Hamas-Israel ceasefire near? (Also, Carter)

This morning, Egypt’s prestigious semi-official daily Al-Ahram reported that the much-needed, Egypt-mediated Israel-Hamas ceasefire (tahdi’eh) agreement may be on the point of getting nailed down. Given the extreme reluctance with which Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak even got drawn into playing the intermediary role in the first place– and the fact that until just a few days ago his media were still engaging in a heavy anti-Hamas propaganda campaign– this latest news is significant indeed.
(Might it also signal that the key Egyptian mediator, security boss, Omar Suleiman has been doing a few things that push the boundaries of whatever mandate he got from his Prez? If so, that would be potentially even bigger news…)
This negotiation has been going on since mid-February. In the past ten days it has been conducted in parallel with Jimmy Carter’s visits to Hamas leaders and to Israel. Obviously we still need to learn a lot more about the interactions between these two processes, though all sides have been quite clear that Carter has not been involved in the ongoing, Egypt-mediated negotiations on the three topics of the tahdi’eh, the prisoner exchange, and lifting the siege Gaza siege.
The Reuters report linked to above tells us,

Hamas plans to give Egyptian mediators its final response on Thursday to a proposed truce with Israel, a Hamas official said on Tuesday.
Egypt’s state newspaper al-Ahram reported a preliminary agreement had been reached on “achieving a period of calm with the Israelis”.
A Palestinian official familiar with the Islamist group’s talks with Egypt said he expected Hamas to agree to a reciprocal truce with Israel “in the Gaza Strip, at this stage”.
Hamas, which controls the coastal territory, had said it also wanted a ceasefire to cover the occupied West Bank, where the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds sway.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said the group would present its final response to Egypt on Thursday.
He declined to comment on its content but said any ceasefire should be based on “ending the aggression against the Palestinian people” and securing the opening of Gaza border crossings.

At this point, it seems the incipient agreement– if it is nailed down– will concern only the reciprocal ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, and some aspects of lifting Israel’s tight economic and vital-life-inputs siege on Gaza. Left out for now are the components of extending the tahdi’eh toi the West Bank, and the prisoner-exchange deal.
Israel’s Ha’aretz reports that Hamas head Khaled Meshaal has approved Suleiman’s Gaza-only agreement. And citing the Ahram report it said that Suleiman

will soon present the outline of the agreement to officials in Jerusalem, and Hamas will soon present the agreement to Islamic Jihad officials for approval.

So what we have had in parallel with this still-incomplete news is the news that Jimmy Carter has gotten a new commitment from Meshaal regarding what looks like an enhanced hudna-type arrangement that could be strong enough to allow Hamas, under certain conditions, to support a two-state outcome. Here is the BBC video of an interview conducted yesterday with Carter on the subject. Here is the pro-Hamas Palestinian Information Centre’s account of what Meshaal said on the topic at a press conference yesterday.
Here is what the PIC site reports:

Khaled Mishaal has affirmed on Monday that his Movement was amenable to establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital but without recognizing the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Mishaal… also emphasized the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland in occupied Palestine.
He also explained that his Movement has “politely” turned down a request by former US president Jimmy Carter to announce a unilateral ceasefire for 30 days, underlining that the Palestinian rocket attacks on IOF positions and on the Israeli settlements around the Gaza Strip were “reaction rather than an action”.
He noted that Hamas had declared a unilateral ceasefire more than once in the past, but the Israeli occupation government had never respected or reciprocated those steps.
Mishaal and Carter met twice in the Syrian capital over the past couple of days despite strong objection from the US administration and the Israeli occupation government.
“Our main objective of reaching a comprehensive truce with the IOA [Israeli Occupation Army] was to protect our Palestinian people, to lift the siege, and to open the Rafah crossing point, which spurred us to reject Carter’s proposal“, asserted Mishaal during the conference.
As far as the case of the captured IOF corporal Gilad Shalit was concerned, Mishaal explained that his Movement has disagreed to a suggestion made by Carter to swap Shalit with 71 Palestinian prisoners in addition to children, women prisoners, and the kidnapped PA lawmakers and ministers.
“The issue of the prisoners is very sensitive and concerns almost every Palestinian household; hence, we told Carter that we prefer to follow up the issue through indirect negotiations and via the mediators, especially the Egyptian mediator, in order for us to secure the number we have had tabled”, underlined Mishaal.
However, he added, Hamas has agreed to a request from Carter to transmit a letter form Shalit to his family to reassure them of his well-being despite the fact that the Israeli occupation authorities maltreat Palestinian captives and deny them family visits.
With regard to holding a referendum on a possible PA-Israeli peace agreement, Mishaal pointed out that the National Harmony Document, which was signed by all Palestinian factions including Hamas and Fatah on 2006 was transparent in obliging the PA negotiating team to subject any possible peace deal with Israel to either a transparent and free popular referendum where all eligible Palestinians voters inside and outside of Palestine are to vote on it; or to present the agreement before a duly elected Palestinian national council for voting.
But he noted that there could be no plebiscite amidst the current political rift in the Palestinian arena, underscoring that “national reconciliation should precede any popular referendum”.
Concerning the opening of the vital Rafah crossing point, Mishaal underlined that the crossing point should be permanently opened being a purely Palestinian-Egyptian crossing point.
Yet, he explained that his Movement had briefed Carter on all the negotiations Hamas officials had with the Egyptians over this point, underlining that Hamas was agreeing to a formula where Egypt, Hamas, the PA leadership, and the EU observers would operate the border terminal, and that the EU observes are to be based in Egypt and not in “Israel”.
… Finally, Mishaal underscored that Hamas was and still is amenable and open for Palestinian national reconciliation with all its obligations, including the formation of a national unity government, restructuring the PA security apparatuses on healthy basis, and respecting fundamentals of the political game in the PA among other obligations.

So has Jimmy Carter’s visit to the region been, on balance, helpful to reducing tensions and edging the parties towards more flexible positions? I would say, undoubtedly yes– but not in the straight-line way that I imagine Carter himself would probably have preferred.
What Carter has helped to achieve is to show that Hamas is a serious political organization that is worth engaging with. For example, Meshaal’s declaration about the “enhanced hudna” is a serious statement of the Hamas position– though I note that it actually is not different in substance from what Sheikh Ahmad Yassin proposed, regarding a hudna some 10-plus years ago.
Also, if the international community as a whole were serious about the principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and about the integrity of the UN’s Partition Plan of 1947, which accorded none of the currently occupied Palestinian territories to the Jewish state, then its representatives could certainly engage in a further negotiation with Hamas regarding how the principles of the hudna plan could be further stretched to become consonant with international law, including the prolongation of the hudna to become a permanent arrangement, and the agreement by the Palestinian state to grant full recognition to all its neighbors, including the Jewish state.
So there is, potentially, a mesh between an enhanced hudna and a two-state outcome.
I have to note, however, that neither Hamas nor the dominant forces in Israeli society are particularly attached to the two-state outcome… That is why it now looks as if both Hamas and the Olmert government are heading for what I call the “two-entity” situation instead. That is, a Palestinian entity in Gaza that is not a state but has some of the attributes of a quasi-state, and an Israeli entity that is also not a settled state since it is unable to define its own borders and remains burdened down by its continuing entanglement in the affairs of the West Bank.
But Carter, bless him, was still operating mainly within the paradigm of the “two-state” outcome, so it was on the elements of that that he was primarily trying to push Hamas. But Meshaal and his colleagues– like the majority forces in the current Israeli government– have been more focused on the established Egypt-mediated negotiations on other matters. Regarding those other matters, Hamas was notably unwilling to give anything concrete to Carter at this time, turning down his proposals regarding the prisoner-exchange deal,and (yet another) unilateral ceasefire.
But on the ceasefire (tahdi’eh) front, things do now seem to be moving through the Egypt channel. Watch that space.
Should Carter feel disappointed with what he has achieved? I don’t think so. Demonstrating a strong commitment to talk with and– even more importantly– listen to all parties is always a valuable practice, and it is one that, sustained over time, can build sturdier bridges of understanding and trust. And he has put another few planks on just such a valuable bridge, including one running between Hamas and Israel’s Shas.
Thank you for your commitment and work, Jimmy Carter.