Opinion Stage

It is an accepted idiom in international relations that only a strong government is capable of making the concessions needed to initiate a long-term viable and comprehensive peace. The current situation in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is a situation in which both government have failed to provide a state for their respective publics. However, Hamas’s election victory (based on their platform of extremism and Islamist values) in Gaza was a severe blow to the legitimacy of the Fatah government in the West Bank. In addition, Fatah has no real sponsors in the Middle East. In contrast, Hamas is backed by Iran, Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, and now the Egyptian government which carry more weight in terms of their leveraging power.

Moreover, Hamas has a strong social welfare component — albeit only to build its political base — and has not been caught in high-level corruption. No matter how severe their losses, Hamas’s leaders continuously emerge from their hiding places claiming to have won and reap the applause of the Arab and Islamic worlds simply because they have survived the Israeli onslaught. Therefore, any negotiations excluding the Hamas government, which controls half of Palestine, would fail. Simply put, Hamas is stronger than Fatah and the only way a peace deal can be reached is with their participation.

Just over 20 years ago, the United States reversed a decades-long policy by initiating open diplomatic contacts with a group that it had long decried as a terrorist organization, the PLO. Suddenly the Palestine Liberation Organization was rendered a legitimate negotiating partner.

There is little doubt that this decision laid the foundations for the Oslo peace accords signed just under five years later. Nor can one doubt that the move was precipitated in part by the advocacy of American Jews who dissented from the prevailing view of Yasser Arafat as an unreconstructed terrorist.

Many argue that in order to negotiate with them, Hamas first needs to recognize the state of Israel and end terrorism, but they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did it. The P.L.O., when Rabin came to negotiate with them, also didn't recognize the state of Israel, and they engaged in all kind of nasty practices.

It is a principle in Israeli policy that Israel refuses to conduct negotiations with terrorist organizations. The European Union, the United States, Canada, Israel and Japan all classify Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the violent eradication of the State of Israel. Its fundamental ideology is deeply anti-Semitic: The Hamas covenant, issued in 1988, is replete with anti-Semitic rhetoric and echoes the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion charging Jews with an international conspiracy to gain control of the world. In Hamas' world-view, Islamic precepts forbid a Jewish state in the area known as Palestine, and the Jewish people have no legitimate connection to the land of Israel. To this end, the leaders of Hamas have denounced compromise with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. Its ultimate goal is the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian state ruled by Islamic theocratic law in place of the State of Israel.

Since 2000, Hamas has launched thousands of rocket and mortar attacks at vulnerable southern Israeli cities such as Sderot, Ashkelon, Netivot and nearby environs, landing in or near private homes, schools and day care and recreation centers. Hamas has constructed hundreds of smuggling tunnels underneath the border with Egypt and stockpiled an enormous cache of weapons and associated supplies and receives aid, training and munitions from Iran. Hamas continues to hold kidnapped Israel soldier Gilad Shalit who was captured in a cross-border raid in 2006.

There are no indications that Hamas is prepared to abandon its deep ideological commitment to the violent eradication of Israel, its entrenched hatred of Jews, and its continued promotion and use of terrorism.

Hamas is a terrorist organization whose goal is the destruction of Israel. Israel should by no means considering negotiating with this group.

Israel and the global community have actually discouraged and humiliated the Palestinians moderates. When he took charge in 2005, the Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas made it plain he would offer huge compromises to Israel in return for a state. Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, offered him a few lifted roadblocks in return. This is not to argue that Israel was correct in doing so, this was a wrong move. However, if Israel conducted negotiations with Hamas now it would be demonstrating to all Fatah supporters that electing pragmatists will get you nothing and that only by supporting a the violent Islamist Hamas, can progress be made.


More to the point, the fighting has, as Hamas intended, reinforced its prestige at the expense of its Fatah rivals. True, Fatah has on its side West Bank prosperity and providing the people with greater stability. But it has not delivered a state.
Fatah people are already defecting to Hamas and Islamist ideas have developed within the Fatah militias. Groups that exist to fight admire the most energetic, effective fighters. The younger generation of Fatah people has worked alongside Hamas and doesn’t bear the hatred of its elders toward a rival group.

Therefore a political victory, ie. agreeing to negotiate with Hamas would further strengthen its power, weakening the more moderate Fatah in the process.