Gaza, Hamas and the Middle East Peace Process
| Oliver Miles <richardmiles671@btinternet.com> |
Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 8:40 AM
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To: Oliver Miles <richardmiles671@btinternet.com>
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We are grateful to Patrick Seale for the article below, which (in addition to referring to the appalling humanitarian situation in Gaza) argues that no progress is possible in the Middle East peace process so long as the boycott of Hamas continues, and that the present situation in Gaza is politically unsustainable and a threat to peace in the region; "If Obama is to be true to the hopes he has aroused around the world, he must urgently intervene."
The FCO has announced that the "Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, will be visiting Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria and Lebanon next week in an effort to build momentum for the peace process in the region. Building on progress at the Annapolis conference in 2007, the Foreign Secretary aims to use the visit to further negotiations for a two-state solution and develop stronger relations based on mutual trust, shared interests and a vision for a stable, peaceful and prosperous Middle East."
The announcement begs the question whether Miliband will visit Gaza, as seems to be implied by the phrase "the occupied Palestinian territories".
13 December 2008
Will Obama Talk to Hamas?
By Patrick Seale
The six-month truce between Israel and the Islamic Palestinian movement Hamas is due to expire on 19 December. It was concluded under Egyptian auspices on 19June. Will it be renewed, or is another bloodbath in prospect for the starved and battered 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip?
The truce has been in tatters for the past several weeks, ever since Israel broke it on 4 November with a series of armed excursions into Gaza, which killed fifteen Palestinians. Hamas responded by firing over 200 rockets at localities in the Negev, which wounded a small number of Israelis.
These exchanges have raised the temperature and provoked a spate of bellicose statements from Israeli hard-liners. Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz called for the assassination of Hamas leaders, while Deputy Premier Eli Yishai suggested an air strike on Hamas headquarters in Gaza. Even outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that a confrontation with Hamas had become inevitable.
Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak has been more cautious. He is well aware that a large-scale operation would inevitably claim the lives of Israeli soldiers, and would arouse an international outcry if it inflicted heavy casualties among Palestinian civilians.
What to do about Hamas has become a major Israeli preoccupation. Rocket attacks on cities like Sderot create utter fury, because there is little that Israel can do about them, short of launching a major operation against Gaza, or accepting a truce. By its continued defiance, Hamas has thus managed to dent Israel’s deterrent capability and even achieve something like a tenuous balance of power with the Jewish state, in much the same way as Hizballah has done in Lebanon.
Hamas poses another problem of a different sort for Israel -- not because it has become more extreme but, on the contrary, because it has started to moderate its ideological position. It no longer calls for the destruction of Israel, as it did in its 1987 charter.
Moreover, its leaders have said repeatedly – most notably to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter last April -- that they would accept a peace settlement with Israel, negotiated by the Palestinian Authority, if it led to the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and on condition that it was approved by the Palestinians in a referendum.
Such moderation is bad news for Israel, because it has always relied on Palestinian radicals to provide it with a pretext to avoid negotiations. The traditional Israeli argument has been: ‘How can you negotiate with someone who wants to kill you.’
Israel’s concern is that U.S. president-elect Barack Obama might put serious effort into Arab-Israeli peace-making. If he were to do so, it would no longer be possible to isolate and punish Hamas, as Israel has been doing. Obama might want to include Hamas in peace negotiations – an essential move if the talks on the Palestinian track are to get anywhere. He might even start a U.S. dialogue with the Islamic movement – for many Israelis, a nightmare scenario.
Recent developments have added to Israeli anxieties. There is increasing public recognition in the European Union that it was wrong to boycott Hamas after it won the Gaza legislative elections in January 2006. A former senior French diplomat, Yves Aubin de La Messuziere, has twice visited Gaza for talks with Hamas leaders – clearly with the tacit support of President Nicolas Sarkozy – and has drawn attention to its more moderate stance.
In an article in Le Monde on 10 December, La Messuziere called for a European dialogue with Hamas, which he described as ‘a major actor on the regional scene, with as much legitimacy as Fatah itself.’ The Islamic movement, he declared, had become a central party to the conflict with Israel. He urged France to initiate a hard-headed dialogue with Hamas, with the immediate objective of extending the truce.
Secondly, Israel is facing unprecedented international criticism for its brutal siege of Gaza. One of its harshest critics is Richard Falk, a Jewish American former professor of international law at Princeton University, who is now serving as the UN Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
In a statement released on 9 December, Professor Falk denounced Israel’s ‘policy of collective punishment’ as ‘a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.’ He called on the International Criminal Court ‘to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.’
Such statements give a measure of the terrible damage that Israel’s behavior in the Palestinian territories has inflicted on its international reputation. Meanwhile, Gilad Shalit, the Israeli corporal captured by Hamas more than two years ago, continues to languish in his Gaza cellar because Israel refuses to trade him for some of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails.
The present situation in Gaza is unsustainable. If Obama is to be true to the hopes he has aroused around the world, he must urgently intervene. As Professor Falk says, ‘It is long past the time when talk suffices…However difficult politically, it is time to act.’
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