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IN ONE word: Bravo!
The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and
Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out
and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a
huge step forward for the Palestinians – and for us.
There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace
with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will
be infinitely more fruitful.
Therefore: Bravo!
Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel
has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will
be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any
talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes
terrorists? Never! End of discussion.
Two bravos, but such a difference.
THE ISRAELI debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It
already started in the early fifties, when the idea of pan-Arab
unity raised its head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in
Egypt, and the pan-Arab Baath movement became a force in several
countries (long before it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq
and Syria).
Nahum Goldman, President of the World Zionist Organization, argued
that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace
was necessary for the existence of Israel, and that it would take
all the Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Prime Minister, thought that peace was
bad for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its
(publicly undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs
was a danger that had to be prevented at all costs.
Goldman, the most brilliant coward I ever knew, did not have the
courage of his convictions. Ben-Gurion was far less brilliant, but
much more determined.
He won.
NOW WE have the same problem all over again.
Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent
Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because
peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as
they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine,
from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going
to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the
enemy, the better.
As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by
this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately
encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a
counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then
conceived as the main enemy.
Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division
between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo
agreement and refusing to open the four “safe passages” between
the two territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was
open for a single day. The geographical separation brought about
the political one.
When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising
everybody including itself, the Israeli government declared that
it would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which
Hamas was represented. It ordered – there is no other word - the
US and EU governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian Unity
Government was brought down.
The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a
strongman of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the
bulwark of Hamas. The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local
chieftain. It was not a very good choice – the Israeli security
chief recently disclosed that Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into
his arms. After a short battle, Hamas took direct control of the
Gaza Strip.
A FRATRICIDAL split in a liberation movement is not an exception.
It is almost the rule.
The Irish revolutionary movement was an outstanding example. In
this country we had the fight between the Hagana and the Irgun,
which at times became violent and very ugly. It was Menachem
Begin, then the Irgun commander, who prevented a full-fledged
civil war.
The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly
afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual
hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together.
Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification
– of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging
the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade
against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of
the Israeli prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the
release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many
Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of
Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous.
Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great
mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint
struggle to end the occupation. If the final reconciliation
agreement is signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal,
Palestinians everywhere will be jubilant.
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on
the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made
a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation
after an historic event.
“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian
Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a
brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a
different ideology.
But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement.
What Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a
Palestinian Authority connected in any way with the “terrorist
Hamas”.
The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been
invited by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress
next month and had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer
the UN, which is about to recognize the State of Palestine this
coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all
Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea.
Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.
IF ONE really wants peace, the message should of course be quite
different.
Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but
as the British have taught us many times, it is better to make
peace with extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the
moderates, and you must still deal with the extremists. Make peace
with the extremists, and the business is finished.
Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present
itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace
agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if
it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in
parliament. Accepting the Palestinian Authority means accepting
the Oslo agreement, on which the PA is based – including the
mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions, God’s word is
definitely final, but it can be “interpreted” any way needed.
Don’t we Jews know.
What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons –
Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian
protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore.
That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand
alone, so they had better unite.
For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal
with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian
territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long
last an exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza,
put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip
(which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the
Egyptian collaborator), let the Gazans open their port, airport
and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements
are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world.
They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more
“moderate”. That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.
The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel,
as well as by the European nations and the United States. They
should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the
1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and
democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results,
whatever they may be.
The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!
Uri Avnery is a
former Knesset member
and a co-founder of
Israeli peace block Gush Shalom
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