Dealing with Hamas: Drop the Three Conditions

In his column on Tuesday, Bob Herbert of the New York Times recalled the huge 1970 hit by Edwin Starr in which he asked again and again: "War, what's it good for?" The response: "Absolutely nothing."

Nothing about the Gaza war would prove Starr wrong. It's over now. The death toll: 1,300 Palestinians (300-400 of them children) and 13 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Much of Gaza was destroyed and now resembles Warsaw after World War II. Rebuilding will cost billions, although the families who lost loved ones don't have that option. Families don't rebuild; their losses are forever.

What was accomplished? That is hard to say. The Kassam rockets are still being launched (104 since the war ended) and a half dozen today alone. Gilad Shalit has not been returned (nor have any of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israel). The blockade still stands with the suffering inside Gaza intensifying.

Hamas is more entrenched than ever before. It took the war to bring Tony Blair, John Kerry, and three courageous House members-Keith Ellison (D-MN), Rush Holt (D-NJ), and Brian Baird (D-WA)-to actually visit the place that most politicians had previously avoided like the plague. If the Israelis believed that bombarding Gaza would increase Hamas' isolation or produce a popular uprising against it, they were grievously mistaken. Ordinary Gazans are unarmed and their average age is fifteen.

Then there is Israel's international standing. The Gaza war produced the most negative coverage of Israel in its history. And public opinion will reflect this for years to come.

This has been a terrible moment in the region's history, mostly due to the Hamas takeover of Gaza.

But the Western (Israeli, European, and American) approach to Hamas has been consistently wrong since the beginning. The Israelis should never have empowered the Hamas organization in 1987 to serve as a counter to Arafat (the Israeli government thought a nice religious organization was less of a threat than an Arafat who was saying he would make peace in exchange for the occupied territories).

More recently, the United States should not have insisted on Palestinian elections, which Hamas was bound to win. Worse than that, the international community (including the Bush administration) should never have certified the Palestinian election as "free and fair" and then joined the Israelis in trying to overturn its result. By doing that, we made the U.S. commitment to democracy look like a joke.

But that is ancient history. A lasting bit of foolishness is the continued U.S. insistence that Hamas comply with three conditions before we have any dealings with it: ending violence, accepting all existing agreements between Israel and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, and recognizing Israel.

Of the three conditions, only the first makes sense. Hamas has to totally forswear violence-totally, completely, and without exception. Once it does that, it will be possible to work with them on other issues.

Recognition of Israel should not be the precondition for negotiations but rather its prime goal. Establishing it as a precondition is designed to sabotage any possible breakthrough. After all, we know, and they know, that recognition is the only "card" the Palestinians have. Why would anyone expect Hamas to play it in advance?

When did the United States get in the business of confusing the object of negotiations with preconditions for it? The Bush administration did the same thing with Iran. It said that we would happily talk to the mullahs about their nuclear development program, but only if they ended it first. Naturally, that approach played right into Iran's hands. They kept on doing what they were doing.

The three conditions are doing real damage. Everyone agrees that there can be no progress toward the two-state solution unless the split Palestinian polity achieves some sort of reunification. Otherwise, the two-state solution becomes the three-state non-solution, with Gaza as its own statelet, run by a Hamas that sabotages any agreement that excludes them.

Negotiations between Fatah and Hamas are underway right now to establish some kind of unity arrangement that could allow President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate with Israel on behalf of all Palestinians, including Hamas.

In fact, last Friday the leaders of thirteen Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, announced that in talks chaired by Egypt's intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, they had established committees to discuss forming a national unity government, reforming the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to include all factions, calling for legislative and presidential elections, reorganizing security forces on a nonpolitical basis, and creating a steering group comprised of all faction leaders.

If they can come to an agreement, it should be relatively easy to work out an arrangement on the Gaza border crossings, ending the blockade, starting negotiations on a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit, and resuming Israeli-Palestinian negotiations toward two states.

But even the Obama administration continues to insist that Hamas accept the three conditions. This will never happen. Or, to be more precise, it will happen on the same day that Israel accepts ending the occupation as a precondition.

After all, no one ever proposes preconditions on Israel like, say, lifting the blockade or freeing the thirty Palestinian legislators who were nabbed in 2006 for their affiliation with Hamas, never charged with a crime, and remain in prison three years later.

But, as early as the first days of Oslo, we imposed preconditions on the Palestinians. Even when Israel agreed to some easing of the occupation, preconditions would be imposed on the Palestinians before they were implemented. (Sharon's tactic was to demand a week or a month of "quiet"-anything to avoid implementing an American demand-in the hope that something would happen and he'd never have to live up to his commitment. It usually did.)

Enough already. The only precondition that matters is ending the violence. Children in Sderot and Ashkelon, and throughout Gaza, have been-and continue to be-absolutely terrorized. Child psychologists on both sides of the border talk about the bed wetting, night terrors, and fear of loud noises. Insisting on unnecessary conditions and allowing kids to suffer is utterly indefensible. The Obama administration is not bound by the Bush commitment to preconditions, and our European allies would enthusiastically follow our lead if we cast them aside.

As John Kerry said on Wednesday, the United States needs to show that it is serious about settlements and other such impediments to peace "with actions, and not just words." It does not have to maintain its support for self-defeating conditions simply to avoid a negative reaction from either the Israeli right or the status quo lobby here. The most popular president in decades does not need to walk on eggshells in dealing with Israel or any other country in the world, especially when we are being steered to support policies contrary to U.S. interests.

There is another reason I think the three conditions are absurd. I frankly do not care whether a bunch of zealots in Gaza or anywhere recognize Israel or not. Who needs recognition from thirteenth-century fanatics? All Israel needs from them is an ironclad enforceable pledge to end violence. And, much as I cannot stand Hamas, it is both able to enforce its pledges to end violence and has enforced them in the past.

It's time to deal. Not directly, and without abandoning our friends in the Palestinian Authority, but in a way that will save the two-state solution. The Israeli hawks have been proven wrong over and over again. Like their American counterparts, the neocons, they had their chance and they produced nothing but ashes and childrens' tears.

The new kids on the block-Team Obama-need to take the field and, first thing, tear up the playbook left behind by its failed predecessors.

Issue # 405