Posted By Khalid Amayreh November 12, 2008
There is no doubt that Hamas, the main
Palestinian Islamic movement, is becoming more
rational, more pragmatic and more moderate, at
least in comparison to its formative years.
This is why it is imperative that
member-States of the European Union (EU)
either collectively or individually should
initiate a meaningful dialogue with Hamas as
soon as possible. Needless to say, such a
dialogue would be expedient to all parties
involved as well as to the cause of peace and
stability in the Middle East.
Israel, along with her guardian-ally, the
United States, and the bulk of EU States,
sought to destroy Hamas by imposing an
especially harsh blockade on occupied
Palestine following Hamas's electoral victory
in 2006.
This harsh blockade assumed draconian
proportions after Palestinian guerillas
captured an Israeli soldier during a
cross-border operation in order to use him as
a bargaining chip to force Israel to release
some Palestinian prisoners (and hostages)
languishing in Israeli jails and detention
centres.
Israel holds as many as 10,000 Palestinian
prisoners-many of them are political leaders,
including over 40 lawmakers, former cabinet
ministers and other elected officials whom the
Israeli occupation army later abducted to
force Hamas to free the captive soldier.
In addition, the Israeli army carried out a
sustained military onslaught on the Gaza
Strip, killing and maiming thousands of
people, including many civilians.
Israel calculated that the harsh blockade, a
humanitarian disaster by any stretch of the
imagination, along with the sustained
"military pressure" would eventually prompt
Gazans to revolt against the Hamas government
and bring it down.
However, the Israeli designs proved to be
unworkable as Hamas proved to be more
resilient and more tenacious than previously
thought.
Cease-fire
In mid-June, 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a
de-facto ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The
Egyptian-mediated agreement put an end to the
erstwhile daily Israeli attacks and incursions
against Gaza, as well as to the firing of
home-made projectiles from the coastal enclave
on Israeli settlements across the borders.
Among other things, the agreement stipulated
the reopening of the Rafah border crossing as
well as the gradual lifting of the
two-year-old economic blockade of Gaza, which
brought many of the territory's estimated 1.5
million inhabitants to the brink of
starvation.
And while Israel generally suspended its
military incursions and assassination
operations in Gaza but not in the West Bank,
the Gaza Strip effectively remained a
blockaded and besieged territory, with the
Israeli army allowing only small amounts of
consumer products and other vital commodities
to go through.
However, despite the effective "reneging" by
Israel on its commitments under the terms of
the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire agreement, as
well as the Egyptian refusal to reopen the
Rafah border crossing, the Gaza Strip's main
available conduit to the outside world, Hamas
nearly continued to meticulously observe the
cease-fire.
To be sure, some non-conformist elements,
ostensibly affiliated with the Fateh
organization and probably the Islamic Jihad
group as well, continued to occasionally fire
home-made missiles across the borders into
Israel.
Hamas, however, continued to make utmost and
ostensibly sincere efforts to control and even
punish violators, with Hamas leaders arguing
that breaking the cease-fire undermines
Palestinian national interests. Indeed, in
July 2008, Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of Hamas's
hard-line leaders in Gaza, called individuals
and groups seeking the collapse of the
cease-fire "Israeli agents."
Nonetheless, the cease-fire is still holding
and is even being consolidated as testified by
Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin who had opposed
the cease-fire. (it is now Israel not Hamas
that is violating the ceasefire by renewing
the murderous aggressions).
Undoubtedly, the fact that the cease-fire is
holding despite the persistence of the
Israeli-imposed siege and the continuation of
the "anomalous conditions in Gaza" shows that
Hamas is a disciplined movement and one that
respects its commitments.
Unfortunately, the West, including the EU, has
overlooked this positive variable, which
really doesn't help the cause of moderation in
Palestine.
To be sure, the cease-fire in Gaza was not an
altruistic act, neither by Israel nor by Hamas.
The nearly daily firing from the Gaza Strip of
the home-made Qassam missiles and other
projectiles on Israeli population centres has
seriously disturbed the daily life of Israelis
in border towns in the Gaza vicinity.
This eventually led to intensive public
pressure exerted on the Israeli government and
army to reach a cease-fire with Hamas. Egypt,
with which maintaining the peace is a
paramount Israeli strategic interest, had also
blamed Israel for the continued violence,
citing Israeli refusal to stop the
disproportionately deadlier Israeli violence
against Gazans while demanding a unilateral
cease-fire from the Palestinian side.
On the Palestinian side, there is a widespread
belief that Fateh was seriously disappointed
by the conclusion of the cease-fire agreement
between Israel and Hamas.
True, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman
Mahmoud Abbas supported the cease-fire.
However, influential Fateh elements based in
Ramallah, including some Fateh leaders who had
fled Gaza following the mid-June 2007 events
in the coatal enclave, didn't like the
agreement, to put it very mildly.
Some of these leaders had hoped that Israel
would invade and overrun Gaza, assassinate or
arrest key Hamas leaders and then hand over
the coastal territory to Fateh on a silver
platter. Hence, the disappointment.
Hamas vs. al Qaida
Many in the West continue to hold the
erroneous view that Hamas and al-Qaida are two
sides of the same coin.
However, this view, largely shaped by
intensive Israeli propaganda, is inaccurate.
In fact, Hamas's world view and ideology
differ significantly from al-Qaida's world
view and ideology.
Ideologically, Hamas follows the relatively
moderate school of the Muslim Brotherhood,
which advocates peaceful means, not violence,
in effecting change in Islamic societies.
In contrast, al-Qaida adopts a school of
thought called "Madrasat al-Fikr al-Salafi al-Jihadi"
or "the School of the Fighting Salafi
ideology." (A Salafi is a person who follows
the true, authentic way of the Prophet
Muhammed and his immediate successors and
early followers.)
Hamas adopts the principle of gradualness,
both with regard to the creation of an Islamic
society and an Islamic State. Al-Qaida,
however, strongly rejects this methodology and
dismisses the concept of truce or coexistence
with the enemy as incompatible with the
Shariah or inexpedient to the cause of Islam.
Hamas believes in the principle of political
participation and effecting change through
direct involvement in the political system, as
evident from Hamas's participation in the 2006
Palestinian legislative elections. Hamas also
is committed to democratic governing
principles and Hamas officials are held to
standards set by constituent groups that are
representative of a broad-based polity.
Al-Qaida, on the other hand, explicitly
prohibits any participation in parliamentary
or other elections on the grounds that the
entire system is "kafir," e.g. run by
secularists or un-Islamists.
Finally, Hamas rejects the principle of using
violence against Arab and Muslim societies.
Indeed, unlike al-Qaida, Hamas recognizes and
calculates the actual balance of power in its
struggle and does all it can to retain its
means of resistance and maintain its survival
as a movement. Hamas has a tactical policy
based on the neutralization of as many
potential enemies as possible, and tries to
build friendly relationships with as many
potential friends as possible.
As to attacks on Israeli civilians, Hamas
actually never considered such attacks a
"general policy." Indeed, Hamas's leaders have
always argued that the obviously deadlier
Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians,
which have killed thousands of civilians, left
Hamas with no choice but to respond in kind.
Hamas strongly rejected the Israeli claim that
the Israeli army doesn't target Palestinian
civilians deliberately, arguing rather
reasonably that killing knowingly is killing
deliberately and that when the number of
civilian victims is so high, as in the
Palestinian case, even intent itself becomes
irrelevant.
Non-recognition of Israel
Hamas's adamant refusal to recognize the
legitimacy of the IsraeliState is undoubtedly
the main factor impeding Western recognition
and normalization with the Islamic group.
However, this European attitude seems to have
more to do with a European desire to appease
Israel than with genuine moral considerations.
After all, Europe has always had and continues
to have more or less normal relations with
States and entities that don't recognize
Israel.
Moreover, it is abundantly clear that European
insistence that Hamas recognize the legitimacy
of Zionism as a pre-condition for any
rapprochement with the Palestinian Islamic
movement is counterproductive and even futile.
Hamas has explained on numerous occasions that
it can't recognize "Israel's legitimacy" for
moral, religious and historical reasons.
Indeed, Hamas believes that recognition of
Israel is tantamount to "conversion to
Zionism."
Some Hamas leaders whom this writer had
interviewed argued that recognition of Israel
would imply an acceptance of the Zionist
national narrative, namely that Palestine has
always been a Jewish homeland and that 14
centuries of nearly uninterrupted
Palestinian-Arab-Islamic presence in Palestine
was a foreign colonization.
This, argued Aziz Duweik (Speaker of the
Palestinian Legislative Council,who is now
imprisoned in Israel for his affiliation with
Hamas), is tantamount to demanding that
Palestinians embrace Zionism and bless the
ethnic cleansing of the bulk of the
Palestinian people at the hands of Israel.
"We are not going to become Muslim Zionists
just to obtain a certificate of good conduct
from Israel and the West," Duweik told this
writer.
Moreover, Hamas's leaders have come to believe
that the issue of recognizing Israel is a "red
herring," used by Israeli propagandists to
justify their ongoing colonization and
settlement-building in Palestine. The PLO's
recognition of Israel, they argue, didn't lead
to Israel ending its military occupation, so
why should Hamas now fall into the same trap
as the PLO did?
There is another important hurdle that makes
Hamas's recognition of Israel even more
unlikely. Israel, especially of late, has been
demanding that Palestinians and Arabs
recognize it as a Jewish State, or even a
State of the Jews.
Hence, Palestinians are rightly worried that
lending such recognition to Israel could be
used to justify increased institutionalized
discrimination against Israel's 1.4 million
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.
More to the point, Israel could use the
"Jewish-State concept) to preclude the return
of any significant numbers of Palestinian
refugees who fled or were forced to flee their
homes when Israel was created more than 60
years ago.
It is important though to remember that Hamas
doesn't believe that the alternative to its
non-recognition of Israel must be perpetual
confrontation of the Jewish State.
On several occasions, Hamas founder, Sheikh
Ahmed Yassin, proposed a lengthy hudna or
truce with Israel in exchange for total
Israeli withdrawal from the occupied
territories, releasing all Palestinian
prisoners and dealing seriously with the right
of return of Palestinian refugees pursuant to
United Nations resolution 194. Recently, some
Hamas leaders, particularly in the West Bank,
have sought to upgrade the concept of sulh
(extended peace bound by time limitations)
into a virtually open-ended peace, something
that would look very much like a formal peace
treaty.
Finally, Hamas in 2006 did accept the
"national reconciliation accord," which is
based on the so-called "prisoner document"
formulated by the leaders of Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli jails.
That document gave Israel tacit recognition in
return for total Israeli withdrawal from the
territories occupied in 1967, including all of
East Jerusalem, and an equitable resolution of
the refugee problem based on UN resolution
194.
Conclusion
Hamas doesn't pose a strategic threat to
Israel, a formidable nuclear power that
possesses one of the strongest armies in the
world and which also controls to a large
extent the politics and policies of the United
States.
However, there is no doubt that without
incorporating Hamas into genuine peace efforts
based on the principles of justice and
international law, the prospects for a true
breakthrough toward peace in the Middle East
will remain uncertain if not precarious.
Moreover, the continued isolation and hounding
of Hamas could eventually prove to be
disastrous for the cause of peace and for
Europe's relations with the Muslim world.
Indeed, a weakened Hamas is unlikely to
translate into a "strengthened Fateh" as many
short-sighted Western experts might think. The
real alternative to Hamas would be al-Qaida
and like-minded extremist groups.
It is for these and other reasons that Europe
should immediately enter into a real dialogue
with Hamas and lift all its sanctions against
the Gaza Strip. Such a step, which would
require a certain degree of European
emancipation from subservience to the United
States and Israel, could eventually be proven
a tremendous stride toward peace in the Middle
East. |