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Palestine: Carter woos Hamas?

Abdul Ruff - 4/28/2008

Historically speaking, both USA and its major ally in the Mideast, Israel oppose Hamas Palestinians and call them the “terrorists” and USA as a long-term policy supports Israeli aggression over the Palestine, killing many each time but never condemns the repeated illegal aggression. Nor do they recognize the democratic polls held by Palestinians electing Hamas party to rule their apart of the globe. To make the peace efforts worse, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas government led by Ismail Haniyeh, presumably under pressure form USA, and installed his own puppet government, leading to further aggravation of the conflict.

In a dramatic move, Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met the Hamas leaders in the Middle East and discussed issues relating to establishment of a Palestine state. Carter was also trying to gauge the Hamas future strategy for Israel. Carter and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal discussed in Damascus on April 18-19 how the Islamist group, shunned by Israel and the West, could be drawn into a peace plan and drop its opposition to Abbas's negotiations with the Jewish state. Carter said that excluding Hamas "is just not working," citing on-going violence along Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. After meeting with Hamas, Carter said Hamas is prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace". Former U.S. President said Hamas leaders told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by their rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote.


Carter said "there's no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel's right to live in peace within the 1967 borders." Carter made the comments during a speech in Jerusalem, after he met with the top Hamas leaders last week in Syria. Carter also says Hamas won't undermine Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel. He says Hamas is ready to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. It means that Hamas will accept an agreement if the Palestinians support it in a free vote, even though Hamas might disagree with some terms of the agreement.


However, Hamas has rejected Western calls to recognize Israel, renounce violence in retaliation for Israeli aggression, genocide and settlements and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals. Carter said that Hamas turned down his proposal for a 30-day unilateral ceasefire with Israel. He said Hamas did not trust Israel to respond to such a truce. After it took control of the Gaza Strip in June from Abbas's Fatah faction, Hamas said Abbas was not authorized to talk peace with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians -- prompting him to sack a Hamas-led government.

BOLD MOVE

Israel captured the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. Abbas wants to establish a Palestinian state in both areas under a peace deal the United States hopes can be reached by the end of this year. Israel pulled troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 but maintains control of the territory's borders and has tightened its restrictions on the passage of movement and goods since Hamas's takeover. There have been attacks and counter-attacks between them for decades, essentially murdering the innocent people on sides.

Jimmy Carter, a broker of the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his conflict mediation as president and since. He also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games. As president, Carter led the boycott of the Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Beijing games to protest China 's crackdown in Tibet. He did not address whether just the opening ceremonies should be boycotted.


Carter is taking advantage of the emerging better equations among various players in the turmoil with USA, UK and Russia entering the peace initiative. Earlier before the meeting, Jimmy Carter said in Nepal he felt "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process." He spoke from Katmandu, Nepal, where his team of observers from the Carter Center monitored an election that appeared likely to transform rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position, judging by incomplete returns.


Carter said he'd be meeting Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and others "who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East." Although he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, he outlined distinct goals. “I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah -a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.

Asked whether it was right to meet a group that has not renounced violence or recognized Israel, he said, "Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them." "I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said. The Carter Center said his "study mission" was taking him to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan last week.

OPPOSITION TO CARTER

Carter's willingness to meet officials from Hamas has drawn criticism from Israel and the United States, which both regard it as a “terrorist” group. "We believe that the problem is not that I met Hamas in Syria," Carter said in his address. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with these people, who must be involved." Pressure to drop the meeting has come from his own party. Democrats like Artur Davis of Alabama, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Adam Schiff of California and Adam Smith of Washington State wrote a letter to Carter saying the meeting could confer legitimacy on a group that embraces violence.

Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized Carter's plans to talk in Syria with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. The first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and the group could confer legitimacy to the so-called terrorists”. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly. It seems the State Department advised Carter twice against meeting representatives of Hamas, which Washington considers a terrorist organization. Rice who repeatedly says the Palestine state would be created by the year-end, said on April 18: "I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace."

HAMAS FOR COMPROMISE?

Political leader Khaled Meshaal, Palestinian group Hamas, who lives in exile in Syria, has insisted that Hamas will not recognize Israel. He was responding to comments by former US President Jimmy Carter, following their talks in Syria at the weekend. Meshaal said Hamas agreed to a Palestinian state on the land in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza that Israel captured in the 1967 war. Carter had said Hamas was prepared to accept the right of Israel to "live as a neighbor next door in peace".
Meshaal said the Palestinian state must have "Jerusalem as its capital, with genuine sovereignty, without settlements". He added that this did not mean recognizing Israel, but he said: "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as an alternative to recognition."

The USA said Meshaal's comments did not amount to a change of position by Hamas. Many Israelis and their allies cite the Hamas charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel, the US and the European Union regard Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, as a terrorist organization. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) had been classified as a terrorist organization.

Recently Hamas leader and the prime minister of the Gaza Strip Ismail Haniyeh said that a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas must include the West Bank as well as Gaza Strip. Haniyeh, however, has also hinted that the Palestinian movement would respond positively to an Egyptian-brokered truce proposal. Haniyeh seems to have conveyed that Hamas is ready to recognize a diplomatic agreement to establish a "Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, which would include the refugees' return."

According to Haniyeh, when a delegation of senior Hamas officials visits Cairo on 24 April, the ball will be in Israel's court. "The 'tahdiya' (calm), should it be accepted by Israel, must be reciprocal and comprehensive – both in Gaza Strip and in the West Bank. The mechanism for implementing the 'tahdiya' depends on halting the aggression, lifting the blockade and opening the crossings. The ball is really now in Israel's court.

Further, Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki in Spain that the Gaza Strip is close to declaring a ceasefire under a deal proposed by Egyptian mediators. "I think we are very close to announcing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that will allow the blockade of the border area to be lifted and also end Israeli incursions and the launch rockets of Hamas into southern Israel," he told a conference in Madrid. Malki was speaking one day before US President George W. Bush is to hold talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Washington.

AN OBSERVATION

Whether or not former US President met the Hamas leaders under a new US strategy to persuade the elected Hamas group of the Palestinians to abide by a road-map for the creation of Palestine, the move is indeed commendable, for, it is only with the inclusion of elected Hamas that a Palestine state that could exist along with Israel side-by-side could be established. The official standing of the Bush administration does not allow President Bush to meet Hamas directly and hence this strategy could have been devised for the purpose of convincing the Palestinians of new US policy shift to solve the long pending Mideast crisis, spilling blood continuously.

Carter playing a neutral diplomat defended his talks with Meshaal in Damascus. Jimmy Carter’s bold move has generated enough international attention and sympathy though it was opposed officially by the Bush administration. Though carter claims the approval of the Hamas for his peace project, the Hamas leadership has denied having done that, though they do admit that the discussions were a breakthrough in the great debate.

It is not in the best interests of conflict resolution if Israel places its own agenda and derails the peace process. It is against the genuine interests of the affected people, if Israel woos USA and other Western powers, as always, to support only its cause. It is unfortunate that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refused to see Carter, as he ended his regional visit in Jerusalem. "The problem is that Israel and the United States refuse to meet with someone who must be involved," he told the Israel Council on Foreign Relations. In a speech in the city, Carter said Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking had "regressed" since the US hosted Middle East talks in November at Annapolis. One hopes the situation would improve significantly with the efforts made by him also.

Peace should be the ultimate goal of all this dialog and several issues should be addressed simultaneously. One issue concerns the fate of prisoners. Both Israel and Palestinians seriously consider exchanging the prisons as per the excising International Law. Egyptian officials had told Carter that Israel had agreed to release 1,000 prisoners but accepted only 71 names on a list of hundreds of prisoners submitted by Hamas. Israel should be realistic in dealing with conditionality.

Of course, Carter has just began his diplomatic initiative at personal level and he is yet to meet many other important players in Mideast crisis both in Middle East and else where including the UN. With US presidency and Quartet taking big measures in the conflict resolution, Carter’s efforts would also go a long way in creating the necessary ground work to ease the tensions and create the long-pending Palestine state.