Palestinians undermine chance for peace -- again

Palestinians undermine chance for peace -- again

Last month I was in Israel, along with 21 other American academics who study the Middle East, participating in a 12-day workshop on the Arab-Israeli conflict sponsored by Tel Aviv University.


On the evening of June 24 we were in Haifa, meeting with a high-ranking member of the largest Palestinian faction, Fatah. He enthusiastically declared that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were on the verge of signing a "unity agreement" that might jumpstart negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. "This will be a new era, with more promise," he predicted.
But the next morning, Israeli army Cpl. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in a Palestinian raid that killed two other soldiers. Any hope for the unity agreement or renewed negotiations instantly evaporated.
The Fatah official briefed us as academics, and he asked not to be identified by name. Born in a refugee camp, he is a member of the younger generation of Palestinian insiders. He became fluent in Hebrew while serving 12 years in an Israeli jail. For the past decade he has been a Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator with Israel.
"I really believe peace is possible," he told us, "not because we will fall in love with the Israelis, but because there is no other way."
He was plugged into the ongoing Fatah-Hamas negotiations, and that evening in Haifa he outlined the major points of the pending agreement. The Hamas government would empower President Abbas, the leader of Fatah, to negotiate with Israel in the name of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas would accept the Arab League's 2002 proposal to recognize Israel and declare an end of conflict should Israel withdraw from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and would recognize all United Nations resolutions, including Security Council Resolution 242. The Palestinians would declare that their "right to struggle" applied only to the territories captured in 1967 and not to Israel within the Green Line.
When we went to bed that night, all of us Americans were looking forward to reading the news of this breakthrough agreement in the papers the next morning. We hoped to see evidence that the realities of governance had forced Hamas to moderate its anti-Israel positions.
Instead, the headlines were of the raid by three militant Palestinian factions, including members of Hamas' "military wing," and the capture of the Israeli soldier. Soon the stories were about the Israeli army incursions into Gaza to get him back. The Hamas-Fatah unity agreement never came to be.
We learned that the raid into Israel was launched with the explicit intent of kidnapping an Israeli soldier. It was ordered by Khaled Mashal, the Hamas leader based in Damascus, Syria.
With this act, the Hamas hardliners in Damascus and in Gaza succeeded in undermining the apparently more pragmatic leadership of Prime Minister Haniyeh. An Israeli military response was not only anticipated, I believe it was the goal of these "spoilers," who wanted to kill any agreement that might have led to a breakthrough in negotiations with Israel.
The Israeli incursions into Gaza are not just about rescuing Shalit. The operation also is designed to halt the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. These cheap and inaccurate weapons have a short range, but regularly hit the Israeli town of Sderot across the border from Gaza.
Palestinian rocket fire into Israel has increased dramatically since Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip last summer. Rather than seizing the opportunity to build a nascent Palestinian state in Gaza, the militants have used this liberated territory as a launching pad for attacks.
The kidnapping of the soldier was the last straw for Israel, which has responded with intense -- and arguably disproportionate -- force. But these retaliations were provoked by the actions of Palestinian militant factions.
On that evening in June when the future looked far more promising, the Fatah representative denounced the Qassams. "We call these the most expensive rockets," he said, "because of what they cost us in retaliation. We call them 'stupid rockets.' "