It wasn't merely cynical for us to encourage the Palestinians to hold elections and then shut off our humanitarian aid when they chose Hamas; it was dumb. When Hamas came to power, they rose, in part, on an anti-corruption, good governance platform. When we shut off the aid, we instantly exempted them from any and all blame for their inability to effectively run the country. As Mouin Rabbani from the International Crisis Group says, "they had the best of both worlds." When the sanctions weighed crushingly on the Palestinian people, it was proof of America's zionist leanings. When temporary relief began coming in, through a complicated system that bypassed Hamas and deposited money directly into the accounts of Palestinians, Hamas had no responsibility for spending it well. So we gave them a scapegoat and freed a reformist movement from being judged on good governance grounds. Heads they won, tails we lost.
