{"id":7317,"date":"2010-09-20T00:00:13","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=7317"},"modified":"2010-09-15T15:51:40","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T13:51:40","slug":"hamas-marginalisation-from-the-israel-palestine-%e2%80%98peace-process%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/09\/hamas-marginalisation-from-the-israel-palestine-%e2%80%98peace-process%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamas Marginalisation from the Israel-Palestine \u2018Peace Process\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In addition to the argument for including a democratically elected party in a process initiated by states and institutions claiming to support democratic development in the region, the recent violence is another argument for talking to Hamas.<\/em><\/p>\n

In her opening remarks to the latest iteration of the Israel-Palestine \u2018peace process\u2019, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a not-so-veiled reference to Hamas, urged the talks\u2019 participants to defy the \u2018enemies of peace\u2019 and remain steadfast in their efforts.<\/p>\n

Yet despite the recent Hamas-perpetrated violence against settlers<\/a> in the West Bank, the real \u2018enemies of peace\u2019 might be said to be those who continue to pressure the increasingly unrepresentative and unpopular leader of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to make concessions on nationalist demands that many Palestinians believe are not his to make. By doing so they invariably set the stage for more violence in the future.<\/p>\n

In addition to the structural obstacles, deriving from the massive power imbalance<\/a> that exists between the two sides in this process, the chances for success in the latest round of negotiations are further diminished by its failure to engage Hamas, the democratically elected Islamist-nationalist party that still enjoys broad-based support amongst a large portion of the Palestinian population.<\/p>\n

Hamas\u2019 continuing popularity and democratic credentials<\/a> have been ignored by the Quartet, most likely at the behest of the US government, its leading member, whose State Department<\/a> designates the movement a \u2018foreign terrorist organisation\u2019.<\/p>\n

What is often overlooked is the fact that until the Oslo Accords in 1993, Abbas\u2019 Fatah party, as a leading member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), the political and (originally) paramilitary umbrella organization comprised of various nationalist factions, was also considered a \u2018terrorist\u2019 organisation. That changed with the Oslo Accords, a process which required mutual recognition and cessation of violence on the part of the PLO and Israel.<\/p>\n

That mutual recognition and cessation of violence stands in stark contrast to the unilateral demands<\/a> being made of Hamas today as a prerequisite for its participation in the talks. The movement has been told it must renounce violence, recognize Israel, and accept all past agreements<\/a> made between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, without requiring similar concessions on the part of its Israeli foe, which is much stronger in terms of economic and military might, as well as diplomatic support. The asymmetrical nature of these demands have only served to reinforce the scepticism of Palestinians and their supporters regarding the Quartet\u2019s willingness to apply what they deem is the necessary amount of pressure on Israel required to level the negotiating playing field. As Hamas Politburo member Osama Hamdan has pointed out, \u2018if things continue in this way, with the international community not doing anything and the US stance remaining the same…\u2019 there will be no incentive for the \u2018Israelis to recognize the rights of Palestinians\u2019.<\/p>\n

The disparate treatment meted out to Hamas in relation to its secular counterpart seems particularly incongruent in light of the fact that the distance between the two parties\u2019 positions vis-\u00e0-vis the peace process has substantially diminished in recent years, a fact perhaps best evidenced by a comparison between their stated positions on the \u2018final status\u2019 issues, which differ little, at least on the level of substance, if not process.<\/p>\n

For example, Hamas leaders have now expressed, on several occasions, the movement\u2019s willingness to accept a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders<\/a>, as part of a broader peace deal with Israel. Even the party\u2019s position on the right of return for refugees, most often considered the greatest obstacle to engagement, differs little from the official negotiating position of Fatah. As for accepting previous \u2018peace process\u2019 agreements, the movement\u2019s implicit acceptance<\/a>, through its participation in the 2006 legislative elections, of the Oslo-created institutions it has produced, has also gone unacknowledged by the Quartet.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal has indicated his party\u2019s willingness to engage with the US and the international process. \u00a0Hamdan reinforced this conciliatory position in an interview<\/a> with a Lebanese news website published the day after the Washington talks began, reiterating Hamas\u2019 conditions for peace, including Israeli withdrawal to the \u201967 borders and \u2018implementation of international resolutions\u2019, hardly a sign of intransigence in light of the proposals being discussed.<\/p>\n

Yet still there remains a strong reluctance on the part of the various actors to provide Hamas with a seat at the negotiating table. Despite the US President\u2019s election on a platform of \u2018change\u2019, like his predecessor, Obama\u2019s policies towards Hamas have been driven by what the French expert on political Islam Fran\u00e7ois Burgat<\/a> has referred to as the \u2018ideologisation of terror\u2019 perspective. This viewpoint implicitly denies the specific political and security contexts in which terrorism may be adopted by a movement as a tactic, and often as a last resort.<\/p>\n

This orientalist perspective instead explains the use of violence by Islamist movements such as Hamas either as the result of some pathological predisposition of Muslims towards violence, or of these movements\u2019 adherence to jihad<\/em>, misconstrued as an ideological concept. As these movements are reduced merely to the tactics\/strategies they sometimes employ, it is deemed unnecessary to understand the context in which their tactics\/strategies are chosen, such as brutal occupation, dispossession, daily humiliation and international isolation, and hence the motives behind their use.<\/p>\n

According to this logic, the West, and often Israel, its civilization proxy, is constructed as ontologically innocent, rational and peaceful in nature, in contrast to the Islamist terrorist, who is inherently guilty, irrational and violent. The Obama administration continues to cling to this logic, despite the damage and destruction its policies have already caused on the various battlefields of the \u2018war on terror\u2019.<\/p>\n

As the recent example of Hamas\u2019 use of political violence against settlers in the West Bank has demonstrated, the movement still has the capacity to be a ‘spoiler’<\/a> to any international process it opposes. This point was made by the prominent Israeli peace activist, Uri Avnery, arguing that \u201cthe alternative for talks and negotiations…[with] representatives of Hamas is a continuation of conflict and of harsh bloodshed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recent protests in Ramallah to the first round of direct talks in Washington by members of Palestinian civil society, including several leaders of the secular opposition and non-Fatah members of the PLO\u2019s Executive Committee, indicate the possibility that Hamas stands to gain new alliances<\/a> as a result of what they consider its principled stance on this issue, potentially creating additional problems for Abbas and his supporters further down the road.<\/p>\n

In addition to the strong ethical argument to be made for the inclusion of a democratically elected party in a process initiated by states and institutions claiming to support democratic development in the region, the recent violence is surely another reminder, if any were needed, why Hamas must be included in any process that seeks to establish an enduring peace between Israel and Palestine, which could be considered just by all sides.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

Corinna Mullin is a Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with reference to the Middle East.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 opendemocracy.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Join the BDS-Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions<\/em><\/span> <\/strong>campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation, the apartheid wall, and its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people: DON’T BUY<\/strong><\/span> products whose BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong><\/span>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the argument for including a democratically elected party in a process initiated by states and institutions claiming to support democratic development in the region, the recent violence is another argument for talking to Hamas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}