My latest long article on Hamas is now up on the Boston Review’s website. The full title is Breakout: Hamas and the end of the two-state solution.
Of course, you should read every word of it. But if for some hard-to-fathom reason you don’t have time, here’s the “conclusion”:
- even with a [Gaza-Israel] ceasefire, what are the prospects for peace over the next five to ten years? Most likely there will be a “two-entity” situation, with one of these entities being a small, quasi-state administration operating in Gaza and the other an Israel that is unable to disentangle itself from the West Bank. Neither of these entities would be a settled state, secure within stable and recognized borders.
This hardly constitutes an enduring, solution. Israel cannot maintain its current, extraordinarily repressive measures against the 2.3 million Palestinians of the West Bank over the long run. And if it cannot meet the West Bankers’ demands for self-determination and the liberation of their territory, then the West Bankers might turn to demanding full equal rights for themselves within the Israel that threatens to engulf them. Meanwhile, the claims of the five million or so Palestinians who are [diasporic] refugees either from pre-1967 Israel or from the West Bank for, first and foremost, a return to their families’ homes and farms, or failing that proportionate compensation, will continue. It is worth remembering, too, the high proportion of Gazans who come from refugee families. Even a Gaza that becomes economically rehabilitated to some degree will not abandon the broader Palestinian movement. And Jerusalem will always remain a touchstone issue—for Palestinians and for a billion other Muslims around the world, just as for Jews in Israel and beyond.
As Israel reaches its 60th birthday this May, its citizens have reason to be proud of many of the state’s achievements. But it has still failed to find a fair and sustainable accommodation with the Palestinians who were the earlier residents of its land, and this failure will plague its relations with its neighbors and others around the world until it is resolved…
Actually there is whole lot in the piece other than that that’s worth reading.
I found the piece really hard to write, in good part because of the long lead-time involved in all this dead-tree publication business. I guess I get spoiled with the instant publication-gratification I get used to here on the blog.
A careful reader will note that the date-stamp embedded into the text is April 24. Throughout a lot of the writing and the lengthy revising of this article, the prospects for Hamas reaching a ceasefire agreement with the Olmert government were pitching and yawing wildly up and down. (Nautical terms there, folks.)
That made it particularly hard to write.
As of now, May 15, Olmert has been losing power within the coalition so rapidly in recent weeks that the prospects for the tahdi’eh with Hamas that he was exploring much more seriously back in April seem to have plummeted again. Guess that’s how it goes, though goodness only knows the situation of Gaza’s 1.45 million people remains extremely difficult indeed.
Anyway, since George Bush thrust the whole “we should never talk to Hamas!” issue into the public limelight today, I would like to remind JWN readers of the following two articles I wrote last year, that laid out the arguments why we should, indeed, do so:
- Facing Hamas and Hizbullah, from The Nation, on November 2, 2007, and
Ten reasons to talk to Hamas, from JWN, June 25, 2007.
George Bush made a foolish and very self-destructive error when he simply lumped Hamas and Hizbullah in with Al Qaeda as “terrorists” who– like the Nazis in 1939– should be shunned and crushed by the US and everyone around the world. As you’ll see in those articles, there are considerable and politically very significant differences between, on the one hand, Hamas and Hizbullah, and on the other Al-Qaeda. Also, to liken either of these movements with a Nazi apparatus that controlled the resources of an entire, powerful, European state at the time is the height of historical ignorance, and folly…
Dear HC:
Do you feel that you have an impact on policy making?
All the best,
KDJ
A very good read. I would have liked you to have prognosticated more on a future with Likud and Netanyahu back in power? Bibi certainly appears to be an obnoxious individual but under his Prime Ministership Hamas suicide bombings dropped dramatically and the economies of the Territories recovered markedly almost to their pre-Oslo condition? Was this due to some other factor than Bibi’s “reciprocity” policies?
Your conclusion settles for an indefinite prolongation of the status quo? The status quo doesn’t seem to have harmed Israel in the past, any more than it does now or will in the future. It’s economy continues to power along and I’m sure the majority of Israelis don’t give the Palestinians in the territories much of a second thought. Of course the suicide bombings could crank up again, but if they reached unacceptable levels Israel would just resume assassinating the Hamas political leaders, wouldn’t they?
Under the status quo the West Bank has become an entity almost entirely dependent on EU and UN funding. Ditto Gaza. Well the countries doing the funding are very rich and are happy to pay “guilt” money to keep them in the pink with their more important Arab friends. The status quo has much to commend itself to the players in this drama I suspect, even to Abbas and Fatah.
Correction. Have just read an interview in the Jersualem Post with Tony Blair and feel my pessimistic/cynical “status quo” comments might have been misplaced.
Apparently the West Bank economy has done a dramatic turnaround since Hamas putsch put it back into the PA’s hands, and the World Bank is projecting growth at 3% for 2008.
A battalion of PA security forces, trained in Jordan, are about to be despatched to Jenin. It seems that it is Jenin which is getting all the benefits of establishment of functioning judicial, legal and security institutions and if they work there will be spread to the rest of the west bank. Of course, once these sorts of institutions are established along with rule of law, economic activity starts to flourish.
TB does not take the credit for this, but just having read Jonathan Powell’s book on Northern Ireland, this policy has his fingerprints all over it, partiularly the choice of taking the most difficult/recalcitrant area first.
Meanwhile Gaza continues to atrophy and TB says “a ceasefire would be useful”.
So. Maybe the future for West Bank not so dark after all?
…”It’s economy continues to power along and I’m sure the majority of Israelis don’t give the Palestinians in the territories much of a second thought.”…
this optimistic view depends entirely on the economic status of the ‘only global superpower’ which stands on legs of clay. Sic transit gloria mundi, countries and empires come and go, but nations stay. So Israeli should think long term and come to peace with themselves and with their neighours.
Can you please clarify the Quartet’s preconditions for contacts with Hamas? This issue arose today in the context of informal French contacts with Hamas. In the New York Times, Steven Erlanger speaks of a requirement that Hamas “recognize the right of Israel to exist,” while an article in Le Monde covering the same developments speaks of a requirement that Hamas “reconnaitre l’etat Hebrieu.” I’m sure you will agree that these are not the same thing. For example, it is theoretically possible to recognize the existence of Israel without recognizing any “right” for a Jewish state to exist. In my own assessment of international law, there is no legal basis for speaking of a “right” for a certain kind of state to exist. In fact, I recall reading somewhere that using the vocabulary of rights to describe the existence of a Jewish state was in fact a fabrication of Henry Kissinger. In general, I have found the New York Times coverage of this matter singularly misleading.
If I can answer L Kawar: many French or French speaking media use expressions like ‘état hebreu/Hebrew state’ as a synonym of Israel. They do it only to avoid writing Israel 5 times in the same sentence… I do not think this has any legal value. Still it shows how Israel is perceived in the public opinion if Hebrew state and Israel have become synonym in people’s mind.
I wonder how Olmert will explain that he is going to speak with Hamas now: he has categorically refused to talk with Hamas when it was democratically elected and now he would talk with Hamas after their putsch? This is the danger of an escalation in extremist declarations: they cannot but be treated or considered as traitors; moreover it is somehow like telling Hamas that force/violence is the only language Israel understands.
I’m not sure Thanos’s comment understood or responded to my query. It was the absence of the words “right to exist” in the French version that I was highlighting, not that the French used the words “état Hebrieu” instead of Israel or Jewish state. My point was that it is totally possible under international law for another state to recognize Israel. However, it is not legally possible under international law for a state to recognize the right of Israel to exist. This “right to exist” applied to inter-state relations is nonsense, legally speaking. It is ideological spin that Henry Kissinger contributed to the politics of Israel-Palestine. The NY Times should not be using the “right to exist” language.