BEIRUT — Is it important for Israel and the United States to sit down with Hamas and talk business? Yes, it is — for the same reasons the US is trying to extract itself from its self-inflicted mess in Afghanistan by negotiating with Taliban elements, and from Iraq by partnering with and paying off Sunni insurgents who had spent several years killing Americans.
Ironically, the United States and Hamas do not have a direct confrontation; the conflict is between Hamas and Israel. Yet according to the rules of US policy-making in the Middle East, wherever Israel is concerned the US plays according to Israeli rules, which in this case means the hard Israeli right and its lobbyist proxies in Washington forbid the US from speaking with Hamas. This is another example of how the bizarre relationship between the US and Israel totally distorts American foreign policy principles, and makes hypocrisy a central pillar of how the US deals with the rest of the world.
This is significant because as long as American policy in the Middle East is largely defined by rightwing Israeli extremists and their agents in Washington, the chances of achieving a breakthrough for peace and stability in the region are zero. Israel will have to decide for itself whether coming to grips with the reality of Islamist sentiments and movements in the Middle East is a reasonable thing to do. The United States should have no similar dilemma engaging with Islamist movements like Hamas that have proven beyond a doubt that they represent a large number of people in our region, and are prepared to play by fair rules.
Sarah Palin, in the eyes of many people, is a certified nutcase, and a reckless extremist; but she has to be dealt with because she represents the sentiments of many people, i.e., she has legitimacy and representational credibility. Similarly, many people in the world and even in the Middle East view groups like Hamas as dangerous extremists and terrorists, but these Islamists also have legitimacy and credibility among large swaths of citizens in our region, so they cannot be ignored.
The American government, after some wasted years, has sensibly grasped that it is more realistic to negotiate peaceful coexistence with antagonists or enemies like the Iraqi resistance or the Taliban in Afghanistan. As long as Washington refuses to apply a similar approach to negotiating with Islamists in the Middle East, it will only cement the perception that American policy is totally run by Israel and its Washington lobbyists.
An impressive new report from the US Institute of Peace, by Paul Scham and Osama Abu-Irshaid, suggests a more useful and nuanced approach. It recognizes that full peace is unlikely to happen between Israel and Hamas, but also that Hamas, in practice, has “moved well beyond its charter…Indeed, Hamas has been carefully and consciously adjusting its political program for years and has sent repeated signals that it may be ready to begin a process of coexisting with Israel.”
The June 2009 special report available on the USIP.org website, entitled Hamas: Ideological Rigidity and Political Flexibility, starts with the important acknowledgment that Hamas fights Israel because it sees Israel as an occupier of land that is inherently Palestinian and Islamic. So while Hamas cannot and will not officially recognize Israel, “it has formulated mechanisms that allow it to deal with the reality of Israel as a fait accompli. These mechanisms include the religious concepts of tahadiya (short-term calming) and hudna (truce) and Hamas’ own concept of “Palestinian legitimacy,” that is, its willingness to consider a permanent, comprehensive peace agreement such as envisioned by the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, if it is ratified by the Palestinian people in a referendum. Hamas has made it clear it could participate in such a process by being part of a national unity government in Palestine.
The authors conclude: “Although a peace process under such circumstances might, for Israelis and Westerners, seem involved, arcane, and of dubious utility, it is necessary to consider the possibility of such a process because there is no realistic scenario under which Hamas will disappear. Understanding the Islamic bases of Hamas’s policies and worldview will be essential for the success of any process in which it is engaged.”
The authors — Paul Scham is executive director of the University of Maryland’s Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies, and Osama Abu-Irshaid is completing his Ph.D. thesis on Hamas at Loughborough University in the UK — represent a rare ability by sensible individuals on both sides of this conflict to transcend surface antagonisms and fears, and instead delve into the more complex and nuanced worldviews of the actors in this long-running conflict. Such honest attempts to reconcile the driving principles and real national interests of both Israelis and Palestinians are more likely to move us towards peaceful coexistence than the ravings of Zionist maniacs or Arab extremists — or American simpletons, who allow themselves to get caught in between.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.
Copyright © 2009 Rami G. Khouri – distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 24 August 2009
Word Count: 820
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