MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And now for a Palestinian perspective. I spoke earlier with Mustapha Barghouti from Ramallah in the West Bank. He was a former official in the Palestinian government. He thinks the West Bank's first strategy won't work.
Dr. MUSTAPHA BARGHOUTI (Minister of Information, Palestinian National Unity Government): Well, it's a drastic situation for the Palestinian people, because this division is exactly the thing we've been trying to avoid all these months.
BRAND: What do you think will be the effect of this so-called West Bank first policy, in other words, the policy that we just heard about the United States and the West only funding Fatah and the West Bank?
Dr. BARGHOUTI: Supporting West Bank alone and leaving Gaza to suffer so much severe humanitarian infractions would create many, many complications, including human rights complications. And I think it's (unintelligible). Cannot believe 1.5 million people, of our people, there in Gaza left in poverty and despair.
Those who will be punished are not going to be Hamas people. It will be the ordinary Palestinian citizens, like what happened during the embargo. The other thing that is the unfortunate here is that even with the very good intention of Mr. Fayyad - and I trust his transparency - the problem would be that support will simply be - will be supporting the already existing system which could not be reformed, a system that is largely based on patronage and nepotism.
And that was in the first place one of the many reasons why people voted for Hamas. I mean, many people voted for Hamas, not because they liked Hamas, but because they wanted to defeat the system of nepotism. So reconsolidating into large scale is not going to be a real solution to the problem.
That's why I see that the world community and the United States have made a very huge mistake by not supporting the national unity government which could have preserved Palestinian democracy, human rights, the rule of law, Palestinian unity and would have given us a very, very, very good opportunity for initiating a process of reform.
BRAND: Well, it's too late for that now. What do you want them to do going forward?
Dr. BARGHOUTI: The most important thing now is not to allow violation of the law, and not to allow the destruction of the democratic system that we have built. And the only way to do that is to support creating proper conditions for new elections.
I trust people. I think people will make conclusions about what's happened during the last two years, and I think this would be a very good opportunity for people to choose again. At the end of the day, both Hamas and Fatah claim they speak on behalf of the people, and if that is the case, then we should give people the right to express what they think.
BRAND: So you think that the United States should work with both Fatah and Hamas to bring forward new elections that will please both sides?
Dr. BARGHOUTI: I don't know that - I don't think that the United States would ever work with Hamas. But I feel that the United States should care about the whole Palestinian people, and not just part of it.
BRAND: Mustapha Barghouti, speaking to us from Ramallah in the West Bank. He was the former information minister for the National Unity Government under Mahmoud Abbas. And thank you very much, Dr. Barghouti.
Dr. BARGHOUTI: Thank you. Bye-bye.
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