Barry Rubin
January 11, 2009
Let's say that you love the Palestinians, are sympathetic to Arabs, and are indifferent to Israel.
Presumably, you would favor an immediate ceasefire to stop Palestinian suffering. But what else? What next? What is the solution from your point of view, from the Palestinian point of view?
The answer is: you should support the downfall of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. Let me explain why:
First, only the Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules the West Bank, is capable of making peace with Israel because Hamas does not want to do so and demands total victory and Israel's extinction. But without a negotiated peace, the conflict will go on forever and the vestiges of occupation will not end. There will not be a Palestinian state.
Even if you believe the world should pressure Israel into major concessions, Israel will not give way even under the greatest pressure if Hamas is involved because that would be suicidal. And with Palestinian leadership divided into two regimes, no negotiation can succeed any way.
If Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, progress toward peace is impossible. No peace, no dismantling of settlements (on the West Bank, they've already been dismantled in the Gaza Strip. Remember? When Israel withdrew completely and turned the Gaza-Egypt border over to the Palestinians?]. No peace, no Palestinian state. No peace, no serious economic construction and stability. No peace, no resettling of Palestinian refugees in a country of their own.
Second, Hamas is a disaster for Palestinians as a ruler. It is creating a repressive Islamist state where freedom will be extinguished, women treated as third-class citizens, and children will be brought up to be suicide bombers. While Hamas has had social welfare programs to recruit supporters and support the families of those it has ensured would be martyrs, it has no interest in educational, health, infrastructure, and job creation or anything but waging war.
In addition, Hamas will never get much, if any, economic support from the international community whereas with a PA government, as has been shown previously, billions of dollars of aid money has been given. The resources Hamas gets are mainly plowed into waging war. For Hamas, Palestinians are instruments for waging jihad, privileged to become martyrs to the cause. If the Palestinians were to get their own state or enjoy higher living standards, Hamas fears they will become content with the status quo and abandon the struggle. For Hamas, that is a fate for Palestinians worse than death--their deaths.
Of course, the PA is, to put it mildly, far from perfect. It is plagued by corruption and inefficiency though over the last year it has shown marked improvement. Why did Hamas win the election? Partly due to the PA's shortcomings; largely due to the internal divisions of Fatah which rules the PA. After all, if so many Fatah candidates hadn't run against each other, the race would have been very close.
At the same time, it is important to remember that the current Hamas government is not an elected government. Hamas signed a coalition agreement with Fatah then staged a coup to seize power completely, killing and expelling its rival. The current regime is thus not the product of the people's choice but of a takeover. To cite two examples, the Communists in 1917 Russia and the National Socialist Party in 1932 Germany, both won elections. But they then seized power, outlawed the opposition, and held on for a long time. The Hamas pattern is similar.
Third, in material terms, Hamas has led and will continue to lead to massive bloodshed and suffering. Blame it on Israel if you wish, but remember something rather important: the Israel-West Bank border is completely quiet. There are no sanctions, no blockade. Indeed, Israel supports other countries giving aid and even weapons to the PA, albeit with limits in the latter case. Israel isn't fighting "the Palestinians" it is fighting Hamas. Why? Because Hamas is fighting Israel.
Even if you have the most negative possible view of Israel: go on, throw out all your nastiest adjectives and biggest anti-Israel claims. The fact is that Israel exists and will continue to do so. It will also continue to defend its citizens--you can call it aggression if you want.
But these are facts. With the PA and peaceful strategies, individual Palestinians can enjoy relatively good lives and hope for the future. With Hamas, since it is going to spend decades in the martyrdom business and seeking Israel's extinction through violence, the fact is there is going to be a lot of violence. Even if Israel doesn't react to the first hundred of thousand missiles, mortar shells, and cross-border terrorist attacks, eventually it will do so. And we will see something like the current situation over and over again.
Finally, Hamas is a disaster for Arabs in other countries and for the Arabic-speaking world in general. The survival and strengthening of Hamas will help spread radical Islamism and terrorism to other countries at even higher levels. Many Arabs and Muslims will die, be wounded, and suffer. There will be more attacks and political turmoil in Egypt and Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, North Africa and the Gulf. These events will have nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the kind of revolutionary movement Hamas represents. And this includes a long-term, internal Palestinian civil war as well.
So if you want to march for a ceasefire, campaign for a Palestinian state, and criticize Israel, just remember this: don't struggle to support those who will do more harm to the people you purport to care for--even if you blame Israel for it, the cause will be Hamas's policies--than anything else.
If you want to help in real terms, let's work together for a peaceful diplomatic resolution, a two-state solution, in which Palestinians have their own country, receive massive international aid, children can live in security, and there is real peace. For that goal, you will find the overwhelming majority of Israelis will agree with you. But remember, too, Hamas doesn't.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Ending the Gaza War: Choices Not Solutions
ENDING THE GAZA WAR: CHOICES, NOT SOLUTIONS
By Barry Rubin
Last December, Hamas unilaterally ended its ceasefire with Israel and escalated the kind of cross-border attacks continually attempted even during the ceasefire. With massive public support, Israel struck back against a neighboring regime which daily attacked its citizens and called for its extermination.
For decades, Israel’s history shows a general pattern: its neighbors attack, Israel responds, Israel wins the war, and the world rushes to ensure that its victory is limited or nullified. If, as sometimes happens, the diplomatic process really improves the situation and provides progress for peace that, of course, is beneficial.
Yet Israel’s experience has shown that international promises made in return for its material concessions are often broken. Most recently, in 2006 the international community pledged to keep Hizballah out of south Lebanon and curb its arms’ supply, failed totally, yet took no action in response to this defeat. Israel is understandably skeptical.
In addition, Israelis know that Hamas is totally dedicated to their personal and collective destruction. The group will not moderate, cannot be bought off, and will not respect any agreement it makes. As a result, the usual kinds of diplomatic tools—concessions, confidence-building, agreements, moderation resulting from having governmental responsibilities, will not work. Any solution short of Hamas’s fall from power will bring more fighting in future.
What should happen is that the international community cooperates in the removal of the Hamas regime. It is an illegal government, brought to power by an unprovoked war against the Palestinian Authority (PA) which was the internationally recognized regime in the Gaza Strip. Hamas may have won the elections but it then seized total power, suspended representative government, and destroyed the opposition.
Moreover, Hamas is a radical terrorist group which openly uses antisemitic rhetoric and actively seeks to wipe Israel off the map. It oppresses the Palestinian population and leads them into endless war. It teaches young Palestinians that their career goal should not be as a teacher, engineer, or doctor but as a suicide bomber.
From a strategic standpoint, Hamas is a member of the Iran-Syria alliance which seeks to overthrow every Arab regime in the Middle East and replace it with an anti-Western, war-oriented, radical Islamist dictatorship. Hamas’s survival is a big threat to both Western interests and to those of Arab nationalist regimes. Keeping Hamas in power is equivalent to an energetic Western diplomatic effort to have kept the Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan, despite its role in the September 11 attacks.
If, however, the world is not going to support Hamas’s fall from office, Israel cannot bring about this result by itself. At the same time, the world will be making a big mistake if it pushes for a ceasefire at any price, thus encouraging future violence and terrorism, not only regarding Gaza but also in the region generally.
What then are Israel’s options?
Two possible outcomes are rejected: Israel will not take control of the Gaza Strip again, and Israel will not accept a return to the previous situation in which Hamas repeatedly attacked Israel under cover of a ceasefire.
There are at least six major things Israel can obtain realistically:
--The practical weakening of Hamas. Granted it will continue to be aggressive in future, its losses will reduce Hamas’s ability to hurt Israeli citizens.
-- Deterrence, while retaining its longer-term goals, Hamas will be more reluctant to attack Israel lest it produce another such Israeli response.
--Border control, a change from the situation in which Hamas can import weapons fairly freely to a stricter order in which humanitarian aid but not arms can come in.
--The return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, seized in a Hamas attack on Israeli soil and held hostage, lacking any contact with international humanitarian groups.
--A reduction of Hamas’s standing among Palestinians. Despite macho and religious rhetoric about Hamas’s strength, Gaza Palestinians are more eager for a return of the PA; West Bank citizens, living under more moderate PA rule, realize that extremism is disastrous.
--Regional perception of Hamas’s defeat, lowering support for the Iran-Syria alliance and encouraging more moderate Arab forces to resist radical Islamism and Tehran’s power.
Despite this being the best realistic program, Israel also knows significant factors that might mean it won’t work entirely:
--Hamas will break any agreement and not change.
--The international community is weak and contains tendencies toward appeasing extremists to avoid trouble.
--Egypt even when well-intended is not so efficient at controlling the border
Thus, even this best-case scenario has problems. First, Hamas will return to building up its forces for future confrontations, teaching a whole generation that it should prepare to sacrifice itself to achieve a “final solution” of the Israel problem. In short, any outcome that leaves Hamas in place is at best a lull until the next round.
Second, it is quite possible that within days or weeks of any agreement, Hamas—partly to prove to itself and others how it remains unbowed—will return to firing rockets and mortar rounds into Israel as well as trying to carry out terrorist attacks across the border. In that case, Israel will have to respond much more seriously than it has in the past to such behavior. A world which guarantees the ceasefire better be prepared to remember Israel’s legitimate interests in enforcing it.
Finally, as long as Hamas survives as rulers of the Gaza Strip, it will be impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The PA will be too intimidated to make compromises and cannot even deliver its own people. There can be no Palestinian state with half the territory being controlled by an organization which will never accept an agreement and will do everything possible to wreck it.
“Saving” Hamas and making the main or sole priority pushing for a ceasefire at any price is a very short-sighted policy for the international community which will be paid for in future. If the Gaza war is going to be ended, it should be in the framework of solving the problems that let Hamas create the war in the first place.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Truth About Syria, and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East.
A different version of this article was published in The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
By Barry Rubin
Last December, Hamas unilaterally ended its ceasefire with Israel and escalated the kind of cross-border attacks continually attempted even during the ceasefire. With massive public support, Israel struck back against a neighboring regime which daily attacked its citizens and called for its extermination.
For decades, Israel’s history shows a general pattern: its neighbors attack, Israel responds, Israel wins the war, and the world rushes to ensure that its victory is limited or nullified. If, as sometimes happens, the diplomatic process really improves the situation and provides progress for peace that, of course, is beneficial.
Yet Israel’s experience has shown that international promises made in return for its material concessions are often broken. Most recently, in 2006 the international community pledged to keep Hizballah out of south Lebanon and curb its arms’ supply, failed totally, yet took no action in response to this defeat. Israel is understandably skeptical.
In addition, Israelis know that Hamas is totally dedicated to their personal and collective destruction. The group will not moderate, cannot be bought off, and will not respect any agreement it makes. As a result, the usual kinds of diplomatic tools—concessions, confidence-building, agreements, moderation resulting from having governmental responsibilities, will not work. Any solution short of Hamas’s fall from power will bring more fighting in future.
What should happen is that the international community cooperates in the removal of the Hamas regime. It is an illegal government, brought to power by an unprovoked war against the Palestinian Authority (PA) which was the internationally recognized regime in the Gaza Strip. Hamas may have won the elections but it then seized total power, suspended representative government, and destroyed the opposition.
Moreover, Hamas is a radical terrorist group which openly uses antisemitic rhetoric and actively seeks to wipe Israel off the map. It oppresses the Palestinian population and leads them into endless war. It teaches young Palestinians that their career goal should not be as a teacher, engineer, or doctor but as a suicide bomber.
From a strategic standpoint, Hamas is a member of the Iran-Syria alliance which seeks to overthrow every Arab regime in the Middle East and replace it with an anti-Western, war-oriented, radical Islamist dictatorship. Hamas’s survival is a big threat to both Western interests and to those of Arab nationalist regimes. Keeping Hamas in power is equivalent to an energetic Western diplomatic effort to have kept the Taliban regime in power in Afghanistan, despite its role in the September 11 attacks.
If, however, the world is not going to support Hamas’s fall from office, Israel cannot bring about this result by itself. At the same time, the world will be making a big mistake if it pushes for a ceasefire at any price, thus encouraging future violence and terrorism, not only regarding Gaza but also in the region generally.
What then are Israel’s options?
Two possible outcomes are rejected: Israel will not take control of the Gaza Strip again, and Israel will not accept a return to the previous situation in which Hamas repeatedly attacked Israel under cover of a ceasefire.
There are at least six major things Israel can obtain realistically:
--The practical weakening of Hamas. Granted it will continue to be aggressive in future, its losses will reduce Hamas’s ability to hurt Israeli citizens.
-- Deterrence, while retaining its longer-term goals, Hamas will be more reluctant to attack Israel lest it produce another such Israeli response.
--Border control, a change from the situation in which Hamas can import weapons fairly freely to a stricter order in which humanitarian aid but not arms can come in.
--The return of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, seized in a Hamas attack on Israeli soil and held hostage, lacking any contact with international humanitarian groups.
--A reduction of Hamas’s standing among Palestinians. Despite macho and religious rhetoric about Hamas’s strength, Gaza Palestinians are more eager for a return of the PA; West Bank citizens, living under more moderate PA rule, realize that extremism is disastrous.
--Regional perception of Hamas’s defeat, lowering support for the Iran-Syria alliance and encouraging more moderate Arab forces to resist radical Islamism and Tehran’s power.
Despite this being the best realistic program, Israel also knows significant factors that might mean it won’t work entirely:
--Hamas will break any agreement and not change.
--The international community is weak and contains tendencies toward appeasing extremists to avoid trouble.
--Egypt even when well-intended is not so efficient at controlling the border
Thus, even this best-case scenario has problems. First, Hamas will return to building up its forces for future confrontations, teaching a whole generation that it should prepare to sacrifice itself to achieve a “final solution” of the Israel problem. In short, any outcome that leaves Hamas in place is at best a lull until the next round.
Second, it is quite possible that within days or weeks of any agreement, Hamas—partly to prove to itself and others how it remains unbowed—will return to firing rockets and mortar rounds into Israel as well as trying to carry out terrorist attacks across the border. In that case, Israel will have to respond much more seriously than it has in the past to such behavior. A world which guarantees the ceasefire better be prepared to remember Israel’s legitimate interests in enforcing it.
Finally, as long as Hamas survives as rulers of the Gaza Strip, it will be impossible to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The PA will be too intimidated to make compromises and cannot even deliver its own people. There can be no Palestinian state with half the territory being controlled by an organization which will never accept an agreement and will do everything possible to wreck it.
“Saving” Hamas and making the main or sole priority pushing for a ceasefire at any price is a very short-sighted policy for the international community which will be paid for in future. If the Gaza war is going to be ended, it should be in the framework of solving the problems that let Hamas create the war in the first place.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Truth About Syria, and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East.
A different version of this article was published in The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
Friday, January 9, 2009
Fooling--Or Trying to Fool--the Journalists in Gaza
barry rubin
While in no way detracting from the real suffering in the Gaza Strip, I had to send you the following extract from an article in Yediot Aharnot, January 9, by Ron Ben-Ishai, one of Israel's best reporters. He was embedded in an Israeli unit in Gaza. In one house held by the troops, the Palestinian family insists on staying so the soldiers let them. And here's what happens when Ben-Ishai comes in:
"The family suddenly notices the cameras, and immediately, the expression on their faces changes. "We have no food," they say in Arabic, as one of the youngsters suggests we interview him in English about their plight. Givati troops are extremely concerned about being portrayed as abusing innocent civilians. [An Israeli officer] points to a stack of canned goods, water bottles and other provisions. "We provided some of that and they cook and eat quite well," said [the officer]. The Palestinians seem to understand him and one of them smiles. It's a war – they had to try."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3653238,00.html
In other words, they did not mention the food given them and pretend they are being starved by the Israeli army, despite the fact that the food and water are in plain sight! How many times a day does this happen and how often does it work!
It should be stressed that making such points does not negate the death, wounding, and suffering of Palestinians. But the issue remains, of course:
--How many people are involved and whether these numbers are exaggerated. Even according to Hamas and the UN, 75 percent of the Palestinian casualties are military. (It might be noted that in Lebanon in 2006, contemporary--misleadingly inflated as we have learned since--reports claimed there were 10,000 civilians killed in the war and attributed to Israel. The equivalent number for the Gaza Strip is about 100 people.
--How Israel has tried to limit these problems. (as in the above case)
--How the responsibility of Hamas is ignored.
--How Israel's own sufferings are minimized or ignored.
Professor Barry Rubin
Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloriacenter.org
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.meriajournal.com
Watch on the Middle East http://www.watchonthemiddleeast.com
Editor Turkish Studies, http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
While in no way detracting from the real suffering in the Gaza Strip, I had to send you the following extract from an article in Yediot Aharnot, January 9, by Ron Ben-Ishai, one of Israel's best reporters. He was embedded in an Israeli unit in Gaza. In one house held by the troops, the Palestinian family insists on staying so the soldiers let them. And here's what happens when Ben-Ishai comes in:
"The family suddenly notices the cameras, and immediately, the expression on their faces changes. "We have no food," they say in Arabic, as one of the youngsters suggests we interview him in English about their plight. Givati troops are extremely concerned about being portrayed as abusing innocent civilians. [An Israeli officer] points to a stack of canned goods, water bottles and other provisions. "We provided some of that and they cook and eat quite well," said [the officer]. The Palestinians seem to understand him and one of them smiles. It's a war – they had to try."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3653238,00.html
In other words, they did not mention the food given them and pretend they are being starved by the Israeli army, despite the fact that the food and water are in plain sight! How many times a day does this happen and how often does it work!
It should be stressed that making such points does not negate the death, wounding, and suffering of Palestinians. But the issue remains, of course:
--How many people are involved and whether these numbers are exaggerated. Even according to Hamas and the UN, 75 percent of the Palestinian casualties are military. (It might be noted that in Lebanon in 2006, contemporary--misleadingly inflated as we have learned since--reports claimed there were 10,000 civilians killed in the war and attributed to Israel. The equivalent number for the Gaza Strip is about 100 people.
--How Israel has tried to limit these problems. (as in the above case)
--How the responsibility of Hamas is ignored.
--How Israel's own sufferings are minimized or ignored.
Professor Barry Rubin
Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloriacenter.org
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.meriajournal.com
Watch on the Middle East http://www.watchonthemiddleeast.com
Editor Turkish Studies, http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Livni: No Agreements With Terrorists
Israel is still standing strong against terrorists and criminals.
This aricle is from Arutz Sheva.
Michael
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told foreign ambassadors in Israel on Thursday that Israel's campaign in Gaza is part of the international effort against terrorism. She told the ambassadors not to equate Israel with the jihadist Hamas terrorist organization.
Speaking with the ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry's humanitarian aid command center, Livni said that Operation Cast Lead is a "struggle... against terror and it cannot end in agreements with it. In order for there to be quiet here one must defeat it, not come to any arrangement with it."
Addressing the specific possibility of negotiations with Hamas, the Foreign Minister said, "Don't expect that we will find a way to create an agreement with Hamas. It won't happen. The only agreements we can make are among us against terrorism. This war we are waging is part of the war waged by the international community throughout the world and I expect of you not to equate us with Hamas."
The immediate benefit of the Gaza campaign, Livni explained is that it made it "clear" to Hamas that "the equation has changed. Until now they attacked us and now they understand that when they attack us, we respond and will not accept a situation in which our citizens are under attack."
Unlike Hamas, Foreign Minister Livni noted that "Israel makes a distinction between Hamas and the civilian population and believes in the need to allow humanitarian aid to reach the [Gaza] Strip. When we open the humanitarian corridors, Hamas shoots." The jihadist regime in Gaza "takes advantage of the desire to assist the Palestinian population and commits its terrorism from among that population. Israel attempts, in its operations, to avoid harming civilians, but in a war like this, unfortunately, there are those who pay the price for Hamas hiding behind the population."
This aricle is from Arutz Sheva.
Michael
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told foreign ambassadors in Israel on Thursday that Israel's campaign in Gaza is part of the international effort against terrorism. She told the ambassadors not to equate Israel with the jihadist Hamas terrorist organization.
Speaking with the ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry's humanitarian aid command center, Livni said that Operation Cast Lead is a "struggle... against terror and it cannot end in agreements with it. In order for there to be quiet here one must defeat it, not come to any arrangement with it."
Addressing the specific possibility of negotiations with Hamas, the Foreign Minister said, "Don't expect that we will find a way to create an agreement with Hamas. It won't happen. The only agreements we can make are among us against terrorism. This war we are waging is part of the war waged by the international community throughout the world and I expect of you not to equate us with Hamas."
The immediate benefit of the Gaza campaign, Livni explained is that it made it "clear" to Hamas that "the equation has changed. Until now they attacked us and now they understand that when they attack us, we respond and will not accept a situation in which our citizens are under attack."
Unlike Hamas, Foreign Minister Livni noted that "Israel makes a distinction between Hamas and the civilian population and believes in the need to allow humanitarian aid to reach the [Gaza] Strip. When we open the humanitarian corridors, Hamas shoots." The jihadist regime in Gaza "takes advantage of the desire to assist the Palestinian population and commits its terrorism from among that population. Israel attempts, in its operations, to avoid harming civilians, but in a war like this, unfortunately, there are those who pay the price for Hamas hiding behind the population."
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