The Palestinian people should not be punished just because they have chosen to pursue a democratic path, writes Hikmat Ajjuri.
Since the free and fair election of the new Palestinian government, Israel has been incessantly badmouthing Hamas with a view to isolating it before the world as a terrorist regime.
Nevertheless, Hamas has transformed itself from a belligerent faction into a political party that is also a guardian of law and order.
The Palestinians are very familiar with these Israeli stratagems and recognise them for what they are - blatantly deceptive trickery.
However, it is the Palestinians' misfortune that in the eyes of the world it is Israel's word which is believed, the word of a state above international law.
Anyone who has followed the events of the last decade knows that the Hamas victory was a gift from God to Israel, yet it was simultaneously a consequence of the behaviour of the Israeli occupying forces - targeted assassinations, house demolitions, closures, internment, uprooting of olive groves etc.
Israel's behaviour is not merely a grave breach of man-made laws - UN resolutions, Geneva conventions, international humanitarian law and, most recently, the International Court of Justice advisory opinion - but is also contrary to Jewish values.
According to the respected Israeli political analyst Gideon Levy: "The Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, in an interview on the BBC, said there was a difference between attacking civilians and attacking soldiers.
Even though she did not resolutely stand by her own words in an interview with Channel 10, Livni dared to speak the truth - if harming civilians is a measure of terror, then Israel is a terror state." On the daily bombardment of Gaza, Levy says: "Those responsible for such bombing are everywhere rightly considered war criminals."
In fact such behaviour over a long period, together with 10 years of unconvincing negotiations, have negatively influenced Palestinian public opinion which in 1996 was favourable to the Oslo Agreement but voted against it in 2006.
In other words, the election of the late Yasser Arafat and his Fatah party in January 1996 was a Palestinian referendum on the recognition of Israel's right to exist as a state side by side with a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.
While this shift in Palestinian public opinion led to the election of Hamas, it has three further implications.
Firstly, the Palestinians' recognition of the state of Israel is still valid because, contrary to the Hamas school of thought, the elections were conducted with the frame of reference of the Oslo Accord.
Secondly, Israel is not ready to pay the price for a genuine peaceful settlement: the withdrawal from all territories conquered in the 1967 war. Thirdly, Hamas and Israel see eye to eye on rejecting one another as negotiating partners.
These facts lead me to conclude that the real victim of current circumstances in Palestine is democracy, and the real winner is the Israeli concept of unilateralism. In fact, Israel knows full well that its legal partner in negotiations and in all previously signed agreements is the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), of which Hamas is not a member.
Furthermore, it must be pointed out that the engineer and signatory of the Oslo Agreement was the moderate leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is still president of the PLO.
Mr Abbas is on record as having continually and vainly called on the Israelis to resume negotiations since he was elected, more than a year before Hamas came to office.
I therefore believe that the Western democracies, and in particular the EU, should review their current position before they find themselves caught in a trap designed by Israel.
Israel has hitherto succeeded in dragging the EU into its corner; by doing so, Israel has once again gained international cover for its longstanding and immoral practice of collective punishment.
Israel has also succeeded in creating a rift in the fabric of trust between the Palestinian people and the EU. In fact one of the main reasons why the Palestinians welcomed the road map was because they believed in the EU's reputation for fairness and even-handedness.
I would finally like to emphasise that it was the refusal of Israel to engage with its legitimate Palestinian partner that opened the gates of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) to Hamas.
Should the international community continue its mistaken policy of ignoring and isolating Hamas by means of pressure on the Palestinian people, this can only bolster radicalism and lead to the replacement of Hamas by a more radical alternative such as - God forbid! - al-Qaeda.
The only escape from this dilemma is compliance with international law, in this case the implementation of relevant UN resolutions by internationally recognised partners - the government of Israel and the PLO.
• His Excellency Hikmat Ajjuri is Palestinian ambassador to Ireland