Israel must negotiate with Hamas and its refusal to engage with these legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people shows that it’s not interested in a settlement of the conflict. So says the chorus of the kind hearted. I’ve argued against this view here and here, among other places. Guess who has now come up with a proposal for Israel to negotiate with one its most determined enemies? Shaul Mofaz, that’s who.
Naturally, the offer is weighed down with conditions and vulnerable to criticism on a number of grounds; not the least of them is that it’s no more than a bit of grandstanding from an opposition politician. Still, Mofaz is a figure of substance in Israeli public life and not exactly the epitome of bleeding heart softness. He fought in the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War and the First Lebanon War, shouldered a rifle at Entebbe and eventually rose to become Chief of Staff of the IDF. While his service in this last post can be criticized for the effect it had on the IDF’s ability to conduct combined arms operations in Lebanon in 2006, no one could say he baulked at the measures necessary to suppress the Second Intifada.
Now if you were a decision maker in Hamas and Hamas was a rational political organization - rational in the limited sense of seeking achievable ends, employing means to achieve them with some chance of working etc. - how would you react to Mofaz’s offer? Well, if you had any brains you’d criticize the conditions attached but would welcome it in principle. You’d also unfavorably contrast the flexibility and statesmanship (no one says you’d have to be sincere in doing this) of Mofaz when compared to the stubbornness and bellicosity of Israel’s current government. The end result would be an accumulation of brownie points for Hamas in the court of international opinion and a loss of the same for Netanyahu’s government. And it wouldn’t have cost you anything politically; a clean ace, political ground gained by exploiting an opportunity thrown up by Israel’s internal politics.
So how did Hamas actually react? Its spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said,
Any negotiation with the Zionist enemy regarding rights and legitimate recognition would only give it further excuse to commit crimes.
Note the word “any”. It’s not that they reject this offer and would listen to a better one. They reject the very idea of talks with the Zionist entity. The brute facticity of Hamas’s rejection of Israel’s mere existence is again made visible, not that it will have much effect on the international aviary of peace talks parrots.
Conflict management talks with Hamas, such as those involving the fate of Gilad Shalit, are fine but talks aimed at solving the Israel-Palestine conflict are neither possible nor desirable. Every effort should be made to strengthen its Palestinian enemies (a settlement freeze and some settlement evacuations would be helpful in this regard) and if it should turn again to open conflict with Israel along its border with Gaza it should receive a prompt and overwhelming response. As Operation Cast lead showed, while Hamas may be immune to reason its behavior can be altered by the use of sufficient force.
HAMAS is not a rational political entity, hence the irrational response. Partly to blame is the IRI, which floods HAMAS and Hizbullah with cash (though Uncle Khamenei probably has less petro-$ to give out right now than, say, two years ago) in return for said organizations’ rent-a-thug services.
Mofaz, by the way, is a Iranian-born.
You should have read the Israeli papers more systematically. Although Hamas did not respond in the precise way you think they should have, they did provide a series a messages, which are not necessarily mutually consistent, but which provide the same effect of your suggestion.
From Yediot Ahronot (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3801873,00.html):
Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri told Ynet in response to Mofaz’s plan, “This is a very important step, but we are interested in its translation from talk into action.”
“Obviously, such comments carry a lot of weight when they come from someone of Mofaz’s stature – a man who went to war against Hamas and the resistance and is familiar with the issue’s political and security-related aspects,” said al-Masri.
The senior Hamas figure said he would not dismiss any offer “if it is based on the recognition of the basic rights of the Palestinian people and its right to be rid of occupation.
“The Israelis realize that we (Hamas) are a key player in the political arena. It would be a mistake to ignore Hamas and deal solely with (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas,” he said.
On the other hand, Hassan Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine, a supporter of the two-state option, thinks talking to Hamas, at least under current conditions, is idiotic:
“Now with regard to Hamas, I definitely don’t think it would be wise for the West to open up dialogue with Hamas under the present circumstances. I think that would simply reward them and it would benefit them in their competition with the PLO and there’s a stark choice that Palestinians are facing between two strategies: an Islamist violent strategy and a secular nationalist negotiation strategy. I think it’s very important to bolster the second and to make the first appear what it actually is: Non-functional.”
The Fantasy World of the One-Staters
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/hussein_ibish_on_the_fantasy_w.php