The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

Furthermore, as Pres. Abbas and others recognize, Hamas is a deeply-rooted social and political movement. The evolution of Hamas has been carefully monitored by leading experts in the field who certainly cannot be accused of being apologists for terrorism. They include the International Crisis Group and Henry Siegman, a for- mer executive director of the American Jewish Congress who is now a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow. The simple fact is that Hamas is now part of the main- stream of the Palestinian political spectrum and its demands are also in the mainstream: a Palestinian state, freedom, sovereignty and the right of return for Palestinian refugees and exiles. But instead of engaging Hamas, the Middle East Quartet (the United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations) has focused on its inability to meet the letter of their many preconditions. In particular, the demand that Hamas unilaterally recognize Israel quickly torpedoed efforts this past September by Pres. Abbas and former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to negotiate a unity government. However — and here is the crux of this matter — Israel does not need Hamas’ recognition. It is already a member-state of the United Nations and enjoys interna- tional recognition. And because any Palestinian state would eventually become a member-state of the U.N., it would have to deal with its fellow member-states, includ- ing Israel, in line with the U.N. Charter. This is a reality that even some leading Israelis accept, according to Margarita Mathiopoulos, a professor of American foreign policy at the University of Potsdam. She quoted a number of former Israeli military and secu- rity officers who acknowledge that “Hamas was not like- ly to unequivocally recognize Israel’s right to exist. But from their point of view, Israel’s legitimacy and viability as a state do not rest on some grudging and insincere recog- nition extracted from its neighbors, but on its own mili- tary and economic power.” Further, they noted that once Israeli-Palestinian borders were demarcated, it would be up to the Palestinians to police them. For all these reasons, the best way to bolster Israel’s national security would be to set up a Palestinian state, not thwart it. The most likely alternative to engagement by the U.S. is an uncontrollable situation of civil war and chaos. Attempts to support security forces that report to Abbas and Fatah against those that report to Hamas can only exacerbate the clashes between the Palestinians. Thus, if Rice really wants to support Abbas, she will accept the compromise language he and Hamas reached in September during their negotiations on a unity gov- ernment. The Lebanon Model Fortuitously, Israel’s political disarray after its July- August invasion of Lebanon provides the Bush adminis- tration with an opening to tackle the fundamentals of the conflict with the Palestinians. The scale and intensity of the Lebanon-Israel war finally forced the international community to hammer out a ceasefire after six weeks of bloodshed. But it has yet to act on ending the bloodshed on the Israeli-Palestinian front, where conflict has raged since September 2000, with over 4,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis killed and massive destruction on the Palestinian side. During a visit to Israel in August, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema remarked that a suc- cessful international force in Lebanon could presage a similar one in Gaza, “and the presence of a U.N. force to bolster the Palestinian government.” The U.S. security coordinator in the West Bank and Gaza, Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, has also proposed international observers at the Karni crossing to prevent repeated Israeli closures. Such measures would bring great relief to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and provide security for Israel. But beyond short-term measures, perhaps the main lesson to learn from Lebanon is the way in which it marked the limits of military power and spelled an end to unilateralism — both Israeli and American. The explanations for Israel’s decision to escalate what could have been just another border skirmish with Hezbollah into all-out war include the desire to: re-estab- lish its image of military superiority, dented by its unilat- eral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000; wipe out Hez- bollah’s military infrastructure, if not the movement as a whole; and eliminate the last pockets of Arab resistance — Hezbollah and Hamas — before setting Israel’s final borders in the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was elected in March 2006 on a platform of completing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral approach to the Palestinians. He pledged to follow the unilateral with- drawal from Gaza (which, however, continues to be under siege) with plans for a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. Sharon believed he had secured American blessing for F O C U S 36 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6