Peace seems impossible on Hamas' terms

The never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict has tested and frustrated the patience of anyone who has attempted to resolve it. It has to end sometime; the question is how, short of the parties involved wiping themselves both off the face of the earth. I’m not one of those bleeding hearts (like Democracy Now) who absolves Hamas of any blame and treats the Palestinians who have supported them as “victims,” or believes that Israel’s slow, inexorable takeover of land in the West Bank has “advanced” the cause for peace. While the grievances of Palestinians harbor might have some legitimacy for those who actually experienced the partition of Palestine, the resort to war and violence by the Palestinians and their supporters rather than negotiate from the beginning de-legitimatizes such claims now--especially that of the vast majority of Palestinians, who were born after their descendents essentially forfeited their claims by abandoning their land by their own choice. 

Before discussing Hamas further, first a history lesson. While the state of Israel has an undeniable historical basis, “Palestine” as a political entity is rather less certain. The term “Palestine” refers to the Greek Philistia, comprised of a few towns populated by the Philistines, a people who originally occupied islands in the Aegean Sea. During Roman times it was a part of the province of Syria, but after the region was conquered by the Muslims following 700 years of Roman/Byzantine rule, it became merely a point on the map. There was never any “traditional” boundaries designating it as a land occupied by “Palestinians.” Those people regarded today as Palestinians are not a separate “ethnicity” but Arabs, as are most of the peoples in the region surrounding it. “Palestine” was not given physical borders until after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the British received it as part of their “mandate” after World War I. Jordan was originally part of Palestine, but the British split the territory in order to receive the cooperation of the Hashemite clan, which aided Lawrence of Arabia against the Turks and its head was rewarded with his own kingdom.

Contrary to popular belief, indigenous Jews still resided in Palestine; despite the destruction of the Jewish state in the first century AD, they were still enough of them to cause problems for the Romans in the mid-4^th century. By the turn of the 20^th century, most lived in or near Jerusalem, which by then was reduced to little more than a minor settlement under Ottoman rule, of significance only to religious pilgrims. There were efforts to increase Jewish immigration to Palestine during the Ottoman period, but with the Balfour Declaration, Britain—which would administer Palestine—agreed to promote this. Despite claims from Muslim sources, the British allowed significant Jewish immigration during the 1920s. The Great Depression temporarily slowed this inflow; but the Holocaust made the situation more urgent, and despite reticence of Britain to court Arab anger, it could do little to stop the inflow of Jews to the region during and after World War II. 

The Arabs in the region, however, seemed to have hoped to recreate the old Islamic empire of a former period; but as we see even today, this was pipe dream because of regional, religious and tribal “disagreements.” After the partition of 1948, Jordan’s ruler secretly opposed the creation of a rival Palestinian state, and tacitly supported the new Israeli state, or at least did not involve Jordan in the wars immediately after the founding of the Jewish state—which allowed it to survive the initial assaults from other Arab countries. Although badly out-numbered and out-gunned, the incompetence of the Arab forces and their in-fighting allowed Israel to be constituted as it currently is. After the 1967 war, Israel tried to barter the occupied lands for peace, but Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser—a committed Arab nationalist—refused to negotiate with a Jewish state. 

But enough of the history lesson. The fact of the matter is that Hamas has no interest in a peace settlement with Israel, and never has; although a minority in Hamas has suggested it is interested in peace with Israel, the vast majority do not, and consider violence a matter of policy. Even Palestinian children are taught at an early age in Hamas schools that the Jews must be destroyed. Unlike their political rival Fatah, Hamas opposes the formation of a Palestinian state as currently envisioned, comprised of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Hamas hopes to establish a hardline Islamic state without Fatah, and its charter continues to call for the destruction of the Jewish state—calling for “the banner of Allah” to be raised over “every inch of Palestine.” We might think that this is an absurd position, but that is Western thinking of the live-and-let-live variety. 

Is it possible to understand Hamas? What exactly is it? The name Hamas itself is an acronym, which translates as “Islamic Resistance Movement” and it is in fact a branch of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. The current Egyptian prime minister who visited Gaza recently is of course a member of the Brotherhood himself; he doubtless had the influence to stop Hamas attacks on Israel and broker a ceasefire, but he likely encouraged the Hamas attacks as politically opportune, to raise anti-Israel sentiment and strengthening Brotherhood support. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is also a “former” member of the Brotherhood, and his recent comparison of Hamas to George Washington strains logic; American colonists were being oppressed by what was considered by many as an absentee ruler without proper representation; the Palestinian comparison only makes “sense” if one accepts the Hamas narrative of the legitimacy of Israel. 

One may wonder what inspired yet another round of Hamas violence. Hamas lobs shells into Israel from Gaza sporadically to let Israelis know that they are still around, but the sudden uptick was  apparently in retaliation for the recent destruction of a Sudanese munitions complex in Khartoum, which Sudanese leaders claim was destroyed by an Israeli missile attack. The arms factory was operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and its purpose seems to be to supply its ally Hamas with arms, which includes the longer range projectiles which have reached as far as Jerusalem. Many of these weapons have been smuggled in through tunnels on the Egyptian side, and it seems likely that the ease in which Hamas has collected these weapons despite the Israeli blockade suggests Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood collusion. Iran has also been accused in the smuggling of arms from the former Libyan regime’s stockpiles to Hamas.

There have been some conspiracy theories that suggest that this was all Israel’s doing. One story is that Ahmen Jabari—the Hamas military commander—was killed by an Israeli strike because he was interested in a “peace” settlement with Israel, and Israel was afraid that any such “settlement” would only buy Hamas additional time to stockpile arms for their aim. However, there is no evidence that Jabari was interested in a negotiated “peace,” quite the contrary. More legitimately, now that Israel realizes the quantity and quality of munitions in the hands of Hamas, it does not wish a ceasefire until it can destroy most of the rocket weaponry. 

In any case, with Egypt unlikely to be an honest broker in this conflict because of its current leadership’s close ties ideologically and theologically to Hamas, trust is in short supply. Peace remains as elusive as ever.