Just over 20 years ago, as Ronald Reagan passed the presidential baton to George H.W. Bush, the United States reversed a decades-long policy by initiating open diplomatic contacts with a group that it had long decried as a terrorist organization.
The announcement in December 1988 by Reagan’s secretary of state, George Schultz, that American diplomats would begin talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization was the culmination of a lengthy process by which a group that had for many years been considered off-limits was rendered a legitimate negotiating partner.
There is little doubt that this decision laid the foundations for the Oslo peace accords signed just under five years later. Nor can one doubt that the move was precipitated in part by the advocacy of American Jews who dissented from the prevailing view of Yasser Arafat as an unreconstructed terrorist.
The issue today, as we anticipate a far more radical power shift in Washington this month, is whether we are on the verge of another sea change in America’s view of yet another group it has long labeled as a terrorist organization?
When Britain’s Guardian recently reported that Barack Obama advisers are urging him to have American intelligence agencies “initiate low-level or clandestine” communications with Hamas, the president-elect’s transition team immediately denied any plans to start such a dialogue. But Obama’s team has to be wondering what it will do when the fighting in Gaza stops, especially if the next cease-fire is as shaky and short-lived as the recently expired agreement between Israel and Hamas. It is likely that, no matter how severe their group’s losses, Hamas’s leaders will eventually emerge from their hiding places claiming to have won and reap the applause of the Arab and Islamic worlds simply because they will have survived the Israeli onslaught.
More to the point, the fighting has, as Hamas intended, reinforced its prestige at the expense of its Fatah rivals. While there will always be those who blame the failure of Palestinian moderates on Israel’s unwillingness to make increasingly more drastic concessions, Palestinian politics have long had a gruesome dynamic that rewards those who shed Jewish blood at the expense of those who seek peace. Ever since the pre-1948 heyday of the Mufti of Jerusalem, the process by which radicals have overwhelmed moderates has been rooted in the fact that “resistance” to the Zionists is seen as more legitimate than compromise.
The one point critics of Israel’s campaign raise that makes sense is their assertion that attacking Hamas helps it politically. That, however, is an insufficient reason for the Jewish state to regard terrorist attacks on its citizens as something that must be accepted without response. But it is nonetheless true. Hamas’s popularity goes up whenever it is attacked no matter how severely it has provoked Israel. Nothing Israel does to Hamas is going to help Fatah.
Given its own record of incitement against Israel and subsidization of terror, Fatah’s credentials as peace partner are from impeccable. Nevertheless, maintaining hope for the two-state solution that most Israelis want depends on the Islamists being vanquished. If the odds of a corrupt and incompetent Fatah beating back Hamas were slim before the recent fighting, they are even slimmer today.
Seen in that light, talks with Hamas may seem tempting to the president-elect. But rather than encouraging peace, any outreach to Hamas on Obama’s part will encourage the group to persist in its rejectionist violence. Instead of seeking to restrain Israel, as many on the left, including some Jews, advocate, Obama ought to be telling Jerusalem to do everything it can to eliminate Hamas’s infrastructure. Such a strategy will help manage the conflict, which is all anyone can reasonably expect to achieve.
Unlike Fatah in 1988, Hamas is unwilling to make even the sort of insincere pledges for peace that satisfied those who embraced Arafat as a legitimate negotiating partner. But even if it did decide to hedge on its eliminationist Islamist ideology — and there will always be peace advocates who can be relied upon to seize any insignificant shred of evidence to support such an unlikely scenario — two factors are missing that applied in 1988 (which, it should be remembered, begat a disastrous process that led to more terror, not peace).
First, unlike Arafat’s PLO, which had been routed and forced to relocate to Tunisia from its Lebanese base in 1982, Hamas has yet to be dealt such a blow. So long as it can continue to run a mini-state in Gaza, it will have no reason to change its tune.
Second, in the late 1980s, Arafat was on the verge of losing his key source of support — the crumbling Soviet Union. Iran, Hamas’s main backer, has no plans for abandoning its web of terrorist allies. Indeed, with Tehran moving closer to nuclear capability and the West seemingly unable to find the will to stop it, there is little reason for Hamas to look elsewhere.
Sooner or later, Obama will have to face up to the more important challenge of stopping the Islamist regime in Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But in the meantime, the last thing he should do is to throw a lifeline to Iran’s terrorist allies.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.
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Here's an answer from Gerald Kaufman, the British MP, whose family was killed by the Nazis, who grew up as a Zionist. He says better than I could: You could have negotiated with Arafat, you could have negotiated with Abbas. Now you have to negotiate with Hamas. "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." Here's an answer from Gerald Kaufman, the British MP, whose family was killed by the Nazis, who grew up as a Zionist. He says better than I could: You could have negotiated with Arafat, you could have negotiated with Abbas. Now you have to negotiate with Hamas. "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."
I wonder what it means when Norman tells us that MP Kaufman "grew up as a Zionist". Did he till the soil of the homeland? Did he lie in ambush on a freezing cold night so that other Jews could sleep safely? Did he participate in a Hebrew society creating its own culture? Perhaps it would be best to label people with terms that have real content, otherwise language becomes meaningless. It's very sad that the MP's grandmother, a victim of the Holocaust, would be mentioned in today's political debates. So often, one hears the claim that Israel uses the memory of the Holocaust in context of today's struggles. Well, it would be so much more correct to state that Israel's enemies are busy with the Holocaust - the Islamic world is busy denying it, and extremely evil anti-Israel statements in the west try to draw comparisons with those dark days. Surely, Jews should have enough sensitivity to evoke the memory of our murdered people only in the proper setting. Perhaps MP Kaufman is trying to tell us that he sees this latest war as if it's about him. At times, one hears statements such as "not in my name", and so I interpret MP Kaufman's position. Well, the government of Israel may have handled the crisis wisely or unwisely - but the actions taken were meant to serve the interests of the citizens of Israel in the "here and now". There was no other calculation - not the memory of the Holocaust nor a MP's sense of Jewish identity. We face enemies who are motivated by an extreme Islamic ideology. They (Hamas or Hizbullah or Iran) are not interested in dialogue and mutual understanding with "the Zionist enemy"; rather, they are interested in continuing the armed struggle "until victory". It is a unique, historic challenge that we face. Perhaps others would meet the challenge better than we do, but fortunately for these others, they don't really have to stand the test.
Hamas has, at worst, lost about one-tenth of its active fighters in Gaza in these attacks. They will quickly be replaced. Israel has lost something intangible, but a lot more serious. When the dust settles and the IDF withdraws, as Obama and his "realists" at the State Department ask "where do we go from here?", the measure of that loss of faith and moral credit will be more apparent. Because the attacks on Gaza, unlike those on southern Lebanon, have been largely irresistible save for a puny fusillade of antiquated rockers, the Israeli hawks think they have made a point and recovered some face. The images their friendly US media rarely dwell upon, of communities devastated and orphans fighting for life in hospitals with no light or power, tell the rest of the world another story. Meanwhile the secular Judenstaat, invented by cynical atheists and agnostics, continues its rake's progress of political corruption, nepotism, toleration of settlerdom, absorption of civil life into a permanent war-footing, and the gradual erosion of its lingering pretensions to democratic sanctity. Herzl himself would be aghast at what his fevered anti-Toraic brainchild has grown into. Witness the maneuvers against Arab parties in the upcoming election and the rise of YB which is mainstreaming ethnic supremacism more blatantly than ever before as the Sephardis, like the Arabs, continue to outbreed the Ashkenazis. Israel is turning into one more violent, dysfunctional Middle East country-- one which happens to be majority-Jewish in name, though hardly in practice for long if blowhard brutes such as Bibi and Lieberman are to be its next set of rulers. The USA, struggling with its own economy and racial tensions, is less apt than in the Clinton "era of good feelings" to dance reflexively to political Zionism's tune. Besides, many of the more open-handed Jewish sponsors of both national parties, such as Sheldon Adelson and Madoff's legion of dupes, have taken a serious hit in the stock market. Ultimately the special relationship has always been primarily about lining the pols' pockets, owning both sides of the sham fight that is Congress. Not so many shekels, not so many free passes from Washington. Polls suggest that a vast majority of Israelis, showing less perspicacity than American Jews for once, think the presidential interregnum was the moment to teach Hamas a lesson-- and that "shock 'n' awe" was the right medicine. The USA's neocon adventures this decade have taught Amsricans how myopic this is. Now that lesson is due to be instilled microcosmically in the USA's little buddy, even as America begins to choke on their friendship. www.nkusa.org
Bravo!
As usual Jonathan is right on the money. Maybe Obama should dump Hillary and nominate Jonathan.
sharon now olmert bragg about israel/jews ruling united states that not hamas mr.tobin is the issue.not another taxpayer penny for israel those jews who wish to support israel should move there.
"My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." ...How does Mr Kaufmannn know this? Did he ask her? Did he ask her whether she died to serve as a human shield for Hamas and Iran to kill more Jews. Mr Kaufmannn, pls feel free to leave Judaism-dont let the door slam as you embrace something more to your liking, like Wahhabism
You could have negotiated with Arafat, you could have negotiated with Abbas. Now you have to negotiate with Hamas.
What does Norman mean when he says that we "have to negotiate with Hamas"? It sounds as if he means that it's solely an Israeli decision. It is a very condescending point of view. The Hamas are simply not a factor in his view. It's as if we have a conflict between an "adult" (Israel) and a "child" (Hamas). In such a conflict, there are only expectations from the "adult" who "should know better" and has the means of placating the innocent "child". Well, the Hamas are not children. They bear responsibility for their actions and ideology as do all other thinking adults. They do not intend to negotiate with Israel, nor do they intend to strike a peace deal with Israel. They have published their ideology (one can easily find an English translation of the Hamas Charter in the internet). If one thinks that this ideological position is "mere rhetoric", it means that one is simply belittling the Hamas. It's a kind of discrimination (against third-world movements) that is common place among intellectuals - but it's a discrimination that is meant to justify an anti-Israel position: It frees Israel's enemies from any blame, defining Israel as the sole factor that deserves harsh accusations. Perhaps, it's easier to present the anti-Israel position. It simplifies the conflict by putting all the burden on the one side. But reality is much more complicated. Hamas intends to fight Israel for generations and generations, and hence it regards this ceasefire as temporary. Whoever really wishes the best for Palestinians should actually spend some efforts putting pressure on them to adopt more moderate positions - and to accept Israel's existence as permanent. What a silly waste of energy to pressure Israel to negotiate with those who won't ever accept her legitimacy.
Jews as knowledgeable and respected as Henry Siegman, who as Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress bears much of the credit for getting Soviet Jews out of the USSR, have said that Israel can and should negotiate a settlement with Hamas.http://www.cfr.org/publication/10567/siegman.html Siegman, who has met with Arafat and Hamas, said that there are moderate and extremist factions of Hamas. By refusing to meet with Hamas, Israel is supporting the extremist factions. If you think Siegman is wrong, tell me what your credentials are in international relations and in serving the Jewish people. When did you meet Arafat to negotiate peace? What members of Hamas have you met? How many Jews did you save? How did you escape the Nazis?
israel should focus on getting out of the west bank jews and muslims can't live together no more than blacks and whites can here.pc is going to kill israel and the united states and western europe too.better a cold peace than a hot war.
Norman - In claiming that "by refusing to meet with Hamas, Israel is supporting the extremist factions", you have defined as self-evident that Hamas is not the extremist and would be willing to meet Israel. I wonder who, therefore, is the extremist. I wonder what could possibly be more extreme than the call of Hamas that "Palestine will become the graveyard of the Jewish people" (takun Filastin maqbarat al-sha'ab al-yahudi). You also claim that there are moderates and extremists in Hamas. Which member of Hamas accepts the existence of Israel? In one of your comments, your quote MP Kaufman's very extreme and hateful comments. Perhaps one who thinks that such hostility towards Israel is worthy of repetition is a person who imagines Hamas as a type of moderate in this conflict.
Yehuda -- Correction: it's not me that made that claim, it's Henry Siegman who made that claim. Siegman met with Hamas and lists the Hamas members who would accept the existence of Israel in the article I linked to and in his New York Review of Books article. I follow Jewish law, as Hillel summed it up: that which is hateful to you, do not do unto others. It was hateful when the Nazis killed our grandmothers. It is hateful when the Israelis kill Palestinian grandmothers. The Israelis are wrong and we have no obligation to defend their killing. On the contrary, we have an obligation as Jews to condemn the Israeli killing -- as Gerald Kaufman did.
Yehuda -- Correction: it's not me that made that claim, it's Henry Siegman who made that claim. Siegman met with Hamas and lists the Hamas members who would accept the existence of Israel in the article I linked to and in his New York Review of Books article. I follow Jewish law, as Hillel summed it up: that which is hateful to you, do not do unto others. It was hateful when the Nazis killed our grandmothers. It is hateful when the Israelis kill Palestinian grandmothers. The Israelis are wrong and we have no obligation to defend their killing. On the contrary, we have an obligation as Jews to condemn the Israeli killing -- as Gerald Kaufman did.
Norman - Did you read the Hamas Charter? I have read the Siegman interview. I don't know why you would regard him to be an expert on Hamas. He obviously doesn't understand them. He states that "Hamas leaders have stated repeatedly that they have no conflict with the United States or with Western civilization... Their agenda is the end of Israel's occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state". He doesn't ask Hamas to show him on the map which territory is occupied, and which territory is sovereign Israel. Many people (including Mr Siegman) understand "occupation" as territory captured by Israel in 1967. Hamas regards all of Israel as occupied territory. It's a game of dualism. They say "occupation", knowing that people regard this as a reasonable demand. However, the Palestinian (Islamic) state that they wish to found is meant to replace Israel. If you find this position as "moderate", then you find the existence of Israel as "extremism". I know it's a waste of time and energy to recommend to Mr Siegman (or to you) to sit down and study some Arabic (it's even more urgent to sit down and study some Hebrew). It would be helpful to read the Hamas positions in their language - not in yours. You'd find out that it's a whole different world of imagery. And speaking of a whole different world of imagery, I would recommend that you read some books about the Holocaust. It was not an armed struggle between two ethnicities, struggling for conflicting national interests. Comparing a state-policy of genocide based on an insane racial theory with any of the many armed conflicts in today's world can only mean that you don't have a picture of what the Holocaust was. How strange.
Yehuda -- Siegman actually talked to members of Hamas -- just as he talked to the Soviets when he was freeing Soviet Jews. How many members of Hamas have you talked to?
Did you bother to read the Hamas Charter, Norman? Before doing so, you should be aware of the fact that it is liable to be unsettling. ("Peace initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement" - article 13). You might find out, sadly, that Israel has a really unreasonable enemy whose intentions are evil ("Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims" - article 28). Moreover, I can promise you that you won't find any Hamas member who does not support this document.