Middle East Times
Published: February 03, 2009
BEIRUT -- Suddenly, Hamas finds its basket full of international carrots after being hard hit with Israeli sticks. But not only that. Rapprochement messages to Hamas were being smoothed each time an international player spells them out.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was the first European statesman to say that his government was ready to talk to Hamas, "when they accept the peace process, when they agree to start negotiations." Speaking in parliament, Kouchner said: "We don't ignore the reality of Hamas, its electoral success or its weight in Palestinian opinion."
One week later, a similar message, less conditioned though, came from the Quartet Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair. The grey-haired British PM-turned-diplomat said the Quartet would talk to Hamas "provided that Hamas is part of a government that is on terms that are consistent with the two-state solution."
Just recently, the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana made the lightest gesture toward accepting a Palestinian unity government between Fatah and Hamas shall the Islamic movement commit to pursuing a two-state solution. Solana's new approach fell short of long-standing conditions, that Hamas must renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing interim peace accords.
This approach fantasizes about a beaten up and desperate Hamas that will soon rush to "accept the peace process," abide by the terms of a "two state solution" or at least commit to "pursuing" such an outcome. It also fantasizes about a strategy of engaging the militant organization, diplomatically and politically, to walk it through a process of moderation. Didn't Khaled Meshaal tell the French Jewish writer Marek Halter on the eve of Israel's 22-day offensive that his movement, whose 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, is finally ready to recognize Israel? So why not trying to further this "moderation."
In fact there is substantial evidence to the contrary.
Meshaal is a professional deceiver who masters sending mixed messages. Shortly after the guns fell silent in the Gaza Strip due to an internationally enforced cease-fire, he said that Gaza battle laid the ground for a serious "strategy of liberation" that would extend beyond Palestine. During the war Hamas attended a quasi summit in Qatar alongside with Syria, Sudan, Iran (the neo-rejection front led by the messianic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) where the Arab Peace Initiative spearheaded by Saudi Arabia was called dead.
For Meshaal peace fruits shall be facing the same destiny. Shortly after, he announced the surprise that work is underway to form an alternative representative authority to replace the decades-old Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Hamas has always refused to join ranks of the PLO, which due to its acceptance of a Palestinian state on the territories Israel occupied in 1967 and recognized Israel's right to exist, was internationally recognized as the "sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."
This is barely the first coup attempt against the PLO.
A few years ago Hamas led other Damascus-based Palestinian groups to establish the Front of the 10 Palestinian Factions. In 1976, then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein encouraged a group of Palestinian officials to form the Palestinian Rejection Front. Less than a decade later, Syria backed a dissident Fatah officers Abu Moussa Maragha and Abu Khaled al-Amleh, to establish the Palestinian Salvation Front.
In addition, it is not the lack of "engaging Hamas" that hardened its positions, but rather the strategy of engagement itself. In February 2007 Saudi King Abdullah oversaw a tough reconciliation process to get the two rivals Fatah and Hamas to end street fighting and form a national unity government. The deal was announced from Mecca, Islam's holiest place, and $1 billion was promised in aid. Not less remarkable the Mecca agreement put Mahmoud Abbas and Meshaal on the same level, granting Hamas an unprecedented position. However, less than four months later Hamas militiamen were throwing Fatah supporters from high rise buildings in Gaza, dragging the bodies of "collaborators" through the streets and stretching the borders of Iran to meet those of Israel while consolidating its stranglehold on the strip.
Hamas sustained, since then, its refusal to join a national dialogue proposed by Egypt. And when a cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, brokered by the Egyptians, expired the Islamic organization turned down all calls from Cairo to revive the agreement.
However, and while "engaging Hamas" remains the strategy advising Cairo's mediation to bridge schism between the same two factions, Meshaal said after the last war in Gaza that his movement is ready for a national dialogue "on the basis of resistance."
It was Albert Einstein who once said: "the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." However, when it comes to Hamas nothing could be more lethal than abandoning reality.
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Nadim Koteich is a political analyst and host of "Studio 24", a daily prime time news analysis show that airs on the pan-Arab Future News channel, headquartered in Beirut. His e-mail is nkoteich@gmail.com
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