Outraged by Israel's devastating three-week assault on Gaza, much of the world has given an enthusiastic welcome to President Barack Obama's pledge to seek – ‘actively and aggressively' – a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. His appointment of former Senator George Mitchell, an Arab-American, as his Middle East envoy, is a clear sign that he means business. What should be the next steps forward? Clearly, the cruel siege of Gaza must be lifted, not only for urgently needed humanitarian aid, but also for commerce, and to allow the movement of people cooped up for far too long. Gaza must be brought back to life. A second necessary step will be the holding of Palestinian legislative and presidential elections as soon as possible, preferably this spring. They will need to be monitored by international observers, drawn perhaps from the EU and the Carter Center. Their aim will be to produce a new Palestinian leadership, leading to the formation of a unity government. This step is an essential pre-condition for negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. A major obstacle, however, is Obama's refusal to engage with Hamas until it recognizes Israel and renounces violence. These conditions, imposed by the US and Israel when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections of January 2006, need to be set aside. They are an obstacle to a settlement. Mutual recognition between enemies occurs after a peace settlement is reached, not before. In any event, most Arab countries do not recognize Israel, and will not do so until there is peace. As for renouncing violence, Israel is by far the greater offender. Quite apart from its siege of Gaza, it has killed over 2,000 Palestinians since it withdrew from the Strip in 2005, whereas Hamas in the same period killed fewer than 20 Israelis. If terrorism is killing civilians for political ends, there is no doubt that Israel is the greater culprit. Hamas is deeply rooted in Palestinian society. It has survived Israel's attempt to annihilate it and continues to govern Gaza. It has considerable support on the West Bank. It is a central element of the Palestinian-Israeli equation and cannot be ignored. To refuse to engage with Hamas is to rule out the possibility of a settlement. Three basic facts about Hamas are relevant. First, it believes that Israel's occupation needs to be challenged by armed resistance. Resistance, it claims, is legitimate so long as occupation continues. In this, Hamas differs starkly from the position of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority since January 2005. Abbas is a founder of Fatah, Hamas's bitter rival. He chose to abandon resistance in favor of negotiations with Israel, but, unfortunately for him, Israel made him no concessions. It continued to expand its West Bank settlements and to tighten its grip on Arab East Jerusalem. It stifled Palestinian life on the West Bank with over 600 checkpoints, with a security wall built deep into Palestinian territory, and with a special network of settlers-only roads. It has never interrupted its repeated raids, arrests and assassinations. Because many Palestinians see Abbas as a quisling, it is hard to see how he can play the lead role in an Obama-sponsored peace process. Secondly, even if it is Islamic in tone, Hamas is essentially a nationalist movement. Israel has sought to demonize it as a ‘terror organization', indistinguishable from Al-Qaeda. After 9/11, to win American backing, it portrayed its fight against Hamas as part of George W Bush's ‘Global War on Terror.' But Hamas's national aims have nothing to do with Al-Qaeda's global jihad. Thirdly, Israel regularly claims that Hamas is dedicated to destroying the Jewish state, claiming as its evidence Hamas's 1987 charter, which contains anti-Semitic references to a global Jewish conspiracy. But, ever since it won the 2006 elections, Hamas has distanced itself from its charter, and now says that its sole ideological reference point is the political platform on which it fought the elections. Far from calling for Israel's destruction, Hamas's top leader Khaled Meshaal told former US President Jimmy Carter in April 2008 that Hamas would accept ‘any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.' The quotation is from Jimmy Carter's article, ‘An Unnecessary War', in The Washington Post, January 8, 2009. Indeed, the very fact that Hamas was moderating its stand may have driven Israel to attack it, as Israel has always sought to radicalize the Palestinians so as to avoid having to negotiate with them. The main problem in resolving the long-running conflict lies with Israel, rather than with the Palestinians. Israel's ultra-nationalists, religious fanatics and land-hungry settlers do not want peace. They want still more land. Moreover, Israel's political system, based on proportional representation, allows small extremist parties to hold the country to ransom. Israel's elections on Feb. 10 are most unlikely to produce a ‘peace coalition.' That is why American muscle will be required to persuade Israelis that, six decades after the creation of their state, the time has at last come to define their frontiers and make peace with their neighbours. This is the difficult task Obama has set himself.
