A Wise Change in Plans
Here is a shocking question: should the West any longer have an interest in establishing an independent state of Palestine? It is shocking because what has been happening since the radical Hamas-Islamic government came to power is shocking. It is shocking because so many valiant efforts have been made by a succession of presidents, by Israeli leaders, by Europeans, and by some Palestinians. It is shocking because so many on both sides have died and will continue to die as a result of the Hamas manifesto that has virtually transformed Palestine into a terrorist state and that now threatens Jordan and Egypt, as well as Israel.
The scene has changed dramatically since Ariel Sharon suffered his stroke. His successor as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, who just called on the White House and addressed joint sessions of Congress, is in a decidedly unenviable position. With Olmert lacking the national security stature and brilliant military record of his predecessor, his political party, Kadima, won only 29 seats in the Knesset, fewer than the 35 to 40 seats that many believed Sharon would have garnered. This meant greater concessions to other parties to form a government coalition, which has weakened Olmert's leadership, especially since the leading coalition partner, the Labor Party, is headed by the ambitious Amir Peretz, now the defense minister. Many believe Peretz expects to become prime minister by attempting to break the coalition on some issue and force an election. But the Palestinian election of Hamas has narrowed the policy options for any Israeli leader.
The gun and the wallet. The true nature of Hamas must be fully understood. It is not just another nationalist political party. It is a radical Islamist terrorist group with a totalitarian DNA, just as it has been since its inception. Its leaders continue to support suicide-bombing terrorism. They describe the random murder of innocent civilians as a legitimate form of "self-defense," but they have also made it clear that they will not obstruct those who wish to attack Israel. According to the Arab newspaper al-Hayyat, their leading terrorist, Mohammed Deif, is even holding discussions with al Qaeda.
Hamas supported the Popular Resistance Committee, a terrorist group in Gaza, and appointed its leader, Jamal Abu Samhadana, as the head of the new security force, despite the fact that the PRC killed three Americans in the Gaza Strip in 2003--not to mention dozens of Israelis. Samhadana immediately restated his goal, "We have only one enemy. They are Jews. We have no other enemy. I will continue to carry the rifle and pull the trigger." Thus, a self-declared terrorist has been put in command of the Palestinian police force for the first time. Equally telling, the interior minister, Said Sayyam, has stated that Hamas will not sanction any security cooperation with Israel. On the contrary, it will coordinate terrorist activity against Israel.
For Hamas, nationalism exists only "as part and parcel of the religious faith." To Hamas, Palestine is Islamic land, and its covenant states: "God decreed Palestine to be a Muslim Trust for perpetuity," making the dispute not about territory and boundaries but about the need for Muslims to wage jihad until Israel no longer exists. The attitude of Hamas members toward Israel was captured by their foreign minister, who declared, "I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home, which does not show Israel on it." Hamas has rejected prior agreements reached with Israel with such contempt as to exasperate even the dovish former prime minister, Shimon Peres. "If they don't honor agreements," said Peres, "what is the point in negotiating with them?"
Hamas is not a democratic government. Yes, it won an election, but a democracy is defined by more than one election. It is defined in practice by nonviolence, by respect for the rule of law, for minorities, and for individual rights, by an independent media and judiciary, and by a reasonable respect for agreements made by predecessor governments. Domestic violence is the antithesis of democracy. But this "democratically elected" Hamas is now resorting to assassination of its Palestinian opponents. Two Fatah security chiefs in Gaza have been targets of terrorists' bombs. Hamas is preparing to get rid of the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and it is collecting intelligence on the houses of the senior Fatah commanders in the security service who support him. When Abbas is gone, according to the Constitution, the parliamentary speaker, who is a Hamas member, would then become president in his stead. Eliminating Abbas is the last obstacle preventing Hamas from achieving full control of the Palestinian Authority--its security forces, its commercial authorities and monopolies, and other business interests and associations. It wants the gun and the wallet.
No one who knows the Hamas leaders expects them to mellow in office. If they exhibit any restraint at all, it will be short term, merely to improve their military equipment and deployment for the next round of confrontation. They cannot accept a lasting peace with Israel because they cannot accept Israel. The question beyond that, of course, is whether the Palestinian people can accept Israel. Optimists point out that they voted, in part, against corruption in the Palestinian Authority and in favor of the Hamas social programs. True, but the Palestinians have known all along what Hamas stands for. Now they are being so incited by Hamas, it seems less and less likely that, for years or even decades, any Palestinian government will be able to make the concessions necessary for a negotiated outcome with Israel.
The surprise plan proposed last week by Abbas, giving Hamas 10 days to endorse the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, is not to be taken seriously. Rather than a credible peace plan, it is a transparent effort to stop the internal political squabbling among the Palestinians. The so-called plan not only makes no reference to Israel; it says nothing about a two-state solution and enshrines the "right" of Palestinians to continue to militate against the Jewish state. Comparison between the Abbas proposal and the historic plan put forth by Prime Minister Olmert is worse than absurd. In sum, we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by Abbas's pathetic 11th-hour gambit.
Sadly, just as the Palestinians have moved further away from peace, the Israelis were moving closer to a real two-state solution. Israel's leadership and public opinion have declared a willingness to realign their borders and remove all Israeli civilians from 85 to 90 percent of the West Bank. Hamas, to no one's surprise, favors a one-state solution--that is, no Israel. Its hostility, however, also jeopardizes Israel's original scheme for pulling back: To leave Hamas in control of the West Bank would bring the terrorists and their Katyusha rockets within range of Israel's urban population centers and strategic targets. In danger would be Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the major highways between them, along with Ben Gurion Airport.
Talk is cheap. The inescapable conclusion for those seeking any kind of decent peace is that Hamas must be made to fail and seen to fail. There can be no equivocation. To the objection that the Palestinians will suffer, the answer must be that they must endure the troubles they have wrought. If they are protected, on the other hand, Hamas will get credit for improving Palestinian governance. The sooner we confront Hamas, the better; its leaders consolidate their rule by mobilizing additional sectors of Palestinian society and penetrating the security apparatus of the PA. Yes, some humanitarian aid in medicine and food should be extended to the Palestinian population, but only through organizations that will make sure it goes to the needy.
The Hamas threat, meanwhile, forces Israel to change the scope of its envisaged pullback, removing itself from control of 90 percent of the Palestinians on the West Bank. The Israeli settlers will have to be moved to settlement blocks cushioned from attack behind the security fence and beyond the range of terrorist rockets and guns. Israel will also have to retain a presence along the Jordan River so as to preclude the inflow of terrorists and weaponry, in order to respond on a timely basis to its intelligence. To continue its remarkable success in thwarting the vast majority of terrorist attacks, Israel must retain its security bases in the West Bank.
Some believe the Israelis should ignore Hamas and negotiate with Abbas. But he was unable to deliver when he held the reins alone, and there is little reason to believe he can make enforceable concessions today from his much weaker position. The danger from such conversations would be that if negotiations with Abbas go nowhere, Israel will have greater difficulty withdrawing from the settlements: The Israeli opposition would argue: If Olmert could not reach agreement with a relative moderate like Abbas, how could the territories then be handed over to Hamas? The opposition already believes that realignment will involve pain without gain, that it is religiously impossible and highly dangerous.
Obviously, any West Bank realignment is going to be much harder to achieve than the disengagement from Gaza. The West Bank is part of the religious patrimony of the Jewish people, and the number of settlers to be moved is many times those in Gaza.
Even so, Israeli realignment offers great benefits, and not least to the Palestinians. They would gain total control of roughly 90 percent of the West Bank in a contiguous mass. The evolution to a two-state solution would thus be more likely. While this realignment would represent a historic accomplishment in the Middle East for both Israel and the United States, Washington may be unable, for a time, to publicly acknowledge the realignment as Israel's final borders. At some point in the future, however, Washington could state that if the Palestinians continue to be led by those who reject Israel and are incapable of fulfilling their obligations, the new security realignments would become a real and recognized border. Whatever political and economic support Washington can extend will certainly improve the prospects for Olmert to galvanize support for a program very much in the interests of America and its allies in the region.
Olmert's target date for completing his plan is November 2008. It is a modern-day version of the policy of David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister. As he put it: "When it was a question of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the land, we chose the Jewish state without all the land."
This story appears in the June 5, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.