Putting all the eggs in Fatah basket
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
With the dust of Hamas' triumphant counter-coup in the Gaza Strip yet to settle, Israel and the United States have wasted little time on a counter-strategy, of supporting the rival Fatah organization in West Bank and trying to isolate Hamas economically and diplomatically. This they are doing by rallying the "moderate Arab" support for Fatah and, in Israel's case, by preparing for a full invasion of Gaza.
Yet none of these amount to a prudent response, and the best option would appear to be to let Hamas try its chances at ruling Gaza while various interlocutors in the Arab and Islamic world work on rebuilding the broken bridges between the two dominant Palestinian organizations.
Even the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Post has recognized the pitfalls of the Israel-US response, editorializing: "The most dangerous illusion to emerge from the US-Israeli discussions is the idea that Hamas can be isolated in Gaza while Mr [Palestinian President Mahmud] Abbas is built up in the West Bank."
An influential Hamas politician, Ahmed Yousef, writing an op-ed column in the New York Times under the heading "What Hamas wants", has reiterated Hamas' willingness to play politics with Israel, stating:
From the day Hamas won the general elections in 2006, it offered Fatah the chance of joining forces and forming a unity government. It tried to engage the international community to explain its platform for peace. It has consistently offered a 10-year ceasefire with the Israelis to try to create an atmosphere of calm in which we resolve our differences. Hamas even adhered to a unilateral ceasefire for 18 months in an effort to normalize the situation on the ground. None of these points appear to have been recognized in the press coverage of the last few days.
Ahmed's last comment quoted above is indisputable. Case in point: Martin Indyk, a well-known pro-Israel pundit, has written an article in the Los Angeles Times that tersely refers to "the two-state solution, Palestinian style", omitting any criticism of Israel's iron-fist occupation policy and placing all the blame on the Palestinians, mentioning Hamas' attack on Abbas' presidential palace yet, rather curiously, failing to mention what Yousef has pointed out in his New York Times piece, the fact that it was precipitated by Fatah's attack on the home of democratically elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, which is precisely why the appellation "counter-coup" for describing the developments in Gaza is not altogether inappropriate.
The pertinent question now is whether or not Hamas will be given a chance to rule Gaza, with or without partnership with Fatah. Clearly Israel, which has commenced its air strikes and military incursions inside Gaza already, has no intention of allowing this to happen, hedging its bets on the collapse of Hamas rule one way or another, including the economic strangulation of the whole population, to bring them to their knees.
Left-leaning Israeli author Gideon Levy has aptly described the starvation already sweeping Gaza and the "thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment ... The shadows of human beings roam the ruins ... They only know the [Israeli army] will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions."
With the United States' Middle East peace policy in complete disarray, allowing Israel to continue with its unreconstructed oppressive policy will only exacerbate Washington's negative image in the Middle East. It is equally necessary to recognize the importance of giving Hamas a chance to breathe, to bring stability to Gaza and to demonstrate its statecraft, instead of seeking to "nip it in the bud", a virtual impossibility at this critical juncture.
Lest we forget, the outgoing United Nations envoy for the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, has rightly criticized the disastrous US-European policy toward the Palestinian elections in Gaza, which must now be revisited in light of the serious backlash in the form of Hamas' victory.
"The Quartet took all pressure off Israel. With all the focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction [have] continued unabated," de Soto writes in his report, which has, sadly, fallen on deaf ears, as the European Union's rush to condemn Hamas and support Fatah clearly demonstrates.
Europe must now balance its flawed approach and exert a moderating influence on Israel, by pressuring it to stop its manipulation of humanitarian assistance to the starving Gazan people for the sake of political gains, and to convince Washington that its refusal to engage Hamas in dialogue is counterproductive and dangerous.
Much as certain hawkish pro-Israel pundits such as Daniel Pipes insist that "the only solution is military", there is, in fact, no military solution to the Palestinian problem, only a wise political solution that has been shunned by all Israeli leaders so far, respecting the rights of Palestinians.
On Hamas' part, the rays of hope discerned in Yousef's piece in the New York Times, for a reasonable Hamas approach to the issue of rapprochement with Israel, must be expanded by meaningful Hamas actions that prove it is more than a public relations attempt and that its cadres are adept at not only the art of warfare and martyrdom but also the ingredients of diplomacy and statecraft. That is Hamas' critical test at this hour and, by the looks of it, Israel and its US supporters are hell-bent on preventing Hamas from passing this test.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
With the dust of Hamas' triumphant counter-coup in the Gaza Strip yet to settle, Israel and the United States have wasted little time on a counter-strategy, of supporting the rival Fatah organization in West Bank and trying to isolate Hamas economically and diplomatically. This they are doing by rallying the "moderate Arab" support for Fatah and, in Israel's case, by preparing for a full invasion of Gaza.
Yet none of these amount to a prudent response, and the best option would appear to be to let Hamas try its chances at ruling Gaza while various interlocutors in the Arab and Islamic world work on rebuilding the broken bridges between the two dominant Palestinian organizations.
Even the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Post has recognized the pitfalls of the Israel-US response, editorializing: "The most dangerous illusion to emerge from the US-Israeli discussions is the idea that Hamas can be isolated in Gaza while Mr [Palestinian President Mahmud] Abbas is built up in the West Bank."
An influential Hamas politician, Ahmed Yousef, writing an op-ed column in the New York Times under the heading "What Hamas wants", has reiterated Hamas' willingness to play politics with Israel, stating:
From the day Hamas won the general elections in 2006, it offered Fatah the chance of joining forces and forming a unity government. It tried to engage the international community to explain its platform for peace. It has consistently offered a 10-year ceasefire with the Israelis to try to create an atmosphere of calm in which we resolve our differences. Hamas even adhered to a unilateral ceasefire for 18 months in an effort to normalize the situation on the ground. None of these points appear to have been recognized in the press coverage of the last few days.
Ahmed's last comment quoted above is indisputable. Case in point: Martin Indyk, a well-known pro-Israel pundit, has written an article in the Los Angeles Times that tersely refers to "the two-state solution, Palestinian style", omitting any criticism of Israel's iron-fist occupation policy and placing all the blame on the Palestinians, mentioning Hamas' attack on Abbas' presidential palace yet, rather curiously, failing to mention what Yousef has pointed out in his New York Times piece, the fact that it was precipitated by Fatah's attack on the home of democratically elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, which is precisely why the appellation "counter-coup" for describing the developments in Gaza is not altogether inappropriate.
The pertinent question now is whether or not Hamas will be given a chance to rule Gaza, with or without partnership with Fatah. Clearly Israel, which has commenced its air strikes and military incursions inside Gaza already, has no intention of allowing this to happen, hedging its bets on the collapse of Hamas rule one way or another, including the economic strangulation of the whole population, to bring them to their knees.
Left-leaning Israeli author Gideon Levy has aptly described the starvation already sweeping Gaza and the "thousands of wounded, disabled and shell-shocked people unable to receive any treatment ... The shadows of human beings roam the ruins ... They only know the [Israeli army] will return and they know what this will mean for them: more imprisonment in their homes for weeks, more death and destruction in monstrous proportions."
With the United States' Middle East peace policy in complete disarray, allowing Israel to continue with its unreconstructed oppressive policy will only exacerbate Washington's negative image in the Middle East. It is equally necessary to recognize the importance of giving Hamas a chance to breathe, to bring stability to Gaza and to demonstrate its statecraft, instead of seeking to "nip it in the bud", a virtual impossibility at this critical juncture.
Lest we forget, the outgoing United Nations envoy for the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, has rightly criticized the disastrous US-European policy toward the Palestinian elections in Gaza, which must now be revisited in light of the serious backlash in the form of Hamas' victory.
"The Quartet took all pressure off Israel. With all the focus on the failings of Hamas, the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction [have] continued unabated," de Soto writes in his report, which has, sadly, fallen on deaf ears, as the European Union's rush to condemn Hamas and support Fatah clearly demonstrates.
Europe must now balance its flawed approach and exert a moderating influence on Israel, by pressuring it to stop its manipulation of humanitarian assistance to the starving Gazan people for the sake of political gains, and to convince Washington that its refusal to engage Hamas in dialogue is counterproductive and dangerous.
Much as certain hawkish pro-Israel pundits such as Daniel Pipes insist that "the only solution is military", there is, in fact, no military solution to the Palestinian problem, only a wise political solution that has been shunned by all Israeli leaders so far, respecting the rights of Palestinians.
On Hamas' part, the rays of hope discerned in Yousef's piece in the New York Times, for a reasonable Hamas approach to the issue of rapprochement with Israel, must be expanded by meaningful Hamas actions that prove it is more than a public relations attempt and that its cadres are adept at not only the art of warfare and martyrdom but also the ingredients of diplomacy and statecraft. That is Hamas' critical test at this hour and, by the looks of it, Israel and its US supporters are hell-bent on preventing Hamas from passing this test.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
