NYT interviews Meshaal

Today’s NYT carries an important (though unfortunately severely truncated) account of an interview that Taghreed al-Khodary had with Khaled Meshaal in Damascus recently.
Meshaal spelled out more clearly than ever before that he does not consider the “Charter” promulgated by Hamas when it was founded in 1987 to be a currently operational document. He also specified the length of the term– ten years– that he judged a “long-term” hudna, or truce, with Israel should have.
When I interviewed Meshaal in January 2008 I asked him about the length of the hudna he envisaged. He said “We do not talk about the number of years. Sheikh Ahmad Yassin spoke about ten years.”
This is an important question, because if there is a point of convergence between Hamas’s ‘hudna” proposal and the two-state outcome being promoted (in two slightly different forms) by the US and the Arab League, this would hinge on the term of the hudna being either extremely lengthy, or unspecified.
For Meshaal now to endorse Yassin’s ten-year-term proposal is a small retreat from the “constructive ambiguity” on this issue that he expressed in January 2008.
Still, laying out a ten-year term for it could well be an opening position for Hamas that, in negotiations, they might be prepared to extend.
Anyway, the other conditions that he specified for a hudna will probably be even harder for Hamas and its future negotiating partners to reach agreement on than the hudna’s term.
Worth noting from Khodary’s account of the interview: her judgment that he “gave off an air of serene self-confidence. Also, this quote that she used:

“I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period.”

A little more on the NYT and the way the piece was presented, below.
Here is the points of substance in what he told her:
1. On the Hamas Charter:

[H]e urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter, which calls for the obliteration of Israel through jihad and cites as fact the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Mr. Meshal did not offer to revoke the charter, but said it was 20 years old, adding, “We are shaped by our experiences.”

2. On the Obama administration:

Regarding President Obama, Mr. Meshal said, “His language is different and positive,” but he expressed unhappiness about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, saying hers “is a language that reflects the old administration policies.”

3. On the two-state solution:

“We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10 years.

4. On recognition of Israel, as demanded of Hamas by the US and the Quartet and requested of it by some pro-US Arab leaders:

He repeated that he would not recognize Israel, saying to fellow Arab leaders, “There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel.”
… Mr. Meshal said the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Mr. Abbas had granted such recognition, but to no avail. “Did that recognition lead to an end of the occupation? It’s just a pretext by the United States and Israel to escape dealing with the real issue and to throw the ball into the Arab and Palestinian court,” he said.

5. On the firing of rockets against Israel from Gaza, as undertaken by Hamas and other Palestinian groups– (the article notes that in April only six rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel, many fewer than over the previous three months)–

Mr. Meshal made an effort to show that Hamas was in control of its militants as well as those of other groups, saying: “Not firing the rockets currently is part of an evaluation from the movement which serves the Palestinians’ interest. After all, the firing is a method, not a goal. Resistance is a legitimate right, but practicing such a right comes under an evaluation by the movement’s leaders.”
He said his group was eager for a cease-fire with Israel and for a deal that would return an Israeli soldier it is holding captive, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, in exchange for many Palestinian prisoners.

6. On Hamas’s relationship with Iran:

“Iran’s support to us is not conditioned. No one controls or affects our policies.”

7. On whether Hamas wants to bring strict Muslim law to Gaza and the West Bank:

[H]e said no. “The priority is ending the occupation and achieving the national project,” Mr. Meshal said. “As for the nature of the state, it’s to be determined by the people. It will never be imposed upon them.”

Meshaal was recently elected to his fourth four-year term term as head of the Hamas political bureau.
Over the past 13 years Israel has undertaken repeated, often very brutal, attempts to decapitate Hamas, primarily by undertaking large numbers of assassinations. In 2004 Israel succeeded in killing the organization’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and then in short order after that the man named to succeed him in Gaza, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi. Scores of other top Hamas leaders have been assassinated by Israel over the years, including during the recent war in Gaza; and other attempts high-level assassinations have been atempted, but failed. A 1997 attempt by Mossad to posion Meshaal himself was foiled by his security guards in Amman, Jordan.
But Hamas has always laid a lot of stress on training and supporting the emergence of new generations of leaders. In this way, despite all Israel’s decapitation efforts, the organization has always generated new leaders. It has also gained ans maintained an impressive degree of internal organizational integrity and discipline.
The US-favored Fateh is, by contrast, riven with internal splits and a deeply embedded culture of corruption and clientilism. That culture has only further been fueled by the huge amounts of money the US has poured into it in recent years. As a result of its internal weaknesses, jealousies, and resentments, Fateh has been unable to decide how or where to hold a meeting of its leading body, the General Conference, since 1989; and its internal organization has, in effect, broken down.
It is admirable that Meshaal agreed to give this interview to the NYT. It is probably true, as the article says, that he has not given an interview to a US news organization in the past year. But the NYT is beng worryingly self-referential if they don’t recognize the importance of the interviews he has given to media based in other countries, including over recent months, including the very substantial ones given in March to the Australian Paul McGeough, and to a group of Italian correspondents– as well, of course, as the numerous interviews he has given to Arabic and other non-western media.
By not recognizing the existence, let alone the importance, of these other interviews, they are quite unable to put his words into any kind of context and note, “This is new; this is slightly different; this shows a bit more flexibility; this shows less; etc.” It makes their whole article much less valuable than it should have been.
Their handling of the interview is troubling in other ways, too.
Khodary writes, with a Damascus deadline, that he gave her “a five-hour interview… spread over two days” But they only publish a very few short extracts from the interview. What I have reproduced above is just about all they published.
So what about the rest of what was said in the interview? What about the nuance and context one could gain from that?
(Also, a question of equity: If they’d gotten an exclusive interview with, say, Netanyahu, would they have been as stingy with the word-length as they have been here? I think not!)
Memo to the NYT: Please publish the whole interview for us, as soon as you can. This is an important document.
I wonder if, before sharing the whole interview with their readers, they may have shared it with people in the US or other governments? I certainly hope not. But we all need to see it.
Another point. Why on earth do they need to put Ethan Bronner onto the byline, in addition to Khodary? At the bottom of the page, it says, “Taghreed El-Khodary reported from Damascus, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem.” So he wasn’t even in Damascus with her! (Making his inclusion in the main, Damascus-datelined byline quite mendacious.)
The only possible factual input Bronner had into the article is in this sentence: “In April, only six rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel from Gaza, which is run by Hamas, a marked change from the previous three months, when dozens were shot, according to the Israeli military.” That by no means justifies his inclusion into the byline. Besides, it is information that I am sure Khodary could just as easily have gotten from the Israeli military herself. She didn’t need Bronner to get it for her.
There is a nasty whiff of racism in the way the piece has been presented: it’s as though the NYT editors judge that something is a little suspect if it comes “only” under the byline of someone with an Arabic-sounding name, and without the endorsement of some big white bwana.
I have definitely seen this with the reporting they do from Baghdad, too– just about all of which, in some stories, is very evidently based on reporting done by their Iraqi reporters, but which very frequently also has the western bwana’s name on the byline, too.
Still, it is better that the NYT has this interview, rather than not having it.
But give us the whole text! Please!