When I was little, and my mom read me the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes, I had a hard time deciding who the true antagonist was.  I always felt a little sorry for the emperor – seeing him as a basically good guy whose imagination got the better of him.  And the two tailors’ cunning and nerve was impressive, if morally reprehensible– for it was they who recognized the emperor’s dreams of grandeur, and convinced him these dreams were attainable, all the while ignoring what would inevitably be his embarrassing ruin.  But regardless of how I felt about the hapless ruler and the nimble fingered crooks, I burned with admiration for the little boy whose simple truth cut through the complicated scam. 
            I can’t help but see similarities in this fairytale to the ongoing crisis in Palestine, as just as in the original fairytale, it is often hard to distinguish between irredeemable villainy and ill-fated hubris, between harmless pandering to opulence and a malicious effort to cover up truth. 
            While the allusion isn’t perfect, there are similarities between the Fatah party and the fairy-tale’s bumbling emperor.  Much like the make-believe ruler, Fatah has allowed opportunities of fame and fortune to override their responsibility to the populace they promised to protect.  Fraudulence and duplicity mar the fabric of Fatah, and two years ago a disillusioned public began to tug on the fraying edges of that corrupt material, by electing another party into office.  In an ironic twist of fate that even Aesop could have appreciated, this new party was no innocent – indeed, before cheers could resound in the streets for the end of an unrighteous rule, the same populace was forced to recognize the consequence of their vote – and found themselves governed by internationally denounced outlaws, with no plans to supplant the billions in economic aid withdrawn because of their election.  In fact, echoing the sentiment of the bumper stickers that graced many an American SUV in 2004, the 2006 Palestinian vote was as much about electing “Anyone but Fatah”, and Hamas handily accepted the role. 
            But instead of assessing the charges that led to their democratic downfall, Fatah (in league with some super-powerful tailors) began to sew an international reputation of for innocence wronged, a reputation which is simultaneously as powerful and as invisible as the emperor’s famous robes.   Rhetoric is the lauded as the thread that will baste together a nation in disarray; but the thread is sorely inadequate to a people unable to cook, work, or dispose of their own waste because their electricity has been shut off. 
            Whatever their sins (and it cannot be denied- there are many), Hamas has done a masterful job of introducing the new style of action – a style that sharply clashes with Fatah’s rhetoric.   Wednesday’s events, in which sections the wall dividing Gaza from Egypt were torn down, bring this difference into even clearer focus.  The New York Times quoted a senior Hamas official as saying “We are creating facts.  We have to change the situation, and now we await the results.”   His quote leads one to wonder whether this “terrorist” has read our fable, for facts are only powerful in the presence of their absence; the little boy’s declaration of the emperor’s nakedness would not have been significant if everyone had been prepared to remark on it.   The boy’s statement was so obvious, it took a child to say it, just as tearing down a wall was so easy it took a rogue Effer crane  to do it. 
            The moral to this fairytale is not that Hamas should be emperor – their penchant towards violent fashions leaves them morally and internationally out of vogue.  Instead it is that those who lead Palestine (and those who influence Palestinian leaders) must stop demanding admiration for a fabric of legitimacy that does not exist.  Rather they must sit down to begin stitching real solutions that can be seen and felt by those they intend to lead.  They must clothe themselves in pragmatic action, not opulent rhetoric, in commitment to relief, not dedication to false grandeur.  If they do not, before long the innocent boy who for now only shouts of their nakedness will grow up to join those who don the mantle of terror.