Soccer Dad

Post progress

I was appalled a few months ago by a Washington Post editorial Preelection Turmoil that argued that allowing Hamas to compete in the Palestinian elections was starting to accrue all sorts of benefits.

However, I was so upset with the article that I didn't pay enough attention to the final paragraph.

At the same time, the statement reiterated a previous statement calling on Hamas to disarm and recognize Israel's existence, and it added that the future Palestinian cabinet "should include no member who has not committed" to accept those principles. That was the right place to draw the line. Hamas should be given the chance to become a democratic movement, but Palestinians should understand that any retreat from recognition of Israel will mean the loss of vital international support.

I believed at the time, and still do, that this was wholly inadequate. Hamas had already proven itself and didn't deserve the benefit of any doubt. Hamas was a terror organization that didn't even pretend to observe the diplomatic niceties that Fatah pretends to.

However, I must have dismissed this paragraph as so much boilerplate. Usually those expressing similar opinions fail to demand that they're own watered down standards be met. The Post, today, follows up (with a much delayed "Intransigence Hamas."

STIRRING BUT thoughtless appeals for a Middle East peace settlement continue to ring out around the world. Just last week a new one appeared, signed by 135 "global leaders," that called for "a new international conference, ideally held as soon as possible." Most of the sponsoring statesmen live far from the region -- in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Australia. Their statement asserted that "the injection of new political will" from "the international community" was what is needed to break the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians.

In fact, the problem is a lot more specific, and a lot tougher. That's why it was helpful that the foreign minister of Egypt decided to publicly speak his mind on the subject the other day. Ahmed Aboul Gheit -- who has spent the past several months immersed in a failing effort to restore the broken connections between the Palestinian Authority and its international donors, as well as Israel -- placed the blame exactly where it belongs: on the Palestinian political leadership.

(This is a reference to last week's pablum released by the International Crisis Group, a group of self-important experts who pretend that they can solve all the world's problems if the world would only listen to them.)

Of course sometimes intransigence of one's enemies is good as it prevents absolute stupidity.

The Egyptian frustration is understandable. Negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, and Western aid to the Palestinian government, can't go forward because the governing Hamas movement refuses to recognize Israel or previous Israeli-Palestinian accords. It also won't renounce the use of violence against Israeli soldiers or civilians, or release the soldier its militants abducted from inside Israel in June. Egyptian negotiators have won Israeli agreement to release up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostage, but Hamas won't go along.

A serious weakness though is the way the editorial makes Mahmoud Abbas into a good guy here.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, from the competing Fatah movement, has tried repeatedly to win Hamas's agreement on a new unity government that would indirectly recognize Israel, a half-step that might lure back some desperately needed European aid. No deal. This week the government of Qatar intervened, sending its foreign minister shuttling around Gaza with a six-point plan under which Hamas and Fatah would unite on the platform of a two-state solution. Once again Hamas said no.

In case there was any doubt, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh spelled out Hamas's position at a rally last weekend: "I tell you with all honesty, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel." Mr. Abbas responded by threatening, as he has before, to dissolve the Palestinian government or order a referendum. But he lacks the legal authority either to remove Hamas from power or to schedule a vote of any kind.

Quoting from PM Haniyeh's statements is interesting from at least two standpoints.

1) In acknowledging Haniyeh's intransigence the Post is implicitly acknowledging that it served to legitimize him by allowing him an op-ed in its pages a few months ago. This isn't a matter of allowing Democrats and Republicans to debate; it was a matter of allowing PR professionals to whitewash an open terrorist.

2) If the Post is scrupulous about Haniyeh now, it is nowhere nearly as scrupulous about Abbas. To the Post, Abbas is a moderate. To those who look closer, he knows how to say the right words to the right audience but turns around when he talks to his constituents and tells them what he really means. Palestinian Media Watch does just that when it actually looks at what Abbas says to Arab audiences

In this most recent case, which should have important repercussions for future US - PA relations, Mahmoud Abbas told Condoleeza Rice and the Arab world on Al-Arabiya satellite TV, contradictory messages about the essence of the conflict. He told Rice that he demands that Hamas recognize Israel, only a day after telling the Arab world that not only doesn't Hamas have to recognize Israel but even Fatah, which he heads, is not required to recognize Israel.

Abbas: "Hamas is not required, Hamas is not required to recognize Israel... It is not required of Hamas, nor of Fatah, nor of the Popular Front to recognize Israel."

Indirectly, the Post's conclusions about Hamas don't go far enough. The intransigence isn't just a political problem of a political party. It is the sine qua non of Palestinian nationalism. Hamas was elected not because it promised reform, but because it promised destruction. But the only difference between Hamas and Fatah is that one doesn't care what the West thinks; the other does.

Regardless both reflect the irredentist nature of Palestinian nationalism; a nationalism that has been fostered by much if not all of the Arab world. If as the Post describes, Arab diplomats and governments are now frustrated by the refusal of Hamas to be reasonable, they have themselves to blame. Palestinian nationalism was always a way to appeal to the West; using Western terms of freedom as means of whitewashing a movement dedicated to the destruction of an existing nation.

This isn't the first time that the Post has shown some recognition of the nature of Hamas. While the editorial is far from perfect, it's a reminder that the editor's of the Post have some slim grasp on reality when it comes to the Middle East; something that is completely missing from the editors of the New York Times.

Technorati tags: Israel, Washington Post.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.