The Hamas Dilemma: part of the problem or part of the solution?
By Israel E. Altman*

Introduction

The Gaza impasse is causing Europe to rethink its stance toward Hamas. Hamas remains on the EU terror list and the EU considers the PA, not the Hamas government in Gaza, as its sole interlocutor. But recent events are triggering a new European debate where proponents of engagement with Hamas are gaining ground.

What should the EU approach to Hamas be? Hamas plays a central role in Palestinian society and politics, and its influence on the prospects of a Palestinian-Israeli peace accord is crucial. Hamas also won a democratic election in January 2006. Shouldn’t the EU engage Hamas formally as a partner in the international efforts to settle the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Will such engagement not convince Hamas to moderate its positions and conduct? And isn’t it the case that isolation, by contrast, will further radicalize it?

So far, Hamas has not made any concession on the three conditions for engagement laid out by the Quartet – recognition of Israel, acceptance of the agreements which the PLO and the Palestinian Authority signed with Israel, and renunciation of terror- but do not these conditions demand that Hamas part with all its cards before negotiations even started? In short, shouldn’t Hamas become a part of the solution?

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Haaretz Editorial
11 February 2008

The firing of Qassam rockets against Sderot and the nearby kibbutzim is not stopping and is extracting a heavy price in terms of fear and blood. Responsibility for the shooting from the Gaza Strip, which has been going on for seven years – both before and after the disengagement from the Strip – falls on the Palestinians. Were it not for the shooting, Israel would not respond.

For the past eight months Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip alone, and it is no longer possible to explain away the shooting as due to a lack of control over rogue organizations. The time has come for the Palestinians to ask themselves and their leadership about the direction they are heading. Are the West Bank and the Gaza Strip still one entity, aspiring to establish an independent state alongside Israel? Is it possible that in all situations, Israel will hold negotiations for the establishment of such a state while Hamas is shooting at it? Has Hamas decided to foil a peace agreement and chosen for its people the option of continuous war?

Israel left the Gaza Strip in the summer 2005 to signal the start of an end to the occupation. Kadima was set up after leading figures in Likud, with Ariel Sharon at their head, decided to withdraw from the Greater Land of Israel to more secure and limited borders. The party’s political platform also included a withdrawal from the West Bank, dividing the land into two states for two peoples and an evacuation of settlements. In order to show the seriousness of its intentions, settlements from Gush Katif and northern Samaria were evacuated without an agreement.

The ball passed to the Palestinian court, where it has been stuck after the Palestinians elected Hamas, which opposes a peace agreement with Israel. Instead of Gaza becoming the cornerstone for a Palestinian state, it has become a hostile entity under siege.

The disengagement was not a mistake, but a necessary move of vision and hope. Hamas undermined the hope for a shared future and opted to preserve, as its declared policy, its “resistance” to the existence of the State of Israel, and by extension continue its path of violence. While Israel is trying to correct its historic error of settling in the heart of the Palestinian population by converging into old-new borders of a more ethical democracy, the Palestinians elected Hamas, which is not willing to compromise. The Qassam attacks are not proof that the disengagement failed, but that the Hamas rule is leading the Palestinians into a new round of an unnecessary war. While Mahmoud Abbas is trying to preserve, with the skin of his teeth, a channel of dialogue with Israel, one that will lead to an agreement, Hamas and the other groups are making great efforts to foil any chance for a solution.

If the limited military actions Israel is undertaking in an effort to bring an end to the Qassam rockets will not bring an end to the shooting; if the moderate states, and first and foremost Egypt and Jordan fail to contain Hamas – Israel will have no option but to embark on a broad military operation.

The Israel Defense Forces raison d’etre is to protect the country’s citizens from attack. Even if the success of a military operation is not guaranteed, that concern must not prevent the government from doing what is necessary in order to protect the lives of its citizens and the state’s border. The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is political, and should always be pursued. At the same time, Israel must prove that the blood of its citizens cannot be forfeited – so that in the future, its neighbors will abide by the agreements to which they have committed.

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From today’s Journal:

The Israeli Lesson
February 5, 2008; Page A16
The news about yesterday’s suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona is that it’s news. In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, 451 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks, including 14 suicide bombings. By contrast, yesterday’s attack, which killed one and injured 11, was the first of its kind in more than a year.

This didn’t happen by accident, or because Palestinian radicals have somehow become less hostile to Israel. Responsibility for yesterday’s attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, which is affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas’s ostensibly moderate Fatah party. Islamist Hamas remains even more ardently dedicated to Israel’s destruction, a point it emphasizes with its rocket barrages at southern Israeli cities close to the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the difference has come because of Israel’s increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly “illegal” security fence, its equally “illegal” targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its “disproportional” attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored.

One of the most common arguments against Israel’s actions is that it would feed a “cycle of violence.” It’s fair to say that what happened is closer to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning the next attack. As Israel set up physical obstacles to terrorism, the need for large-scale military incursions declined, allowing a semblance of normal life to return for Israelis as well as Palestinians. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Israel proved that terrorists can be defeated — a lesson that applies equally in Iraq.

See all of today’s editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on The Editorial Page.

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Today’s heinous suicide bombing in Israel illustrates the fact that when Hamas illegally broke through the border to Egypt their main goal was to murder innocent Israeli civilians.

From the JPOST:

Long-range rockets and anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles are some of the weapons smuggled into the Gaza Strip over the last 12 days, Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), told the cabinet Sunday.

Diskin also said numerous terrorists from Iran, Syria and Egypt affiliated with various organizations were smuggled into Gaza and – using training they received in Iran – would try to “upgrade” attacks against Israel.

Defense officials said the IDF would need to study the new types of weaponry that were smuggled into Gaza in recent weeks and, if needed, alter its deployment around and within the Strip.

“If, for example, Hamas now has anti-ship missiles, the navy might need to operate slightly differently when patrolling off the Gaza coast,” a defense official said.

During the Second Lebanon War, four sailors were killed when a Chinese-made missile, fired by Hizbullah, struck the INS Hanit missile ship off the coast of Beirut. “Nowadays, no one is taking any chances,” the official said.

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