Talk To Hamas -- Before It's Too Late
This is one of those times when the Israeli-Palestinian situation seems to be in a free fall. Yesterday’s terror attack at a Jerusalem yeshiva followed the Gaza incursion which followed the shelling of Sderot and now Ashkelon. It is becoming hard even to recall the few years, only a decade ago, when Israeli-PLO security cooperation had reduced terror in Israel to virtually zero and Israeli bargain hunters and day trippers flooded the Arab towns of the West Bank every weekend.
And yet here we are.
Israeli leaders clearly do not know what to do about Hamas-run Gaza. Obviously, they cannot permit Hamas and the other extremists to perpetuate a reign of terror on Sderot and beyond (Ashkelon, which some of the rockets are now reaching is a city of 120,000). Obviously, they have to do something. But what?
Fundamentally, Israel has two options, both bad, but one is better than the other. The first is military. The IDF can go into Gaza, as it did last week, and try to take out the terrorists. Last week’s incursion is considered a success (although two Israeli soldiers and over 100 Palestinians, mostly civilians—including 25 children under 18 -- lost their lives).
But it didn’t solve the problem. The rocket fire can resume at any time and, just going by the law of averages, one of these rockets is going to kill a lot of people. That is, of course, the goal of those who are firing them.
Once that happens, if past patterns are repeated, the Israelis will be forced into a full-scale invasion. This is something on which there is general agreement. If something terrible happens, Israel has to invade Gaza and perhaps re-occupy it.
Of course, if an invasion would solve the problem, Israel should do it now, before a catastrophe takes places. I’ll repeat that: if an invasion of Gaza would end the missile onslaught, the Israelis should not wait until a school or a hospital is blown up but should invade Gaza now.
However, the reason the Israelis have not invaded, and are not invading, will remain just as valid after a catastrophic attack. An invasion will not eliminate the Hamas threat from Gaza, could very well strengthen Hamas and weaken Mahmoud Abbas, and would result in the loss of many Israeli soldiers and innocent Palestinian civilians. It could also lead to the long-term re-occupation of Gaza which nobody in Israel wants.
In other words, the invasion option is a bad one—no matter if it occurs before, during, or after some horrific Hamas attack—because it would not succeed.
Israel’s second option is a cease-fire. There have been cease-fires with Hamas in the past and they have held. More than any other Palestinian group, they have the ability to stop all the violence emanating from areas they control.
The downside of a cease-fire is that Hamas will use the peaceful intermission to build up its ability to fight the next round. Of course, that is also what Hezbollah is doing right now. It is also what Israel does. In fact, in times of war, temporary cease-fires are invariably used by each side to build up its fighting capacity.
On the other hand, during the period of the cease-fire no one is killed, life can return to a semblance of normalcy, and the possibility arises of extending the cease-fire, by way of diplomacy, into something lasting. In this particular case, a cease-fire could make it possible for Olmert and Abbas to make real progress toward establishing a Palestinian state and ending the conflict.
It is often said that even a bad peace is better than a good war. A good cease-fire (i.e., one that holds) is certainly better than no cease-fire, especially when “victory” is unachievable by either side.
Of course, there are all these rules about not dealing with terrorists. But they are mostly hogwash. Israel is dealing with Hamas to achieve the release of Gilad Shalit and it is observing a cease-fire that was negotiated with Hezbollah. As for the United States and its opposition to dealing with terrorists, the so-called surge in Iraq is working, to the extent that it is, because the United States has enlisted some of Iraq’s worst terrorists (some with American blood on their hands) to work for us and with us.
We’ve always dealt with terrorists. I know that, for some reason, we distinguish between terrorists who run countries and those who don’t but the distinction between our World War II ally, mass murderer Joseph Stalin, and the worst terrorist imaginable eludes me. We deal with terrorists when we want to or when we need to. There is no hard and fixed rule and there shouldn’t be.
The most troubling aspect of dealing with Hamas is that it could undercut Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. That is the last thing we want to do. We did Abbas and company quite enough damage by insisting on the elections that brought Hamas to power. Then we did everything we could to sabotage the joint Fatah-Hamas unity government, only making more likely the coup that ended with Hamas taking full control of Gaza.
Any cease-fire that is reached must be tripartite and include Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza. Abbas says he is ready to do that and most Israelis favor such negotiations. According to the latest poll published in Ha’aretz, 64 percent favor direct negotiations with Hamas. Surely an even larger majority would favor indirect negotiations.
Israelis, left and right, are desperate to see the shelling end. Some want an invasion. Some want to negotiate with Hamas. And some would do both, contradictory as that sounds. Anyone who knows Israel understands that if Prime Minister Olmert delivers a cease-fire, accompanied by the release of Gilad Shalit, the overwhelming majority of Israelis will be ecstatic.
Israelis are flexible and practical, far more so than some of their American supporters. Perhaps that is because they actually live there and cannot afford to stand on principles when adhering to them are so obviously self-destructive.
Last night I looked at some of the footage of the teenagers slaughtered at the yeshiva. Then I happened to go over to one of my favorite blogs, Andrew Sullivan’s, and up popped the photo of a ten month old baby killed in his crib during Israel’s incursion into Gaza.
It’s obscene, all of it. Any policy that stops the slaughter on both sides is the right one. It is that simple.
Mr. Rosenberg,
In your March 7th column, "Talk to Hamas Before It's Too Late," you advise that Israel should negotiate a tripartite cease-fire with Hamas and the Palestinian Autority rather than invade Gaza and try to defeat Hamas. Such a cease-fire, you believe, could enable Israel and the PA to make progress in the peace talks.
The problem with your suggestion is that Hamas vehemently opposes the peace talks. Its express goal is to exterminate the Jewish people and replace Israel with a fundamentalist Islamic state. That is why, during the recent Mid-East peace conference in Annapolis, Hamas vowed to intensify its campaign of violence and then followed through on the threat by expanding its rocket attacks on Israeli civilian populations.
The sad truth is that you cannot negotiate peace with a religious fanatic who is possessed with a desperate spiritual craving to kill you. No one has achieved such a diplomatic miracle before, and there is no reason to think it could happen now.
Under these difficult circumstances, I think Israel's best option is to invade Gaza and remove as many of the fanatics as possible. If Hamas can be reduced from an powerful terrorist group to a few scattered hot-heads, the current wave of violence would subside.
Weakening Hamas could also produce three more benefits. First, the PA could reassert authority over Gaza and help keep any residual Hamas elements under control. Second, Israel might find it safe enough to reopen its border with Gaza, which would relieve the suffering of Gaza's civilian population. Third, Israel and the PA could resume their peace talks without the fear of Hamas interference.
I realize that an invasion of Gaza would cause some loss of life. But in the long run, many more lives would be saved. I believe both Israelis and Palestinians would be much better off.
March 7, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'd ask MiddleGround to read the subsequent post, which indicates 1) A much greater degree of reasonability and capacity for compromise on the part of Hamas, than he recognizes or realizes; 2) That Israel and the Bush administration have acted in bad faith in ways which have contributed and exacerbated the crisis... if not outright created it.
It strikes me that Middleground, in his comments about Hamas, engages in a program of dehumanizing the enemy, characterizing them as something that cannot be dealt with in any way except extermination. I'd suggest he rethink that. In particular, I'd suggest that he realize the same logic has from time to time been applied against the Jews, with horrific results. It has also been applied to Native Americans, Blacks, and poor people, communists, etc. generally to no good end. His response is undoubtedly "this time its different, this time they really are inhuman monsters fit only for extermination and for whom no dialogue is possible."
But is that really true? France and Britain, then France and Germany were once each mortal enemies. Yasser Arafat was once 'a brute fit only for extermination' yet he was able to come to sit at the table. Nikita Kruschev announced to the west 'We will bury you.' Yet the two sides managed to negotiate arms limitation treaties and resolve crisis. History is full of implacable enemies who were able to sit at a table.
So is it really true?
I would ask Middleground to go out and do some reading, not from his usual sources. To open his mind, and to rethink his position.
March 8, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://justworldnews.org/archives/002819.html
"Well, they started squeezing Hamas almost immediately. Originally, in the weeks right after the late-January election, Hamas wanted to form a relatively moderate government that would include a large number of political "independents" under the leadership of Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh as Prime Minister. But as I know-- because I was the conduit of one of these threats-- threats of lethal violence were sent by the Israelis to any Palestinian "independents" who might be even considering joining a Haniyeh-led government. As a result, none of them did; and the government that Haniyeh ended up forming was 100% Hamas."
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http://justworldnews.org/archives/002821.html
"Thanks to McClatchy's Dion Nissenbaum for informing all readers of the specifics of the restrictions imposed on all Israel-based reporters covering the conflict with Gaza.Of course it is a nearly universal practice of parties to an armed conflict to restrict media coverage of many aspects of the conflict. But it is very useful for readers/consumers of the reporting that results to remain aware that there are several significant aspects of the events that we are prevented from seeing or reading about.For example, in Dion's list, #2 is perhaps especially important for readers to be aware of:
2. The IDF Censor will not authorize reports of rocket hits at IDF bases and/or strategic installations.
This, in line with the Israeli authorities' long-sustained practice of trying to describe the rocket attacks launched against it by Hamas and other groups in Gaza as being "targeted"-- inasmuch as they are targeted at all-- only against civilian neighborhoods.
When I was in the recent panel discussion with Daniel Levy on Capitol Hill, one of the notable things he said was that his information from Israel was that Hamas's rockets attacks had clearly been targeted at military installations, while it was the non-Hamas organizations that had sent rockets (whether "targeted", or more randomly, was unclear) into civilian neighborhoods."
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The attempted coup against Hamas has been known about since may. http://justworldnews.org/archives/002819.html
You've know about it as least as long. Though it's only now it the US press.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804?printable=true¤tPage=all.
I linked to discussions of it then and now, but no response from you or yours either time.
"Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)
But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.
Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.
Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.
Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/07/israelandthepalestinians1
"It may have been a coincidence that the Mercaz Harav yeshiva or religious college is identified with the spiritual leadership of the Jewish settlement movement in the occupied West Bank, and especially with Gush Emunim, one of its leading elements."
It may be a coincidence or it may not. It may be a coincidence that you arguing for talks with Hamas after the failure of the coup which you knew about but refused to discuss. Or it may not. I'd have to be its not a coincidence at all.
The term "terrorism" is applied to the acts of the stateless but not to the acts of a government.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/world/middleeast/06gaza.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print
“An Israeli sniper took a position in the house next door, and he could see me, and me him,” she said. “I was with all my kids. At 2 a.m., Iyad wanted to go to the bathroom, and when he got up they shot him in the chest, and I could feel the bullet pressing out his back,” she said. “Jacqueline had been sleeping, and woke up and said, ‘My mother, Iyad is injured,’ and she moved her head a little and she was shot in the mouth, and the bullet came out the back of her head.” Mrs. Abu Shbak kept her composure, as her relatives patted her hand. “There was blood everywhere, and I fell to the floor, and the sniper kept shooting, every 30 seconds, and I managed to help my children crawl out of the room.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/07/israelandthepalestinians5
"The Merkaz Harav, at the entrance to Jerusalem, is one of the most important and largest yeshivas in the country. Founded in 1924 it has become the spiritual heart of the Jewish settlement movement in the occupied West Bank. Many of its graduates have gone on to become rabbis or rightwing political leaders active in the settlement movement."
Why not call it what it is: a Jewish fascist's madrassah? And you claim moral superiority to Hamas?
Pathetic.
March 7, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with this post. Invading Gaza is bad option. Talking to Hamas and reaching an agreement is the good option. Talking is always better than fighting. Hamas was elected in a democratic election but Israel refused to negotiate with them, leading to the current situation. It is not Israel’s decision who is representing the Palestinians, it is the Palestinians’ decision and they elected Hamas.
The sad part of this situation is that eventually Israel will be forced to negotiate with Hamas. Everything they tried in the last few years failed. The Kasam rockets keep falling in Israel and the Israelis bombs keeps falling in Gaza, innocents people on both sides keep dying. The siege is taking its toll on the residents of Gaza but so far did not stop the rockets. Talking the Hamas is a must if the Israel really wants to stop the war of attrition happening right now in the south of Israel.
March 8, 2008 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad to see you've come around to the idea of talking to Hamas!
And Israel should lift the seige on Gaza, which is itself an act of war that has gotten us to this explosive situation in the first place.
March 8, 2008 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Talks have been going on for decades and nothing's happened. Maybe talks are the problem? Maybe all they do is preserve the status quo? Certainly that's all Abbas is useful for anymore. Sharon and his buddy Bush had their chance when Abbas first came to power to help him become a credible leader, but they actually took every possible opportunity to make him look weak. Then Hamas won the elections and Israel and the US got all nervous and tried to prop Abbas up again. But now Abbas is just a silly figurehead--someone with whom to hold meaningless, endless talks to absolutely no end. Maybe that's really all Israel wants. A figurehead to talk with to maintain the appearance of a desire to achieve peace while really just continuing its policy of slowly squeezing the Palestinian people until they maybe decide they can't take it anymore and leave.
Talks just serve three purposes now. They ease the consciences of liberal supporters of Israel. They act as convenient cover for right wingers who really have no interest in creating a Palestinian state but know that expressing support for such a state is good PR. And they are useful for certain otherwise powerless (and often corrupt) Palestinian officials who can use them to get Israel and the US to keep them in power. Peace talks no longer have anything to do with peace. And it's long past time to stop this meaningless and even cruel charade.
So what could be done? Middleground's suggestion of an invasion to destroy Hamas and reinstate Abbas is just silly. Hamas isn't just a small group of fanatical terrorists. It's a full blown political movement that has deep roots in Palestinian society now and that has been able to win majorities in elections. An invasion wouldn't eradicate Hamas unless it destroyed huge numbers of Palestinians and put the survivors under brutal lockdown. And what credibility would Abbas have if he were brought to power by the IDF after a brutal invasion?
An invasion wouldn't do what Middleground says it would do, but it might be useful in other ways. For instance, Israel really could invade and drive the Palestinians out or kill so many of them that they are no longer a force. That would solve the problem quickly, brutally, and in the usual manner. Or Israel could invade and the Palestinians break out into full scale rebellion forcing Israel to actually stop talking and sign a real deal. That might solve the problem too. So an invasion, while bloody, might actually move the situation in some direction. Cease-fires and talks, though, are just silly games that do nothing more than preserve the status quo.
March 8, 2008 8:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
You do realize that effectively, you are advocating genocide.
No matter how awful the situation or unpalatable the options, that goes beyond the pale.
I hope you are being satirical.
March 8, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not advocating this solution, Valdron, and I am being a bit sarcastic--but also trying to bring more reality into the discussion. Unfortunately, we've had decades of fantasy about peace talks leading somewhere when they clearly are leading nowhere. That status quo has allowed the Palestinians' situtation to deteriorate to the point where they basically live in large open-air cages. To me this is only marginally better than genocide. Then we have people like Middleground who are advocating an invasion. To me that's simply beating the animals in the cage. All I'm trying to point out is that for an invasion to become anything more than just another pointless beating, it needs to actually succeed in resolving the situation. And the only way an invasion would actually solve anything would be if it resulted in the extermination or expulsion of the Palestians (horrific of course) or if it resulted in a defeat for Israel that forced Israel to sign a deal (not necessarily horrific if the deal allowed the two states to exist in relative peace eventually).
This is not to say that invasion is a good solution. Killing people is never good. But it's time to realize that the entire peace effort that's been draggin on for decades is a charade. We either need a radically different type of peace effort (something with far more urgency) or we need (and will certainly get) brutal violence and maybe even full-blown genocide. The stakes are very high now--and Abbas and Rice and Annapolis are clearly not the answers. MJ said that any policy that stops the slaughter on both sides is the right policy. But a policy that stops the slaughter without advancing a solution (i.e., all peace processes to date) won't really stop the slaughter--it will just delay it and possibly, by allowing the problem to continue to intensify, make the slaughter even more inevitable and more horrific when it finally happens.
March 8, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
One further point, here. If some kind of peace process is to be started that will actually work, I think it must be conducted through the United Nations and not by the usual parties (US, Israel, and a Palestinian figurehead approved by the US and Israel). These parties have been working on the problem for decades with absolutely no demonstrable progress made. Ultimately, some world body is going to have to make a decision on how the Palestinian problem is to be handled and impose the solution on the two principal parties, under the threat of severe sanctions if either party fails to uphold its part of the bargain. Real peace will require some tough prodding from the international community because it's abundantly clear that Israel and the Palestinians cannot work out a solution on their own and the US is, at this point, only capabale of enabling the dysfunction.
People who claim to want peace but want to leave the peace process in the hands of the current parties (Israel, Abbas, and the US) are either not serious about wanting peace or seriously deluded about how peace can be achieved and what it will require.
March 8, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
What sanctions would you approve if Palestinians fail to uphold its part of the bargain?
The answer is none. Because any sanctions will hurt Palestinian civilians, you and other bleeding heart Liberals will never agree to any sanctions of Palestinians. You’ll always find excuses for them no matter what horrible acts they do. So what you so called “progressive”: want is to force Israel into indefensible borders, then allow Palestinians to attack directly with rocket fire Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and then when Israel will try to respond, you’ll talk about disproportional response and war crimes.
March 8, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Purple State makes some good points. I agree that the repeated commitments to Mid-East peace talks have become a cruel charade. And I’d be glad to see a U.N.-imposed solution. Unfortunately, the U.N. has not yet developed a track record of competent peace keeping. In Lebanon, for example, where Hezbollah launched a month-long campaign of rocket attacks on Israeli civilian populations, the local U.N. troops ran away in fear. So the only realistic defense for Israel is the use force.
I do not advocate genocide. Many wars have been won without resorting to genocide.
I agree with one of Valdron’s points, too. It is too convenient to label enemies as inhuman monsters who lack the capacity for reason. Fortunately, Israel did not yield to that temptation when dealing with Egypt and Jordan, and now it has peaceful relations with both countries. I believe Israel could achieve the same success with Mahmoud Abbas.
On the other hand, some people are so ideologically extreme that they refuse to compromise. For example, long after Japan lost World War II, it refused to surrender. That is why Truman made the agonizing decision to use atomic weapons. Other cases where negotiators tried but failed: Britain with Hitler, Pakistan with the Taliban, and Columbia with the FARC. In these cases the extremists cynically struck deals with no intention of keeping them.
I believe Hamas falls into the extremist category because it expressly opposes the Mid-East peace process and erupts in violence whenever peace talks are held. Far from lending itself to negotiation, it refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Even when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, Hamas took no reciprocal steps toward peaceful coexistence. It only exploited the opportunity to launch more attacks.
Fortunately, once a war is over, the former combatants can get along fine. As noted above, Israel normalized relations with Egypt and Jordan. After World War II, Germany and Japan became close allies of the U.S. And today we have growing ties with Vietnam.
To me, these are strong signs of hope.
March 8, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
M.J. Rosenberg:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/959917.html :
My question is why M.J. Rosenberg is unable to make an honest argument ?
March 8, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hamas has stated that they would agree to a 50 year Hudna, which for all practical purposes is a face saving way of peace with Israel. Furthermore, they have stated that Abbas can negotiate a peace treaty with Israel and if the Palestinians approve it in a plebiscite, Hamas will honor it.
Now I am realistic enough to know there are some land mines that could derail the entire process. Hamas' Hudna offer is contingent upon Israeli withdrawal to the 67 lines - an impossible FIRST step. However, it is a basis for negotiations especially if, I believe, Hamas is serious about honoring a peace plebiscite. To do otherwise, would jeopardize their relations with Palestinian society.
I have been around Israel for around 50 years - my first trip was a bar mitzvah present from my Grandfather in 1956. The venom spewed by Hamas toward Israel is not as bad as I remember coming from Egypt and Jordan and they eventually signed peace agreements.
In short, Israel has very little to lose by including Hamas in peace negotiations. If it doesn't work out, everything will revert to the present low grade war between the parties. If it works, I can have my dream burial in Israel.
March 8, 2008 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's the price Israel has to pay for Hamas to stop firing rockets in Israel?
If Israel agrees to include Hamas in peace negotiations, would that be enough? Should Israel continue to fight terror while negotiating with Hamas? Should Hamas get any aid before negotiations are concluded?
March 8, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
The price Israel will have to pay to stop rocket fire (and other violence) is agreeing to a final settlement that will be acceptable to most Palestinians. Until there's a reasonable settlement, violence will continue. Which is why making the cessation of all violence a precondition for a settlement will never lead to a settlement. The reality is you can't hold 4 or 5 million people under occupation for 40 years without getting some violence. Until you replace occupation with something better for the Palestinians violence will continue at some level.
March 9, 2008 7:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that for Hamas a final settlement that will be acceptable is to kill all Jews
Acording to Thomas Friedman’s Rule 1 Therefore, we know that Obama lies in public about NAFTA and tells the truth off the record. However in case of Hamas, whatever they say in their Declaration of Independence is their real goal.According to Hamas's charter
Israel replaced occupation in Gaza with something better, but Hamas is not interested in welfare of own people. Hamas is interested in killing all Jews.
However, I’m not against negotiations with Hamas. The question is how Israel should react to war crimes committed by Hamas against innocent civilians in Israel while negotiations are going on.
March 9, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink