Fatah was roundly defeated in last year's elections, but wished, with full Israeli and Western collusion, to continue ruling on its own terms, refusing to hand over control over the Authority's security apparatus.The US and Israeli antidote to this stability in Gaza, as in Somalia six months ago when the Islamic Courts were in control, is to crush and comprehensively disenfranchise Hamas, despite its overwhelming public support in Palestine. The party's comprehensive marginalisation is part of the prelude to another great injustice that is being planned against the Palestinian people in full view of the world.

What President George Bush, new Middle Eastern envoy representing the Quartet- Tony Blair, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Fatah head Mahmoud Abbas - all spectacularly failed leaders in their own countries - are working towards, will ensure the Palestinian State that the world has agreed to will never see the light of day.

The plan instead is what many have long feared: "a string of Palestinian islands similar to the Bantustans set up by the white regime in South Africa," wrote Uri Avneri, of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom . He pointed to yet another racist decree in January, which forbade Israeli drivers from giving Palestinians a ride in the occupied territories. No wonder the recent book by US President Jimmy Carter, who initiated the historic Sadat-Begin breakthrough 30 years ago, was Peace, not Apartheid, encouraging a return to the works of bringing about a just peace in the Middle East rather than a continuation of the partitioning of the peoples of Palestine and Israel.

honest broker?

So into this scene stepped Mr Blair this week, as the envoy of the Quartet - the US, EU, Russia and the UN - on his first mission to the region. He had come primarily "to listen and learn", he said. How little he must have learned is now clear: he refused to meet with Hamas, the victors of Palestinian elections last year. He met only those who Israel and the US wanted him to.

As the BBC explained, senior European and UN officials, unhappy with Mr Blair's exclusion of Hamas, are staying silent because they don't wish to contradict Mr Abbas' position. What cowards these diplomats are! When government officials seek solutions in dependent countries, they always speak to the opposition. Can we imagine Ambassador Smith Hempstone not meeting multiparty advocates in the 1990s because President Moi did not wish him to? And Hamas are not even the opposition; they are the elected government. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

But the game now is for the US to use force to put in place regimes that have little national support but that can be relied on to do its bidding. However, issues of principle and justice aside, the main problem with this approach is that it is not working, and is causing human suffering on a scale that will continue to create global insecurity, as is already shown by Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Somalia.

A Palestinian state created with the connivance of a leader who uses infinitely stronger language to condemn Hamas than Israeli occupiers, and whose party is riddled with massive corruption and incompetence, will only foment further anger and terror, prolonging the impasse and benefiting none but those comfortable with the status quo.

BBC map of illegal settlements

Part of the problem of course is the demonisation of Hamas, which is repeatedly condemned by the Western media as being committed to the violent destruction of the Israeli State. That this is untrue is not particularly clear to everyone, given the extent of the media bias. The facts however speak different. In the 18 months before the elections it won last year, Hamas observed a unilateral ceasefire against Israel, despite the assassination of a number of its leaders. But this will not satisfy the implacable foes in Israel and the West who demand from Hamas its one tactical strength - recognition of Israel - without offering it anything other than negotiations. This is the mistake that Yasser Arafat made- before he saw the situation of the Palestinians plummet after the 1993 Oslo talks began.

The Western blockade on aid to an already impoverished Gaza since Hamas's victory is also inhumane in the extreme, and reveals yet again the hollowness of their protestations about protecting innocent civilians during conflict.

In the interest of global stability, the West needs to abandon its goal of seeking subservient regimes.