Full diplomatic engagement with all Palestinian parties needed for peace

I was browsing through today’s Christian Science Monitor several days ago and found articles that I thought complimented each other rather nicely.

The first was an article on Israel’s latest bid to boost Fatah in the West Bank and counterbalance Hamas in the Gaza Strip is Israel PM Olmert’s offer to grant amnesty to 178 Fatah militants (in addition to freeing 250 prisoners from Israeli jails) and an op-ed piece by two Middle East academics, Richard Augustus Norton and Sara Roy, who argue that any peace agreement forged between the Palestinians and Israelis must include Hamas.

I will state upfront that I completely agree with Norton and Roy’s op-ed. I support a peace effort that involves both major parties being involved in the negotations process – a full (emphasis on the full) diplomatic engagement with the major parties. Trying to support Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, which is weak and fractured, while ignoring Hamas is indeed a recipe for disaster. While Olmert’s proposals seem like a step in the right direction they are merely a drop in the bucket. According to various human rights and news agencies, there are over at least some 10,750 Palestinians currently sitting in Israeli jails, including almost 400 juveniles.

Of course this is assuming that they are aimed at confidence building, which if put into context may not be the case. This comes as the Israeli government reversed an earlier idea to remove some of its roadblocks that have cantonized the West and has offered a series of financial and military incentives that are clearly designed to destroy Hamas. A divided Palestinian government is surely not in the interests of the Israelis, by casting doubt on the peace process and “calls into question the ability of Hamas’s political leadership, enhanced by the recent agreement brokered by Saudi Arabia in Makkah for the formation of a national unity government, to assert its authority on its military wing.” After all, no organization, including Hamas is a monolith.

This is not to say that I support Hamas’ past and present attacks against Israeli civilians. In case any Islamophobes seek to use this post against me, let me state for the record that I strongly and unequivocally condemn attacks against any non-combatants, against either Israelis or Palestinians. Terrorism is immoral and is not justifiable nor supported by any fundamental teachings of any faith. In fact it is because I am so strongly opposed to terrorism that I believe that Hamas, through a new Palestinian unity government, should be politically engaged. If the claims of Mark Perry, a former Clinton national security aide, are true, then speaking to Hamas can have the effect of mitigating terrorism (PDF, P. 30-35) altogether and making a lasting solution much easier. Hamas is not inflexible. Unlike Al-Qaeda, Hamas’ political visions are not absolutist, rather they very ethno-nationalist, in spite of the occasional “Islamic” referencing. In addition to the alleged success of Mr. Perry, the democratic process has also had a pragmatic effect on the organization, as it dropped its call for Israel’s destruction from its charter and has expressed a willingness to recognize Israel if the Israeli army withdrew to the 1967 borders. (For more on the inconsistencies behind the rationales of not talking to Hamas, see Israeli peace activist Ran HaCohen’s article here.)

 

Nor is it necessarily in the broader regional interests of the United States that seeks to promote in the area. The complete undermining of Hamas electoral victory and refusal to heed the advice of seasoned diplomats: “Work with Hamas and foster a pragmatic dialogue with Israel” (as Norton and Roy put it) is having a ripple effect. Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence operative and Islamist politics expert, notes: