Middle East news (really M.E.!)

Noticed this bit of news.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/ap_on_re_mi_ea/syria_hamas_israel_4

I simply don't remember where the line was in 1967 to have any feel for how reasonable this offer is. Carter was a horrible president, but he seems to have a knack for getting people to the table, so maybe this is a legit offer.

Negotiation can be a funny, funny thing. IMO, Hamas is in no position to negotiate anything with anyone. They have no credibility. I know that will upset some people, but it's my honest point of view.

I'll admit that opinion is validly disputed, of course. But it's a big bone of contention.

One of my closest friends once sat next to Jimmy Carter on a cross-country flight and talked with him for hours about world peace. Apparently, he's very sincere. You can't help but like the guy and what he's trying to do over there.

I also have more respect for Jimmy Carter now than when he was pres, Squeek. I agree even if he doesn't succeed here, he is sincere in wanting to.

I don't know about how much progress this represents--I looked up the 1967 Six Day War, and the territories in question are the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula acquired from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) acquired from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. It's hard to believe Israel will walk away from all of those areas just to get Hamas to go away.

I'm sure there's someone here that knows more about the likelihood of this than I do, though.

Sadly this will never come to pass because, though I find it completely reasonable:

1) Israel would have to withdraw from eastern Jerusalem completely
2) Israel would have to remove dozens of large, established colonies that are within in the Palestinian 1967 territory. Though they have removed lots of smaller, and many illegal, colonies, they have stated they won't remove the majority of the others. In fact, despite agreeing not to expand anymore, they have plans for several new ones.

Good PR move on Hamas's part though.

Nothing really new here. The Arab League peace offer brokered by Saudi Arabia is based on exactly those terms, and was available since before Hamas was elected into power. Hamas has been offering Israel a truce (but without formal recognition) for a couple of years now, and Israel has ruled out (and continues to rule out) any negotiations with Hamas unless it first recognizes Israel.

As to Hamas's credibility, it doesn't matter. What matters is that they control Gaza. Credibility or no credibility, that gives them a seat at whatever negotiating table may be set up.

The real irony is that "everybody" understands what the only solution that just might lead to peace there is -- something based roughly on the 1967 borders, with territory swaps so that the biggest and best established settlement blocs get annexed by Israel, and the Palestinians get an equivalent amount of land in return (or at least enough that whoever on their part accepts the deal can argue that it's equivalent).

However, I don't see it happening, simply because all sides are so deeply dug into their foxholes: Olmert doesn't have the moral or political authority to beat the settler bloc into submission and make them swallow the "painful concessions" involved (though Sharon might have), Hamas is very, very unlikely to agree to formally recognize Israel, and Israel is very, very unlikely to ignore Hamas's lack of formal recognition for it.

The Palestinians and Israelis are pretty much like two punch-drunk fighters leaning on each other, but neither quite falling over. The only way out that I can see is if there's a radical political shift on the Israeli side -- the Palestinian side is so fragmented and lacking in both political leadership and state structures that any political shifts on their side will make very little difference.

IOW, I remain pessimistic. But I really, really hope I'm wrong on this one.

Pessimistic here too. I think there was a brief window when peace might have been possible in the 90s, but then Rabin was shot hopes and the extremists have been the loudest voices since. Israel can't accept Hamas' offer and Hamas knows that.

Squeek - I think it depends on what you mean by credibility. I don't think anyone can dispute that Hamas is a serious political movement and I'm not sure that any deal would be workable without at least a tacit agreement from them. I'd think they'd probably even abide by the terms if Israel accepted this offer and they're in a position to enforce, but they'd spend those ten years consolidating their position in Palestine as the group who 'beat' Israel and start all over again with a fresh generation of recruits when the cease fire ended. There's nothing in the offer for Israel and everyone on both sides knows it.

I mean credibility in the standard sense of the word, V7. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and its responsible for multiple suicide bombings targeting civilians. That earns Hamas a credibility rating of less than zero.

To suggest that its credibility doesn't matter doesn't make sense. How could credibility not matter in a negotiation, especially when the issue is life and death?

That's produced a bind, meaning there can't be any progress until something changes. In terms of peace, the best thing that could happen would be for Hamas to reinvent itself or go away.

Squeek said:

I mean credibility in the standard sense of the word, V7. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and its responsible for multiple suicide bombings targeting civilians. That earns Hamas a credibility rating of less than zero.

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Well sure Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel, that doesn't preclude a ceasefire and as I said above there are a couple of reasons Hamas might want to have one. They've said they won't recognise Israel or its right to existence even if there is a ceasefire so I still don't see a credibility gap, tactically they may well be happy with a ten year truce. Not that it really matters because they know the offer is unacceptable to Israel anyway.

Squeek said:

To suggest that its credibility doesn't matter doesn't make sense. How could credibility not matter in a negotiation, especially when the issue is life and death?

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And I'm not disputing that, just suggesting that there's no conflict between their stated goals and a temporary truce offer.

Squeek said:

In terms of peace, the best thing that could happen would be for Hamas to reinvent itself or go away.

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That’s a really interesting question, I don't think going away is an option, if Hamas ceased to exist another group would fill the role they currently occupy. Reinvention would be tricky, some of their more moderate political leaders might want to pull them that way but I suspect any peace settlement (not truce) that Israel would find acceptable would spilt Hamas (a bit like what happened with the IRA and Real IRA) and I'm not sure they'd ever trust Israel enough to be able to take action to restrain a radical militant movement from attacking the Israelis and starting the whole cycle over again.

V7 said:

I'm not sure they'd ever trust Israel enough to be able to take action to restrain a radical militant movement from attacking the Israelis and starting the whole cycle over again.

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Key point there. I'd offer up that such a meltdown could go the other way just as easily. I've gotten in trouble for saying it before, but I'll throw it out there again: those two groups have been killing each other for 2000 years and show no signs of stopping any time soon. That's a whole lot of bad blood for any sort of negotiation to overcome.

dteowner said:

Key point there. I'd offer up that such a meltdown could go the other way just as easily. I've gotten in trouble for saying it before, but I'll throw it out there again: those two groups have been killing each other for 2000 years and show no signs of stopping any time soon. That's a whole lot of bad blood for any sort of negotiation to overcome.

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Could well do, I think Rabin's assassination demonstrated that. I'm not sure I'm quite as pesimistic as you in that I think they've managed peaceful coexistance for extended periods during those 2000 years but I have to agree that it doens't look like anything will change soon without a radical change of paradigms.

dteowner said:

Key point there. I'd offer up that such a meltdown could go the other way just as easily. I've gotten in trouble for saying it before, but I'll throw it out there again: those two groups have been killing each other for 2000 years and show no signs of stopping any time soon. That's a whole lot of bad blood for any sort of negotiation to overcome.

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And you're still wrong about the timespan. Arabs and Jews have been killing each other in earnest only for the past 60 years; they got along fine for 2000 years before that. For any reasonable value of "fine" that is -- they killed each other no more than any other two ethnic/religious groups living in proximity anywhere, and considerably less than many.

Squeek said:

I mean credibility in the standard sense of the word, V7. Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and its responsible for multiple suicide bombings targeting civilians. That earns Hamas a credibility rating of less than zero.

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Could you define "credibility" for us, then?

I understand by it something like this: a group or individual is credible if it's reasonable to suppose that they'll deliver on what they promise.

I don't see anything about what Hamas has done or is doing to suggest that they're not credible. You may not like what they're doing (or promising), but they do have a track record of pretty close alignment between what they say and what they do.

But, as I said, that doesn't really matter in this case, because I can't see any way the parties in question could come to an agreement of any kind that would put the credibility to the test. It'll only become relevant if and when there are serious negotiations about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian mess, and credible or not, if Hamas controls Gaza, they will be sitting at that table. At this point, though, all that it sheer wishful thinking -- you might as well hope that Hamas suddenly converts itself to a knitting club or Israel declares Islam the state religion.

dteowner said:

those two groups have been killing each other for 2000 years and show no signs of stopping any time soon.

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Even if you were to argue that PJ is wrong, Islam is only 1386 years old.

Arabic culture extends a bit further back than Islam.

Some of them even did pretty well for themselves: [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_the_Arab ].

Prime Junta said:

Could you define "credibility" for us, then?

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This is what I see as the crux of the matter, actually. I suppose I could, but I doubt I could make it any clearer than it is already.

Hamas makes no distinction between its obscene acts and normal behavior (for that matter, neither do you). It's like some kind of a curse that intelligence can be applied that way.

There's no explaining that, beyond what's already obvious. If it's not plain to you, then all I can say is try harder to understand it. Sorry. That's all there is to it.

al-Qaida speaks
I would think Osama and friends wouldn't want to antagonize Iran too much. "The enemy of my enemy" and all... Not to mention that Iran would probably have a much easier time tracking down Osama and kicking his butt than we've had.

I thought this quote
"In another answer Tuesday, al-Zawahri said it was against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country because in doing so they would "have permanent stay there under the laws of the infidels."
was particularly interesting.

V7 said:

Arabic culture extends a bit further back than Islam.

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I assumed he was talking of religious adherents, i.e. Jews and Muslims, not Semitic subcultures. But the specifically Arabic culture's sphere of influence was rather limited until the rise of the Arabic/Islamic empire(s) in the 7th and 8th centuries anyway, which would limit any clashes between Jews and Arabs as well.

Nope, not confining it strictly on religious lines since, as has been pointed out, Islam was a little late to the party. However, I should clarify that I'm not really targetting specific cultures/religions either. More a case of ongoing regional conflict involving the locals and whoever happens to be "invading" at the time (Romans, crusaders, Jews, etc). I'm pretty sure Arab/Jewish friction goes back further than WW2, but doing research at work isn't really wise (posting here at work isn't really wise, either, but what can I say) and I don't know that the argument is really necessary to the point anyway.

Squeek said:

This is what I see as the crux of the matter, actually. I suppose I could, but I doubt I could make it any clearer than it is already.

Hamas makes no distinction between its obscene acts and normal behavior (for that matter, neither do you). It's like some kind of a curse that intelligence can be applied that way.

There's no explaining that, beyond what's already obvious. If it's not plain to you, then all I can say is try harder to understand it. Sorry. That's all there is to it.

Click to expand...

Thank you for conceding the point, then.