Copyright © 2006 Patrick Seale, distributed by Agence Global
Israel Must Talk to Hamas
Patrick Seale
Agence Global
January 29, 2006
Patrick Seale
Agence Global
January 29, 2006
Although last week's Palestinian elections were widely recognised as a model of democracy -- even though conducted in the difficult circumstances of an Israeli military occupation -- the immediate Western and Israeli reaction to the spectacular victory of Hamas has been one of rejection.
The United States and several European countries have said they would stop all aid to the already-bankrupt Palestinian Authority if it were to be controlled or dominated by Hamas, unless Hamas renounced violence and recognised Israel's right to exist.
Is this a sensible reaction to the rise of the militant Islamic movement? Or is it yet another example of Western -- and Israeli -- blindness to the political evolution of the Middle East?
In seeking to explain the emergence of Hamas as the leading force in Palestinian politics, some analysts have pointed to the exhaustion, corruption and incompetence of Fatah, the national movement which has dominated Palestinian politics since the mid-1960s. This is certainly part of the answer. In contrast to Fatah, Hamas has shown itself to be disciplined, dynamic and honest, and has built a network of social services which has gone some way to alleviate the hardship of a population under harsh Israeli occupation.
Other observers have noted that the so-called 'peace process', conducted under American auspices since the Madrid peace conference of 1991, has yielded nothing of substance to the Palestinians. On the contrary, Israel's expansion into the occupied West Bank has continued relentlessly. In 1991, there were fewer than 100,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank. Today, there are 260,000, and a further 200,000 in and around Arab East Jerusalem.
Fatah has been powerless to stop Israel's massive encroachments or to protect the Palestinian people, which also goes some way to explain the rise of an armed resistance movement such as Hamas.
But there is another important factor which the West has been reluctant to recognise. Notorious for its suicide bombings of Israeli targets, Hamas is in fact a reaction to Israel's policy of continued state violence against the Palestinians and their leaders.
It is a truism that violence breeds violence; that state terror and the terrorism of armed groups are mirror-images of each other.
U.S. President George W. Bush has called on Hamas to renounce violence and recognise Israel's right to exist, but he failed to call on Israel to renounce state terror and to recognise a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. One appeal is useless without the other.
The Israelis maintain that there is no moral equivalence between their own state violence and the violence of their opponents. But the truth is that murder is murder, whether it is perpetrated by the Israeli state, by an Israeli settler, or by a resistance movement such as Hamas.
What the violence and counter-violence illustrate is that, in the asymmetric warfare between Israel and the Palestinians, non-state actors like Hamas -- and Hizballah in Lebanon -- are seeking to establish a system of mutual deterrence with Israel. Their message is: If you kill us, we will kill you!
Israel's policy has been to eliminate Hamas by killing its leaders, but the election results have proved this policy to be counter-productive.
Sheikh Yassin, a paraplegic in a wheel-chair, was killed by an Israeli missile. Dr Rantisi, Yassin's successor as leader, was also assassinated. Other Hamas leaders fared somewhat better. Khaled Mashaal survived an assassination attempt by Israeli agents in Jordan in 1997. The Israelis bombed the home of Mahmud Zahar in Gaza City in 2003, killing his son and crippling his wife. Muhammmad Deif, head of the Hamas military wing, is said to have been partially blinded and crippled by an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Scores of lesser figures have been assassinated or rounded up. Yet the movement today dominates Palestinian politics. Israel and its Western allies will have to deal with it, whether they like it or not.
As Khaled Mashaal explained at a press conference in Damascus on Saturday, Hamas policy is to protect the Resistance, to free prisoners from Israeli jails, to reform Palestinian institutions, to express and fight for Palestinian aspirations, and to cooperate with Arab, Islamic and international partners. Resistance, he declared, was a national right, so long as Palestinians were under occupation.
To those who called for Hamas to disarm, Mashaal said that the movement was prepared to form a Palestinian national army, in which all Palestinian forces would be merged.
The point is that the triumph of Hamas marks a Palestinian wakening -- a closing of Palestinian ranks around a responsible but militant programme. If Israel is sensible, it will deal with this revitalised Palestinian movement by dialogue, negotiation and concession, rather than by brute force, because force alone will not give Israel security.
Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.
Copyright © 2006 Patrick Seale, distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 29 January 2006
Word Count: 792
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Advisory Release: 29 January 2006
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Agence Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation and The American Prospect, as well as expert commentary by William Beeman, Richard Bulliet, Juan Cole, Mark Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Patrick Seale and Immanuel Wallerstein.
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