Tag Archive for 'Hamas'

Being diplomatic

Published on February 10, 2009 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Norman doesn’t want Israel to negotiate with the enemy she has but to wait till she has the enemy she wants.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock is entitled to think, and to argue, that Hamas should not be treated as ‘beyond the pale’ when it comes to ceasefire and peace talks. As an experienced diplomat, however, he should seek to explain himself better than he does:

Hamas as a movement covers quite a range of views, some of them unacceptably angry and violent. Rockets from Gaza aimed at Israeli towns are pointless and must stop: no vehement protest, even over brutal occupation, should kill civilians on the other side.

But the more thoughtful strand of thinking in Hamas recognises the need for a political process and is ready to engage in the search for a durable solution to the conflict with Israel. It was open to further encouragement when Hamas was keeping the peace on its side in 2006 and 2008. Hamas, which in fact has no deep-rooted argument with the west or Christianity, no political alliance with Tehran or Hezbollah, no respect for al-Qaida and no “charter” for the destruction of Israel in its political programme, just wants the Israeli occupation to end.

What I’m interested in is ‘no “charter” for the destruction of Israel in its political programme’. So how to deal with the fact that the Hamas Charter, with its reference to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not only talks about killing Jews ‘until [they] hide behind rocks and trees’, but goes so far as to say:

Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.

In addition, ‘pointless’ wouldn’t be the word I’d choose for the rockets from Gaza ‘aimed at Israeli towns’, but that’s by the way.

Sir Jeremy Greenstock is being a little disingenuous when he says that Hamas has no “charter” for the destruction of Israel. He is referring to the 2006 election manifesto as well as recent statements from Hamas leaders and not to The Charter.

So does Hamas promise to destroy Israel in its charter? Yes. Do clerics in Hamas-controlled Gaza call for horrible things done on Israel and the Jews? Yes they do. But looking at Israel and her own record when it comes to charters,  statements and actions she is no better.

Take, for instance, the Likud charter which expressly rejects the idea of a Palestinian state.

The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities [i.e. settlements in Judea and Samaria] and will prevent their uprooting. (…)

The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.

Claims sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel which includes the territory occupied in 1967 (East Jerusalem, The West Bank and Gaza) and calls for:

Preserving the right of the Jewish Nation to the Land of Israel as an eternal, inalienable right; perseverance in the settlement and development of all parts of the Land of Israel; implementation of the State’s sovereignty on them.

MK Uzi Landau confirmed this when he declared:

I am against the establishment of a Palestinian state and everything must be done to prevent it.

Joining the verbal warfare are Likud politicians such as Moshe Feiglin, currently running for the Knesset on the party’s ticket:

Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state? (…) For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them. You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic. You’re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammad, their prophet, was a robber and a killer and a liar. The Arab destroys everything he touches.

As for Israeli clerics, they have advocated a genocide in Gaza in response to the rockets:

“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,” said Shmuel Eliyahu. “And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”

And indoctrinated troops with rather dubious “literature”:

One such flyer is attributed to “the pupils of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg” – the former rabbi at Joseph’s Tomb and author of the article “Baruch the Man,” which praises Baruch Goldstein, who massacred unarmed Palestinians in Hebron. It calls on “soldiers of Israel to spare your lives and the lives of your friends and not to show concern for a population that surrounds us and harms us. We call on you … to function according to the law ‘kill the one who comes to kill you.’ As for the population, it is not innocent … We call on you to ignore any strange doctrines and orders that confuse the logical way of fighting the enemy.”

There’s also the graffiti left by the Israeli “Defense” Force in Gaza and by the settlers in the West Bank: “Arabs need 2 die”, “Die you all”, “Make war not peace”, “1 is down, 999,999 to go”, “Die Arab Sand-niggers”, “Exterminate The Muslims” and “Arabs To The Gas Chambers”.

And last but not least, there’s the illegal settlements in the West Bank. Their growth has been expanding year on year for decades no matter who’s been in charge at the Knesset. According to Peace Now, an Israeli Human Rights organisation, 1,257 new structures were built in settlements during 2008, compared to 800 in 2007, an increase of 57 percent.  At this rate, there will be nowhere left for an independent and viable Palestinian state.

For the Israelis or indeed our Norman to claim that The Hamas Charter is an obstacle to negotiations and that they have no partner for peace to accept their generous offer without being entirely honest about their own position is just a case of pot calling kettle black. As an aside, it’s worth remembering that the PLO Charter as amended in 1968 also called for the destruction of Israel and that wasn’t officially changed until 1998. This was not seen as an obstacle to the negotiation of The Oslo Accords in 1993.

[h/t The Hasbara Buster for digging up the dirt on Likud]

Ceasefire?

Published on February 8, 2009 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Norman is still concerned.

Norman is still concerned about Gaza although not apparently concerned enough to make any mention of the Palestinian victims to date.

More reading links on Gaza…

> There’s analysis in Haaretz to the effect that the Egyptian truce proposal, which Hamas is now willing to accept, is ‘a kind of surrender agreement’ and ‘mostly bad for Hamas‘.

> This chimes in with the first part of the report here giving Israeli sources for the view that Hamas’s leaders in Gaza have been shaken by Israel’s offensive and want it ended quickly.

> On the other hand, there is analysis presenting Hamas as far from broken, despite having suffered heavy losses.

> And, according to this report, in the West Bank support for Hamas is growing at the expense of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.

Concerning Gaza

Published on February 4, 2009 in Iran and Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Norman Geras is concerned.

Some reading links…

  1. Ethan Bronner on opinion inside Israel: ‘[W]hile tens of thousands have poured into the streets of world capitals demonstrating against the Israeli military operation, antiwar rallies here have struggled to draw 1,000 participants.’
  2. Tom Segev on the receding prospect of peace: ‘I belong to a generation of Israelis who grew up believing in peace. At the end of the Six-Day War of 1967, I was 23, and I had no doubt that 40 years later, the Israeli-Arab war would be over. Today, my son, who is 28, no longer believes in peace. Most Israelis don’t. They know that Israel may not survive without peace, but from war to war, they have lost their optimism. So have I.’
  3. Paul Sheehan on a recent demonstration in Melbourne: ‘Amid demonstrators protesting against the Israeli attacks on Gaza were those carrying signs that said: “Clean the Earth from the dirty Zionists”… “Chosen dirty people of the Earth”… “Stop the sub-human Zionist land-grabbing barbarian mass murder in occupied Palestine”. Then there was the young man with an Australian accent, interviewed by the BBC in Beirut last week, during a demonstration against Israel’s actions in Gaza: “I’m an Australian, but I’m here to kill Jews.”‘
  4. Iran opposed to a ceasefire.
  1. So according to Ethan Bronner of The New York Times, a hundred and ten percent of the citizens of Israel, that light unto nations, were in favour of dropping thousands of tonnes of munitions both legal and illegal onto the densely crowded streets of Gaza; destroying UN shelters, warehouses, schools, hospitals, homes and farmlands, killing 1,285 people, of whom 1,062 were non-combatants (281 children and 111 women) and wounding 4,336, among them 1,133 children. If this were true then it is surely a blood libel against the Israelis. An accusation that they are evil ogres happily advocating the collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians. Has Professor Norman missed a clear cut case of anti-semitism?
  2. In his Op-Ed, Tom Segev bemoans the now familar and entirely facetious lament: “The poor Israelis have no partner for peace”. The reality is somewhat different:

    For the past three decades the international community has consistently supported a settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict that calls for two states based on a full Israeli withdrawal to its June 1967 border, and a “just resolution” of the refugee question based on the right of return and compensation. The vote on the annual U.N. General Assembly resolution, “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” supporting these terms for resolving the conflict in 2008 was 164 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau), and 3 abstentions. At the regional level the Arab League in March 2002 unanimously put forth a peace initiative on this basis, which it has subsequently reaffirmed. In recent times Hamas has repeatedly signaled its own acceptance of such a settlement. For example, in March 2008 Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, stated in an interview:

    There is an opportunity to deal with this conflict in a manner different than Israel and, behind it, the U.S. is dealing with it today. There is an opportunity to achieve a Palestinian national consensus on a political program based on the 1967 borders, and this is an exceptional circumstance, in which most Palestinian forces, including Hamas, accept a state on the 1967 borders….There is also an Arab consensus on this demand, and this is a historic situation. But no one is taking advantage of this opportunity. No one is moving to cooperate with this opportunity. Even this minimum that has been accepted by the Palestinians and the Arabs has been rejected by Israel and by the U.S.[29]

    Israel is fully cognizant that the Hamas Charter is not an insurmountable obstacle to a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border. “[T]he Hamas leadership has recognized that its ideological goal is not attainable and will not be in the foreseeable future,” a former Mossad head recently observed. “[T]hey are ready and willing to see the establishment of a Palestinian state in the temporary borders of 1967….They know that the moment a Palestinian state is established with their cooperation, they will be obligated to change the rules of the game: They will have to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original ideological goals.”[30]

  3. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel should perhaps be updated to accusation of anti-semitism is the last refuge of Zionists.
  4. On the 5th of November 2008, Israel unilaterally broke the truce that been in place since June of that year. According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s own information, Hamas had basically kept its side of the bargain. Israel had not. In mid-December Israel rejected an offer from Hamas for a renewed ceasefire agreement. After the hostilities had begun, neither Israel nor her Western allies seemed in a rush to conclude a ceasefire. But Norman thinks only the alleged Iranian rejection is worth mentioning. Odd.

Elections past, elections future

Published on January 15, 2009 in Israel. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Dear Mr. Geras,

I noticed that on January 12, 2009, you posted the following article on your blog:

From a column by Amir Taheri:

… Hamas… has closed Gaza to all Palestinian groups that have accepted a two-state solution.

Amongst those many who urge upon us Hamas’s legitimacy as having been democratically elected, it’s surprising how little airtime they devote to this (shall we say) counter-democratic circumstance. Not that I mean to imply that no negotiations should ever be undertaken with an organization with a bad record on democratic rights and practices; for the would-be negotiating partner – in the present case, Israel – that’s a matter of political and strategic judgement. But if it’s Hamas’s democratic legitimacy which, according to many of Israel’s critics, should dictate a willingness to negotiate with that organization, one would have thought winning an election isn’t all that counts. Being open to the contingency of losing one is also of some import. (See also here.)

I vaguely remembered the name Amir Taheri from somewhere or other so I did a spot of googling. The results were rather interesting to say the least. I found an article published in The Nation entitled Bunkum From Benador which claimed that he was “a journalistic felon”:

It was in 1989 that Taheri was first exposed as a journalistic felon. The book he published the year before, Nest of Spies, examined the rule and fall of the Shah of Iran. Taheri received many respectful reviews, but in The New Republic Shaul Bakhash, a reigning doyen of Persian studies, checked Taheri’s footnotes. Suddenly a book review became an investigative exposé. Bakhash, a history professor at George Mason University and a former fellow at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, detailed case after case in which Taheri cited nonexistent sources, concocted nonexistent substance in cases where the sources existed and distorted the substance beyond recognition when it was present. Taheri “repeatedly refers us to books where the information he cites simply does not exist,” Bakhash wrote. “Often the documents cannot be found in the volumes to which he attributes them…. [He] repeatedly reads things into the documents that are simply not there.” In one case, noted Bakhash, Taheri cited an earlier article of his own–but offered content he himself never wrote in that article. Bakhash concluded that Nest of Spies was “the sort of book that gives contemporary history a bad name.” In a response published two months later, Taheri failed to rebut Bakhash’s charges.

I also found Taheri’s Wikipedia and Sourcewatch entries which confirmed further his reputation as an unprincipled hack and a serial fabulist.

A quick scan of the column you linked to revealed  it to be his usual mix of half truths and outright lies. However, for the sake of brevity, I thought I would limit myself to analysing the sentence you quoted and the conclusions you drew.

Firstly, the events which lead to Hamas expelling Fatah from the Gaza Strip have been documented in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair by the writer David Rose, basing himself on internal US documents. In a nutshell, it seems that the United States and Israel in cahoots with the Palestinian Authority, unhappy with the results of the 2006 Palestinian election, were attempting a putsch on Hamas, and Hamas merely preempted their plan. I’m sure that you would agree that a democratically elected government has the right to defend itself against an unlawful military coup and that this right in no way erodes their legitimacy.

With regards to the two state solution, Hamas has repeatedly indicated that they accept it.

When asked by Newsweek-Washington Post correspondent Lally Weymouth on 26 February 2006 what agreements Hamas was prepared to honor, the new Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh answered, “the ones that will guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital with 1967 borders.” Weymouth went on, “Will you recognize Israel?” to which Haniyeh responded, “If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights then we are ready to recognize them.” (5) This view encapsulates the Hamas demand for reciprocity.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer four days after the PLC elections, the new Hamas Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahar (considered the party’s hard-liner) remarked, “We can accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] 1967.” Like Haniyeh and other Hamas members, Zahar insists that once such a state is established a long-term truce “lasting as long as 10, 20 or 100 years” will ensue ending the state of armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. (6)

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad commented to reporters on 10 May 2006, “Yes, we accept an independent state in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War. This attitude is not new and it is declared in the government’s platform.” (7)

In an effort to clarify the Hamas position on Abbas’ call for a referendum, Hamas parliamentary speaker Aziz Duweik explained that it had nothing to do with a lack of support for the two-state settlement. “Everybody in Hamas says ‘Yes’ to the two-state solution,” he said. “The problem comes from the fact that the Israelis so far [have not said they] accept the 1967 borders between the two states.”(8)

Other leaders are just as explicit. “Hamas is clear in terms of the historical solution and an interim solution. We are ready for both: the borders of 1967, a state, elections, and agreement after 10-15 years of building trust,” commented Usama Hamdan, the Hamas Chief Representative in Lebanon. (9) Notable here is that his remarks were made in 2003 well before the Hamas victory of January 2006. Indeed, it should be pointed out that most of the on-the-record comments to this effect were made prior to these elections.

Additional Hamas spokespersons who have made explicit reference to acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lands include Sheikh Ahmad Haj Ali, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and Hamas legislative candidate currently imprisoned in Israel (interviewed in July 2005); Muhammad Ghazal, Hamas spokesperson also currently in an Israeli jail (Sept. 2005); Hasan Yousef, West Bank political leader (August 2005); and the Hamas Electoral Manifesto Article 5:1 which calls for “adherence to the goal of defeating the [1967] occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.” (10)

In 1989, Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin (assassinated by Israel in March 2004) stated, “I do not want to destroy Israel. We want to negotiate with Israel so the Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine can live in Palestine. Then the problem will cease to exist.” (11)

The hard-line Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, assassinated by Israel in April 2004 commented in 2002 that, “[T]he Intifada is about forcing Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 borders.” This “doesn’t mean the Arab-Israeli conflict will be over,” but rather that the armed resistance to Israel would end.” (12)

In a 2004 report published by the highly regarded International Crisis Group, “During the 1987-1993 uprising, Hamas leaders proposed various formulas for Israeli withdrawal to the June 4th 1967 borders, to be reciprocated with a decades’-long truce (hudna).” That same report notes that, “In a March 1988 meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and then with Defense Minister Rabin in June 1989, Hamas leader (now FM) Mahmud Zahar explicitly proposed an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 boundaries, to be followed by a negotiated permanent settlement.” The offer was refused. (13)

Sadly, the same cannot be said of Israel or Fatah.

In the years following the 1993 Oslo Agreement between the PLO and Israel it became clear that nothing was being done to advance the formation of a viable Palestinian state. Hamas pointed out that the Agreement was, by Israeli design, open-ended, in stages, calculatedly vague and non-commital, and with no guarantees regarding key issues like settlements, land and water, the status of Jerusalem and the return of refugees.

Moreover, even as the Oslo negotiations proceeded, and lasting for years thereafter, Israel continued to build settlements at an accelerated pace. The settlement blocs were positioned in such a way as to create “facts on the ground” which would make it impossible to designate an area that could constitute a viable Palestinian state.

The Israeli-born Haifa University history professor Ilan Pappe has accurately described the Oslo Accords as a trick to allow Israel to continue to build settlements such as to corral Palestinians in South African-style bantustans.

All this culminated, at Camp David in 2000, in Barak’s “generous offer”, a striking vindication of Pappe’s accusation: a Palestinian “state” with no territorial continuity, divided by settlement blocs, bypass roads and roadblocks, with Israeli control of the entire border. The area permitted to Palestinians would include 69 settlement blocs, housing 85% of all Israeli settlers. Palestinians would have to travel 50 miles from one town to another, with many pointless delays at checkpoints and roadblocks,in order to traverse a real distance of 5 miles.

And during the entire process, Israel continued to expand its colonization of the West Bank, doubling the number of settlers in the ten years following the signing of the Accords.

This was a slap in the face to Palestinians, who had agreed, through the PLO, to accept a mere 22 percent of the land that was theirs before 1948. Conceding 78 percent of the land was an historical Palestinian compromise.

Since the Oslo and Camp David meetings the condition of Palestinians continued to deteriorate. It became increasingly clear that the PLO and its successor, the Palestinian Authority (PA), were not merely inept at negotiation, but that the PA and its leader Yasir Arafat were steeped in corruption, with much of the Authority’s funds lavished on cronies while Arafat spent much of his time living in luxury far from Palestine. The last straw was the PA’s decision to assign its police to assist the occupation authorities in the suppression of Palestinian resistance.

Anyway, in conclusion, it seems the reality of the situation seems to be the exact opposite of what you suggest. I do hope that you will update your post accordingly.

Regards

Not Norm

Bad Behavior has blocked 30 access attempts in the last 7 days.