As long as Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and Fatah controls the West Bank it is hard to conduct any kind of meaningful negotiations on the peace process. The Palestinians need one negotiating team and the Israelis need to know that that team can keep its promises. But when the Palestinians announce that Fatah and Hamas have resolved their differences and have arrived at a compromise that will allow for a unified interim government and future elections, the response is the same as ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that reconciliation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas could spell the end of the peace process. “You can’t have peace with both Israel and Hamas,” Netanyahu said, in remarks directed at Abbas. “Choose peace with Israel.”
One could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that peace is not a priority for Netanyahu.
And it’s not a high priority for Congress, either. The next step, here, will be to defund our financial aid package to the Palestinians because Hamas is again part of the government. This is what happened under Dubya when Hamas won free and fair elections.
I think it is a sign of political immaturity to freak-out over Hamas. It should be remembered that Israel rightly considered Fatah to be a terrorist organization right up until the moment they made an agreement with Yasser Arafat. Another thing that should be remembered is that Israel initially saw Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah and lent them encouragement. The following was published in the Wall Street Journal, not in some left-wing rag.
Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. [Avner] Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas.
You can read more about this history here. I don’t want to argue over decisions made long ago, but the lesson is that you can’t just declare that your opponents are “terrorists” and refuse to negotiate with them. Israel tried that with Fatah. It didn’t work. Now they want to do the same thing with Hamas. It won’t work.
I don’t accept his analysis, but Aluf Benn’s belief that a third intifada is imminent is interesting.
The third intifada is inevitable. It will erupt if the United Nations recognizes a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders because the decision will not be implemented automatically, and the Palestinians will go to war to demand their sovereign rights and to expel the Israel Defense Forces and the settlers from their territory. It will also erupt if the United Nation is deterred from declaring independence for Palestine or hedges its decision in an attempt to placate Israel. In that case, the Palestinians will start an uprising because of their frustration at the loss of international support.
Another wave of suicide bombings would halt all the Palestinians’ momentum and do Israels’ opponents of peace a giant favor. So, I don’t see that kind of intifada as being inevitable at all. But you do have to wonder how long Israel plans on occupying land that the UN has explicitly recognized as “not theirs.”
At some point, they have to realize that they are not going to be allowed to stay in the West Bank and that they are just growing more unpopular and isolated. They should celebrate news that the Palestinians are reconciled and ready to negotiate as one partner for peace. Instead, they yell “Hamas” and we’re all supposed to forget about peace for another five years.
Reminder: Doesn’t matter one bit as long as we will always defer to them on that issue.
As Netanyahu stated back in 1996 (during his first tenure as prime minister) in the Clean Break document prepared for him by American Jewish Neocons as a guide for his government: “no more land for peace. Peace for peace.” This was a negation of the Oslo Accords formula of land for peace, which in any case, given the doubling of settlements during the Clinton administration, turned into a hoax itself.
But this Orwellian pronouncement pretty much guides Netanyahu’s vision for Israel today: no land for peace means avoiding the peace process, means holding out for the Greater Israel annexation, this time using Hamas as an avoidance tactic until further settlements are completed, especially in the Jordan Valley. This kind of false submissiveness to the peace process, while continuing settlement activity, originated with another Likud PM, Shamir, only Netanyahu seems to be making it into an art form.
It seems to be part of the politics of the colonialism to blame the Palestinians for the demise of their identity as a people, and their homeland, Palestine.
But what if the “third intifada” consists primarily of:
1 – Hamas and Fatah forming a “unity government”;
2 – the UN General Assembly voting this fall to recognize Palestine as a state;
3 – scores of national governments recognizing Palestine and establishing diplomatic, cultural and economic relationships;
4 – Palestinians undertaking a diplomatic initiative internationally and a nonviolent (or largely so) political/economic initiative domestically?
What happens to Israel’s ability to maneuver politically, militarily, diplomatically, economically?
The US and Israeli commentary about this is so over the top, that I have to reply likewise.
When the reconciliation is complete, and Palestine makes its unilateral declaration of independence, the way it will be announced is a mailing to all residents within the 1967 boundaries of Palestine. In the mailing, which will go to the “settlements” as well, there will be a national voter ID and the internal revenue form for the year—and will begin:
Dear ….:
Welcome to Palestine. As a new citizen,…
There’s every reason to be cynical about this peace process, given the upper hand Israel has, namely the occupation. The state of Palestine will still be occupied and its lands continually appropriated by Israel. It is only when other countries sans the USA amd a few south seas republics, all who voted to recognize the state of Palestine, employ sanctions and refuse commerce with Israel that this declaration might attain substance. That would be BDS on steroids.
Israel cried Hamas and got away with it for year after Hamas became the properly elected majority of the Palestinian parliament before. Why wouldnt they try it again? It doesnt matter that Hamas represents a large constituency of Palestinians that have not not been quelled by bombardments, killings, bans on coriander and ginger being allowed into Gaza or starvation and being labelled supporters of terror and likely never will. Negotiations that dont include Hamas will go nowhere and time is not on Israel’s side.