I’ve had some interesting conversations since coming here. Yesterday I conducted an interview with Ghazi Hamad, the managing editor of the Hamas weekly, Al-Resalah. (Here‘s their online edition.) Today I interviewed two of the six newly elected Hamas women MPs, Jamila Shanty and Mariam Farhat (Um Nidal). I also interviewed Khaled Abdel-Shafi, the head of the UN Development Program’s Gaza office.
I got great material in all these interview. But I don’t have time to write them all up now, so I’ll start by giving you a few of the most important points from Ghazi Hamad. This portion was when I’d asked him how Hamas intended to deal with the three demands placed on Hamas by the international community:
- We don’t want to go into a clash with the international community. There are some issues on which we can be flexible, and some we can’t…
We see that they ask us to make commitments, but not Israel. This is a problem for us.
We accept a state in the 1967 borders. And a long truce means we can stop all the attacks.
Before the elections we said we opposed all the agreements previously reached with Israel. Now we say we can consider all of them. (At another point he said, “Hamas has been moving very fast toward the Red Line issue of recognition, saying we can rule within the 1967 borders. We know we have further to go.”)
We have a problem when they demand that we recognize Israel. It’s difficult for us because it would be recognizing the Israeli occupation–as Khaled Meshaal says. But we say we accept the 1967 borders.
… Hamas is not ready to sell the political decision for money. Don’t ask us to do that.
… Arafat gave them everything they asked for– including saying that they could keep the Gush Etzion [settlement bloc.] And you see how they treated him!
But if Israel would say publicly that Gaza and the West Bank are occupied territories, and that they could give us a timetable to withdraw all their settlers, even over three years or four years– that is what we need to hear from them. But now Olmert is saying that he’ll keep ‘unified’ Jerusalem and keep the big settlement blocs, and he won’t recognize our right of return. What is there to talk about?
… We don’t expect to see a political solution in the next 3-4 years because the rightist parties will be ruling in Israel. But we will not be isolated. We’ll move carefully. We don’t want to get trapped in the muddy lake of negotiations!
Actually, there was a lot more in the interview, so I need to write the whole thing up a lot better. (Right now I’m composing online, on an internet link on someone else’s phone connection. Not ideal, but a lot better than nothing.)
The two women were really interesting…
Jamila Shanty is a non-nonsense woman in maybe her late forties. She bustled into the room where we met at the Gaza office of the Palestinian parliament in a very business-like way and with a broad smile on her face. Like most of the women here in Gaza she wears a long, dark-colored loose coat-type garment and a big hijab headscarf that’s tucked in at the sides to prevent any strand of hair escaping. She also toted a heavy, old-looking briefcase full of papers.
Shanty has worked as a teacher for most of her life, and also has an MA degree in, I think, English– anyway, she speaks fairly good English. (Slightly better than my Arabic.) Now, she teaches philosophy and psychology at the Islamic University– or at least, she did until she was elected, as Number 3, on Hamas’s nationwide list of candidates.
She said she’d been active with Hamas women’s organizations for many years. She spoke about how inspired she had been by the teachings of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, including his teachings on the need for women becoming empowered in education and in the public sphere, in general… How, for example, he used to insist that the mosques give plenty of room for women to worship and to hold lectures, as well as (separately) room for men. Though she herself never married, she explained that Hamas also believes that mothers have an important job to do at home, and that their child-rearing efforts are an important part of the political struggle. “But women should also join in activities outside the home,” she said.
She said her two preferences for committee assignments in the new parliament are the Political Committee and the Legal Committee.
Mariam Farhat is a fairly famous Hamas woman, since she is the mother of three young men who engaged in (and lost their lives in) suicide operations against Israelis. I’m not sure how many Israelis the three of them killed as well. I talked with her some about how she felt about her sons’ operations. She said she had encouraged the young men to sign up for them. “Even though I’m a mother and I love them so much, still there is a priority which is to fight for our rights,” she said. “So though it was painful when they died, still I also felt happy, because I am convinced both that they went to heaven and would have a life so much better than our life here, and that their sacrifice helped our Muslim cause… Anyway, how do American mothers feel when they send their boys off to fight and perhaps die as they launch attack operations in Iraq– or Israeli mothers when they send their sons against us here?”
(Ghazi Hamad separately said that, “We felt that by using the gun we would deny the Israelis the sense of security that they crave. So by doing that we forced even Ariel Sharon to recognize the need for a Palestnian state.”)
The conversation with Khaled Abdel-Shafi was extremely depressing. He underlined that the whole “Rafah agreement” that Condi Rice “negotiated” through some very visible shuttle diplomacy in the wake of Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza last year had turned out to be extremely disappointing for the Palestinians, primarily because the Israelis have implemented so few of their commitments under it. Also, that that noncompliance predated Hamas’s Jan. 25 election victory– though it has gotten a lot worse since then, too.
Looking at the economic situation in general, he described it as “worse than ever.” He talked a little, too, about how depressing it was– after working for 13 years in Gaza for UNDP, and after having helped launch a number of development projects of which he felt quite proud, to see that whole “economic development” agenda now in danger of being thrown aside as the international community turned its focus more toward purely “relief” operations. (Relief operations classically don’t do much if anything to build the acapacity of the recipient societies. Instead, they merely increase longterm economic dependency and thus undermine the goal of real development.)
He and others here also have some very depressing reports about what happened with the much-vaunted “greenhouse operation” that Jim Wolfensohn (not a poor man) and a group of well-meaning Jewish Americans had organized and funded at the time of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza…. Basically, the story was that the greenhouses (for which the departing settlers received a $14 million payment from the American group) were handed over to the Palestinians in far worse shape than the Palestinians had been led to expect. The Palestinian Investment Fund then spent $30 million to get them up and running, and to grow the first crop and get it to market. But at that point– just after Hamas’s election victory– the Israelis closed the Karnei freight crossing and the entire crop– strawberries, peppers, cut flowers, etc etc– had to be trashed. (The other option would have been to dump it on the Palestinian market and depress prices for the many other existing Palestinian growers.)
“The Palestinian took the greenhouses under pressure,” he said. “Originally they didn’t want to take them because they knew that they only point of this operation would be to raise export crops… The Palestinians didn’t need more greenhouses for their own domestic consumption– they already had 12,000 greenhouses for that. But they knew that exporting these products would always be something completely at the whim of Israel, because of the problem of access to the markets… Sadly they were proved right. But they lost a lot of Palestinian money trying to make it work.”
Helena, you’re as propagandistic as ever. How could you mention the Jewish-donated greenhouses and not mention that they were trashed and destroyed by Palestinian mobs?
And export products are absolutely vital to a struggling economy. Further, this was before the Hamas election victory.
And it is simply not honest to portray Islamists as Feminists.
Hamas has a foreign policy that is not compatible with economic growth and must take responsibility for that.
But at that point– just after Hamas’s election victory– the Israelis closed the Karnei freight crossing
The closing also occurred just after an explosion in a tunnel under the crossing. And at least according to reports, the Israeli government offered to open Kerem Shalom as a temporary freight crossing, but the PA refused. Did Abdel-Shafi have any information as to whether these reports were false, or whether conditions were placed on the Kerem Shalom crossing that made it unacceptable?
Overall, though, an interesting set of discussions and some valuable information on Hamas’ internal debate. I’ve noticed many times before, but it always amazes me how much Israeli and Palestinian complaints mirror each other – “the world demands commitments from us and not from them,” “we offered almost everything they wanted and look what they did,” etc. ad infinitum.
“So though it was painful when they died, still I also felt happy, because I am convinced both that they went to heaven and would have a life so much better than our life here, and that their sacrifice helped our Muslim cause…
So Helena felt strange sitting at a table with a man in charge of the Munich massacre justice operation 30 years ago, but chating with a fresh serial suicide bomber mother is just natural.
There is nothing to talk about. Patently clear.
We don’t expect to see a political solution in the next 3-4 years because the rightist parties will be ruling in Israel.
Helena, I wish this is right, for more than 55 years whatever left right parties came and went in Israel the peace just a myth….
I think is if within 4 years that the Arab come to the “Surrender Terms” as the Israeli State likes to do the deals of peace, then that will be the wish you put it, but I doubt it.
I talked with her some about how she felt about her sons’ operations.
makes it sound a bit like they were performing appendectomies. Such exquisite sensitivity!
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=980
Interesting interview here, where Um Nidal Farhat spells out the details of her sons’ “operations,” her views on the distinction between civilian and combatant, and the peace process in general.
They are all occupiers to begin with. Whoever comes from abroad and lives on the land of Palestine is considered an occupier, even if they are women or old people. They are all occupiers. Besides, don’t forget that they all serve in the army. They are all considered soldiers. They are all reserve soldiers…. I am proud and honored to be a terrorist for the sake of Allah.
and peace:
Peace means the liberation of all of Palestine, from the (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) Sea. When this is accomplished � if they want peace, we will be ready. They may live under the banner of the Islamic state.
FYI Muhammed Farhat’s martyrdom operation involved gunning down five unarmed teenage soldiers-to-be in a high school religion class(though Um Nidal proudly insists it was ten.)
Helena,
Your ever-present “chorus” reminds me of the ever-present minders that used to “accompany” journalists and other visitors to the old USSR. They’re right there with their “correctives”. Though “blinders” – as in those fitments for horses to make sure that they can only ever look in one direction – might be a better word for it.
It’s such a yawn. And so predictable. And, I strongly suspect, ultimately counter-productive.
God will judge Jamila Shanty and Mariam Farhat (Um Nidal)
Thank you for taking the time to give us a fair background on Hamas and its membership. This can’t be a like them or leave them issue; Hamas is not leaving. We need to understand why people kill, whether “terrorists” or “soldiers”. The comments to your story thus far suggest an answer to this as well as the story itself. If Hamas really is ready to accept the ’67 line to begin talking, they’re right where Fatah has been. I’d guess they would add those few words of recognition if tied solidly to the line. The real question is whether Olmert or whoever wins the elections will trade the “Security Wall” for ’67 and the two-state solution. Right now it doesn’t look promising – but then, it’s election time in Israel. And thanks for interviewing the women. They often speak more clearly than the men.
Mariam Farhat?
It wasn’t until the next day that it dawned on me what Helena has done. She has given publicity to a mass murder! Mariam Farhat encouraged 3 of her sons to be suicide bombers. I’m trying to count up the total number of deaths and it seems to be about 10 — the press reports are very unclear.
Charles Manson is credited with killing about 35 people. But wait — Mariam Farhat has 3 more sons she can send out! Who know what the total will be? Will she beat Charles Manson?
What next, Helena, outright cannibalism? Is there any step beyond child sacrifice? Have you no shame?
Mariam Farhat II
Oh, she has ten sons. I guess she has seven more to go! If each of those murders 5 people then that’s 35 more — easily beating Charles Manson.
Helena, you should have taken a knife out and plunged it into her heart rather than give her another soapbox to peddle her criminal ideas.
Jonathan E. makes a good point about the two sides eerily echoing each other. As an outsider with just a basic knowledge of the area, it continually strikes me how few people seem to escape the notion that one side is all bad and the other all good. Trying to point out a good or evil point on either side brings on the wrath of the other.
For example, one person says, “Here’s a constructive thing that the [Palestinians / Israelis] did.” And the next person says, “How horrible, don’t you realize they are killers?”
So, my question for Helena or the group is, who or what parties or entities are involved who are working with a different paradigm? Obviously, there’s no way to make progress with this one.
Jonathan Edelstein wrote:
“I’ve noticed many times before, but it always amazes me how much Israeli and Palestinian complaints mirror each other”.
Their complaints about the world may mirror each other, but that is certainly no reflection of what the world demands from them. “The world” (which means ‘the Western world’) does not demand from Israel what it demands from the Palestinians. From the Palestinians it demands total obedience. From the Israeli’s it demands virtually nothing. The world does not demand Israel to abide by international law. The world allows Israel to continue its occupation. It allows Israel to keep its settlements. It does not threaten Israel with sanctions because of its illegal wall, built on Palestinian land. It does not criticize Israel for building “no Palestinians allowed” roads in the Westbank. Israel has all, the Palestinians have nothing. Israel is the occupier, the Palestinians are the occupied. Israel has one of the strongest armies in the world, the Palestinians have militiamen; Israel has tanks, airplanes, rockets, bulldozers, and uses all these tools (partly paid for by the American taxpayer) to repress the population of the occupied territories. The world doesn’t care.
The world was moved to tears by watching the tragedy of the colonists who had to leave their homes in Gaza (and were handsomely compensated for this by the Israeli government), which was covered extensively by all television channels in the world.
But the world wasn’t moved at all (didn’t notice, and certainly didn’t watch) the expulsion of many more Palestinian families from their homes, without any compensation, and without even the time to take their things away before their houses were being destroyed by bulldozers.
Israel has no reason to complain about the world. On the contrary.
Interesting stories, Helena, though I have to point out that if the following sources are correct, Mr. Abdel-Shafi was not giving you quite the whole story on the Gaza greenhouses:
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3DD9B5F2-AC97-4A35-8773-52A74BBB6EC7.htm
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1025/p04s01-wome.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9331863/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=681271
As for Mrs. Farhat, I’m reminded of the line in the bible about “casting thy children into the fires of Moloch”; though personally, I find it hard to hate her – she’s more of a sad, depressing and deluded character than anything else.
RB
I’ve noticed many times before, but it always amazes me how much Israeli and Palestinian complaints mirror each other
There are 99 UN orders rejected by Israel, what’s the mirror for that from Palestinians side Jonathan Edelstein? You talking justice and law!!!!! Where is the justice and law here?
This is not always amazes you….
But it always amazes how much Israeli and US complaints mirror each other
2006-03-06 Belkovskiy and Bourtman on Hamas visit to Russia
[He and others here also have some very depressing reports about what happened with the much-vaunted “greenhouse operation” that Jim Wolfensohn (not a poor man) and a group of well-meaning Jewish Americans had organized and funded at the time of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza…. Basically, the story was that the greenhouses (for which the departing settlers received a $14 million payment from the American group) were handed over to the Palestinians in far worse shape than the Palestinians had been led to expect. The Palestinian Investment Fund then spent $30 million to get them up and running, and to grow the first crop and get it to market. But at that point– just after Hamas’s election victory– the Israelis closed the Karnei freight crossing and the entire crop– strawberries, peppers, cut flowers, etc etc– had to be trashed. (The other option would have been to dump it on the Palestinian market and depress prices for the many other existing Palestinian growers.) “The Palestinian took the greenhouses under pressure,” he said. “Originally they didn’t want to take them because they knew that they only point of this operation would be to raise export crops… The Palestinians didn’t need more greenhouses for their own domestic consumption– they already had 12,000 greenhouses for that. But they knew that exporting these products would always be something completely at the whim of Israel, because of the problem of access to the markets… Sadly they were proved right. But they lost a lot of Palestinian money trying to make it work.”]
Thanks for the story! This kind of info does not get through when all you know is general political / ideological situation. But with certain feeling of general atmosphere, it becomes understandable.
Prof. Pape of the University of Chicago recently published this interesting book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400063175/ref=cm_lm_fullview_prod_1/102-2904924-5760939?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
about suicide attacks.
“Like Professor Pape, I too miss the days when all those people in the Middle East were old-fashioned, deal-cutting nationalists, and a few State Department Arabists and oil company executives could play them from afar. That is the way it was circa 1975. But unlike Professor Pape, I do not think we can bring those days back. We live in world that has grown complex, and no matter how much we click our heels, it won’t get us back to Kansas.”
http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/PapeKramer.htm
Salah, you are probably aware that the Washington Institute for Near East Policy is a propaganda mouthpiece for Israel. Therefore I have to wonder what Mr. Kramer intended with his remark which you quoted.
I don’t know much about Mr. Pape but his background seems to be with the U.S. national security establishment. He probably has a pro-Israel bias. However, I think his book is an attempt at serious scholarship. Given how politicized the term “terrorism” has become this is a positive contribution.
There’s one thing the world has been asking from the Palestinians: Stop the violence and agree to a two-state solution. The Palestinians sometimes come close but they haven’t done that.
The Wall and the separation into different roads are ways of saving human life, and were built only in response to violence.
The settlements would never have been created if the Arabs had not been rejectionists for 50 years and had signed a peace treaty.
If Hamas-PA were to abrogate all of the existing Treaties, the restraints on Israel would weaken. So Israel would just use this as an opportunity to gain advantage for next round of either peace-talks or war, whichever happens. Likewise, the lack of existing treaties in the past has let Israel change things to suit itself.
The longer the confrontation goes on, the more Israel will win. So it would be smart for the Palestinians to settle ASAP. But they won’t.
[The Wall and the separation into different roads are ways of saving human life, and were built only in response to violence.]
This argumentation is old, it was developed before the recent Samarra disaster. The problem is, 10c mosque has no money value, and it also has no value in human lives. It just needs to stay as it is during the last 1K years.
So, when you forget about things like this and go on chanting old slogans, this makes no sense whatsoever.
Also, the Fence was the way to deal with Fath. What it has to do with Hamas?
WarrenW,
Israel started this conflict and Israel can end it by leaving the occuppied territories. It is Israel that keeps this conflict going by building settlements and terrorizing the Palestinians. Hamas has observed a year-long cease-fire. Where is Israel’s response? If Israel does not like the violent response of the Palestinians then why does it not allow non-violent protest?
As far as treaties are concerned that is the last subject Israel’s apologists should raise. Israel is in breach of more UN resolutions then any other state. For that matter has the international community met its responsibilities in dealing with Israel’s numerous crimes?
edq,
Thanks edq, we all know what the Pro-Israelis doing in US most importantly the US politics driven by them what I quoted is just to show what they thinking and planning.
Whatever terms they created or used to colour some grope or nation or organisations to reach their desire every one knows the truth that the nations it’s free to defended themself like Palestinians and Iraqi from the occupiers
what I quoted is just to show what they thinking and planning.
salah, I don’t think Kramer’s sarcastic tone made it through your translation engine. [& the correct response to “Kramer is a pro-Israeli propagandist” is: even if true, so what?] Its obvious that Kramer doesnt approve of State department Arabists or oil executives who manipulate Arab governments from afar. He’s clearly making fun of an ideology he considers shallow, exploitative and outmoded.
PS … anyone inclined to defend pape’s thesis has to explain why Iraqi nationalists are victims of suicide bombings, while jihadists hailing from a country that has never been occupied or colonised, who reject pan-arab and all other nationalisms are its most ardent and deadly practitioners.
even if true, so what?
Of course so what for you, while these pumping up the hatred to Islam/Arab like your follow Denial Pips and others moreover what we see in Iraq or next in Syria is just of those beast sit their and push air into the burning minds.
I just wonder what your recation if put yourelf in sme shoe?
while these pumping up the hatred to Islam/Arab
Kramer’s article doesn’t attack Islam or Arabs. He argues that suicide terrorism doesn’t proceed from Arab [or any other] nationalism, contra Pape’s overbroad and tenuous thesis. I’m surprised you’d disagree with Kramer’s position. But from your reaction here I don’t think you understood it, and I can only encourage you to go back and read it again more carefully. Kramer’s summary states forthrightly that the “moral logic” of suicide terrorism is incompatible with Muslims’ own values. How can this possibly be read as an anti-Islamic slur?
My “so what” was prompted by edq’s remark that the washington institute was a ‘propaganda mouthpipece for Israel’ as if this blunt ad hominem invalidates any of the arguments posed by its affiliates.
“even if true, so what?”
Propaganda is a kind of assault on its audience; it seeks to manipulate its audience. It is dangerous enough so that U.S. law forbids American government propaganda from appearing in the United States. For example, the Voice of America can not be broadcast in the U.S. There is a certain amount of irony in this law because Americans are saturated with coorporate propaganda every day. Anyway most of the “think tanks” in Washington seem to be propaganda outlets. The linguist Noam Chomsky has written extensively about U.S. propaganda.
it seeks to manipulate its audience.
all language tries to “manipulate the audience.” nothing distinguishes the “propaganda” put out by the washington institute from that of any other think tank, except its (presumed) ideological tilt. Pape’s piece is also “propaganda,” its view much more in line with traditional US mideast policy than Kramer’s critical view. Believe it or not, governments hostile to Israel have also been known to advance their agendas through op-eds and think tanks, university grants etc. WINEP has no monopoly over the airwaves, the print media, the halls of academia or the internet.
if you have any substantive criticism of Kramer’s piece I’d be eager to hear it. Tarring him by association doesnt cut it.