News from the Region
Hamas and Israel: Is there any hope for peace?
By Jason Erb
Hamas now faces the biggest existential crisis in its history - the coming reckoning with its political base. How Israel and the international community deal with it may well determine chances for peace for the next ten to 15 years.
This is where Hamas' dilemma lies. Hamas must continue to prove to its hardcore base that it will be true to its militant and conservative past, while showing Hamas pragmatists and the Palestinian secular center that it is a responsible steward for all Palestinians.
Despite Hamas' strong showing in last winter's elections, observers estimate actual support for the movement at between 25-30% of Palestinians. Its strong election showing did not reflect the actual weight of the movement, as it also included protest voters who do not support Hamas' total agenda but instead voted for more capable and effective managers of public affairs. The leadership of Hamas recognized that they needed swing voters to succeed at the polls, and so downplayed its militant rhetoric and conservative social program during the elections. Hamas instead focused on corruption and the movement's intention to appoint qualified technocrats to run government agencies.
For Hamas, deciding to participate in the elections was a gamble that it lost when it won. Instead of simply winning a significant portion of the vote, and getting control over government ministries responsible for social services, Hamas actually won a majority. Instead of just being a powerful critic that delivers efficient social services and sets the social affairs agenda, Hamas must now formulate all government policies, including the relationship with Israel.
This is where Hamas' dilemma lies. Hamas must continue to prove to its hardcore base that it will be true to its militant and conservative past, while showing Hamas pragmatists and the Palestinian secular center that it is a responsible steward for all Palestinians. Evidence of this rift shows in the growing contradiction between hints that the movement will recognize Israel if certain conditions are met, and hasty retreats the leadership makes when asked to elaborate.
A similar split within Fatah, the largest party of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), contributed in part to Fatah's loss at the polls. Many Palestinians in the territories believe that the old-guard of the PLO, with Arafat at its head, made too many concessions to Israel, and that concessions were met with expanding settlements and Israeli brute force. The younger leadership that grew up in the territories is much less compromising. They see that compromise achieved nothing for Palestinians, and so they have chosen to fight. The PLO is now also split into moderate center and militant minority bloc.
The apparent schizophrenia is not intended to fool Israel or the international community. It is a real split between secular and religious pragmatists willing to compromise and make concessions, and militants who oppose efforts to compromise. Hamas faces enormous international pressure to recognize Israel and renounce violence, but it also faces pressure not to compromise from the militants within the movement, and is in no position to do so without some kind of concessions from Israel. This dilemma is exposing fault lines that cuts across Palestinian society. It is also an opportunity to moderate Hamas, bolster the centrist secular and religious pragmatists and build a strong Palestinian consensus for compromise.
U.S. and Israeli Policy
The dilemma for the US and Israel is to give enough concessions to the Hamas and Fatah pragmatists to encourage their continued moderation and democratization, while finding the right tools to distinguish between them and the hardcore militants, both religious and secular. The best way to show that democratization and moderation will be rewarded in the short term is to stop the economic blockade and shelling barrage of the Gaza Strip and halt construction of the separation wall.
ReliefWeb, a United Nations news agency reports that Israel lobbed thousands of artillery shells at northern Gaza in April, killing at least 11 Palestinian bystanders, including several children, and wounding dozens more. The Associated Press reports military analysts believe the Israeli barrage is largely driven by the army's frustration and has no direct military purpose. AP says reserve officers in the artillery said the idea behind the massive shelling is to pressure Palestinian civilians.
With John Jing, the head of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) warning about the impact of the shelling on children, and the World Health Organization warning of a massive health crisis due to shortages in medicine and basic foodstuffs caused by persistent Israeli closures of the Karni border crossing, Palestinians are unlikely to blame Hamas for their predicament. The blame will fall squarely on the shoulders of Israel and the international community.
Israel must also stop building the separation wall that snakes deep into Palestinian territory, cutting off Palestinian villages from their agricultural lands, causing intense hardship on average people and killing any belief in the creation of a Palestinian state. The wall kills any hope among Palestinians for peace and causes their impoverishment. Israelis-only bypass roads and a security zone that takes much of the Jordan Valley cause even greater loss of land, and increased hardship on average Palestinians. These policies are not a formula for peace, but of never ending conflict.
Important Decisions for Hamas
There are important steps that Hamas can take to encourage Israelis and Fatah to give the militant Islamic party a chance to show it can be a partner for both. Hamas will not now suddenly renounce suicide bombings and other terror tactics in the war with Israel. While Hamas has announced it will suspend suicide operations and has abided by a year-long unilateral truce with Israel, it called the April 17, 2006 suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad in Tel Aviv a "legitimate response to Israeli aggressions." This was a lost opportunity for the Hamas leadership to show it was developing a new approach to terrorism, as a step towards moderating its past support for and use of such tactics. It was an even better chance to assert the primacy of the Palestinian Authority as the only legitimate Palestinian source of coercive force in the Territories.
The appointment of a known militant to a new security force dominated by Hamas loyalists in the Palestinian Territories, was also a major misstep. Yasar Arafat set up multiple rival security agencies headed by Fatah loyalists. These security agencies now constitute one of the main sources of insecurity in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas should not try to assert its dominance by founding yet another rival security force, but should work with other Palestinian factions to professionalize all the security forces and rid them of factionalism. Instead they opted to increase the chances of armed clashes between rival Palestinian security forces and their supporters.
Hamas can be prodded to continue in the direction of conciliation, instead of being further radicalized as the PLO was when efforts to negotiate and compromise resulted in greater hardship for average Palestinians. If Hamas can succeed through politics where it failed with terrorism, it, along with the PLO, can contribute to the development of a strong pragmatic center that includes representatives of all sides, one that gives hope to Palestinians for a better future.
That hope alone will do more to decrease acceptance of suicide bombings and bring security to all people in the region than all the guns, barriers and checkpoints of the Middle East combined. With such a pragmatic political center bloc, Palestinian society under any leadership will be in a position to make tough compromises for peace. But such a political center needs to be nurtured through tougher concessions and compromises from Israel and a more clearly moderate political strategy by Hamas.
Jason Erb is
the International Affairs Representatives for Quaker Service-AFSC based in Amman, Jordan.
^ Top of page |
Email this page