The increasingly insufferable Roger Cohen says,
The 1988 Hamas Charter is vile but I think it’s wrong to get hung up on the prior recognition of Israel issue. Perhaps Hamas is sincere in its calls for Israel’s disappearance - although it has offered a decades-long truce - but then it’s also possible that Israel in reality has no desire to see a Palestinian state. One view of Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, Gaza blockade, West Bank walling-in and wanton recourse to high-tech force would be that it’s all designed precisely to bludgeon, undermine and humiliate the Palestinian people until their dreams of statehood and dignity evaporate. The argument over recognition is in the end a form of evasion designed to perpetuate the conflict.
The fact that one party to the dispute may be contradicting its words by its actions is held to be a valid reason for not getting “hung up” on the failure of the other party to accept that its opponent has the same rights as itself. Maybe I’m a bit slow but I don’t get the logic of this. It’s rather like saying that it doesn’t matter that I fail to denounce domestic violence and beat the hell out of my wife because the guy in the apartment across the hall is suspected of giving his missus the odd slap on the sly, even though he publicly condemns domestic violence.
Cohen goes on to say that,
Many of its [Israel’s] leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, have been on wondrous political odysseys from absolutist rejection of division of the land to acceptance of a two-state solution. Yet they try to paint Hamas as irrevocably absolutist. Why should Arabs be any less pragmatic than Jews? Of course it’s desirable that Hamas recognize Israel before negotiations. But is it essential? No. What is essential is that it renounces violence, in tandem with Israel.
The examples he gives contradict the point he is trying to make. We know that Olmert and Livni no longer deny the existence of the Palestinians because they have repeatedly and publicly said so. We don’t have to speculate about whether, behind a mask of absolutist rhetoric, they might really be willing to accept that Palestinians have political rights.
Why demand anything less from Hamas?
Roger Cohen, the hopefully temporary NY Times columnist has entered that phase of a columnist career where he reacts with intemperance to criticisms of his previous columns:
“At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation.”
Roger doesn’t even bother to check his facts nor does he know the meaning of “proportional response” under international law. His view that Israel overreacted to what he considers a few scattered rockets fired at Israeli towns is a distortion of what went on.
The Gazans had been firing rockers at Israel for years forcing residents of near by towns live in shelters. I would like to see him bringing up his children in such a town.
No country can tolerate being under attack without responding.
Mr. Cohen animus towards Israel makes him unfit to be a columnist for such an important paper. He should be writing on some left wing Israel hating website instead.
I have never been so ashamed of the NY Times before. I hope they fire him.
“We know that Olmert and Livni no longer deny the existence of the Palestinians because they have repeatedly and publicly said so. We don’t have to speculate about whether, behind a mask of absolutist rhetoric, they might really be willing to accept that Palestinians have political rights.
Why demand anything less from Hamas?”
This reminded me of a similar argument made by Norm Geras:
“What about Hamas’s founding charter, replete with antisemitic imagery…. [Jimmy Carter:] “They ridiculed it as being ancient, passé, an inconsequential document. But I don’t speak for anyone else.”
Can it be that Carter failed to follow up here in the obvious way: if the document is no longer of any account, why not revoke it and replace it with something else? Can Hamas have missed this idea? Can Jimmy Carter? ”
http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/06/carters-unasked-question.html
See also Phoebe Maltz’s fabulous post.
The PLO hasn’t revoked their charter calling for the destruction of Israel, but that doesn’t prevent negotiations with Abbas. Why the double standard?