeitung, which also republished the caricatures, the same day.

“Today’s…Satanic Verses are the ‘Satanic drawings’ of a Danish paper, now accused of blasphemy,” it added.

France’s Le Monde of Feb. 2 cited the 1791 constitution’s provisions for equality and tolerance.

“Religious commandments and prohibitions cannot take priority over the laws of the republic,” it editorialized. “Religions…can be freely analyzed, criticized, indeed ridiculed.”

However, Austria’s Die Presse of Feb. 1 argued that the newspapers made the wrong decision to publish the cartoons.

“The fact that our society has got as far as tolerating the making fun of the Christian religion does not necessarily require us to demand that Muslims should do the same with their religion,” the newspaper editorialized.

While describing freedom of expression as “the cornerstone of the democratic system,” Spain’s La Vanguardia of Feb. 3 said it must take account of religious freedom. “It should be exercised in a spirit of tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others,” the newspaper added.

Typical of some of the European criticism of the demonstrations following publication of the cartoons was the Feb. 7 editorial in Austria’s Der Standard, which said that emotions were being whipped up by extremists “whose motives are not purely religious.”

The Feb. 9 Der Tagesspiegel, however, pointed out that 16 German-based Turkish organizations condemned the violence, as well as remarks by the Iranian president on Israel and the Holocaust.

Concern then set in over the boycott of Danish goods, which prompted Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Feb. 8 to declare that “something has to be done.”

“There is now a need for a responsible, but also confident display of European solidarity,” the newspaper said, “and no more gestures of remorse.”

“The EU should have said long ago that ‘we are all Danes’ and urged people in the EU countries ‘to buy Danish,’” said the Czech daily Pravo on Feb. 10.

“Instead of standing united against the inappropriate ban on Danish products in the Gulf region and Iraq,” opined Germany’s Die Welt the same day, “the EU is at best providing lukewarm words of support for the Danes, and in some cases even open criticism of them.”

For its part, the Danish publication Jyllands-Posten apologized for offending Muslims on its Web site, in several languages, including English and Arabic.

“On Sept. 30 last year,” the newspaper explained, “Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists’ idea of what the Prophet Muhammad might have looked like. The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.

“In our opinion,” it continued, “the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims, for which we apologize.”

West Has “No Response” to Iran Challenge, Says Spain’s El Pais

Iran’s decision on Jan. 10 to remove international seals from a nuclear facility to begin research led France’s Le Monde to editorialize the next day that Tehran had taken the nuclear issue beyond the point of no return.

“Iran aims to take advantage of divisions within the international community to press home its advantage to gain time” to pursue its military nuclear program, the newspaper said.

By Feb. 4, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had voted to report Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear activities—a move which could lead to possible U.N. sanctions against the country.

Opined Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Jan. 13, “economic sanctions, which can be stepped up in several stages, are the least dangerous method to make the mullahs see reason.”

According to the newspaper, military action against Iran is “almost inconceivable,” because it would be logistically difficult and would risk a global crisis.

“Washington, which has enough problems in Iraq, will try to avoid taking such action,” it predicted.

Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau remarked the previous day that Downing Street’s warning that no measures can be ruled out regarding Iran made it sound as if several options were on the table.

“The truth is that the West is rather helpless,” said the newspaper, adding that “the only thing which is still unclear is the speed of further escalation.”

“An Iran equipped with nuclear weapons would be one more element destabilizing the fragile equilibrium in the region,” editorialized Spain’s El Pais on Jan. 11.

But the options open to the U.S. and the EU to deal with the problem are limited, the paper added, because “there is no possibility” of a military response.

For now, it concluded, Iran is a challenge for which “the West has no response.”

British Press Eulogizes Zaki Badawi

“Few men have done as much to reconcile Islam with modernity as Zaki Badawi,” the London Times of Jan. 25 wrote of Britain’s most influential Muslim, who died the previous day at the age of 84.

“Few men have played such a crucial role in attempting to find a harmonious balance between the beliefs, culture and values of Islam and secular British society,” the newspaper continued. “Indeed, that almost two million British Muslims are today able to define themselves as such owes much to the vision of the Egyptian-born scholar who saw, from early on, that the many Muslims who settled in Britain from different parts of the Islamic world would, one day, form a significant strand of British society—which happened to be Muslim.”

Badawi, who was a friend of Prince Charles and a guest of the Queen, “spent nearly 30 years almost single-handedly creating British Islamic institutions…a process now beginning to protect British Islam against hijack by the powerful forces of Middle East conflicts,” said The Guardian in its Jan. 25 obituary.

“At crucial moments of tension, Badawi used his considerable learning and authority to steer British Islam (he coined the term) on a wise course,” the newspaper continued.

“He immediately condemned the 9/11 atrocity as ‘a violation of Islamic law and ethics,’” the newspaper continued. “When, in 1989, other Islamic figures threatened Salman Rushdie with death for his novel The Satanic Verses, Badawi called on Muslims to ‘spurn the book but spare the man,’ and declared that he would not hesitate to offer the novelist sanctuary in his home.”

The newspaper also recalled how Badawi was detained at New York’s JFK airport last August and prevented from entering the U.S. A week later he received an “unreserved apology” from the U.S. Embassy in London, but the cleric said officials could not explain why he was turned away from the country.

“His demise will be a great loss to all communities,” said the U.K.’s Muslim News of Jan. 24. “His devotion to interfaith dialogue was unparalleled.”

Sharon’s Stroke Comes “at Worst Possible Time,” says Spain’s Avui

“Even though Israel is a functioning democracy and power is divided along well-defined lines, the coming months will be marked by political uncertainty,” Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote Jan. 6, after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke.

“It is “much more difficult to assess whether, and how, the peace process…will move forward,” wrote Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the same day.

France’s Le Figaro of Jan. 6 thought the peace process was now in danger. After the Gaza withdrawal, the newspaper noted, Sharon was planning other “unilateral withdrawals,” from the West Bank. “His disappearance from the political scene risks proving fatal to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process,” it concluded.

Sharon’s absence comes “at the worst possible time,” wrote Spain’s Avui the same day, saying he represented “a ray of hope for all those seeking to put peace with the Palestinians back on the rails.”

“Plenty of people might be glad to see Ariel Sharon six feet under,” editorialized The Guardian that day. But “the demise of a bold politician who might have moved things along is no cause for celebration,” the newspaper warned.

“Peace with Mr. Sharon at Israel’s helm was by no means a foregone conclusion; he would have driven a hard bargain,” wrote Rosemary Righter in the Jan. 6 London Times. “But there can be no doubting his determination to succeed. Israel is losing a mighty champion; some Palestinians realize now it is their loss, too,” she concluded.

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.

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