Joe DeFuria said:
Humus said:
Sure is. You have a better proposal?
Um, yes.
Screw Hamas or any other terrorist organization.
I'm sure I'm a little to the right of Humus (and Pascal) on this issue, but "screw Hamas" simply isn't a workable course of action. The unfortunate fact is that Hamas has a large degree of support among the Palestinians, perhaps more than the PA, and certainly more than Prime Minister Abbas. Now, that's not to say that the Palestinian people are in favor of perpetual intifada, or that, like Hamas, they will be satisfied with nothing short of driving the Jews into the sea. Indeed, I think that Abbas' argument that the intifada has gotten them nowhere is perhaps slightly ahead of Palestinian public opinion, but is nonetheless beginning to be accepted by a growing number of Palestinians. And I think that, despite decades of being fed the myth that all 4 million descendants of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war are entitled to and will one day get their old land back, the vast majority of the Palestinian people understand that's not going to happen, and will accept what they will get, namely a demilitarized state in more or less the boundries of the territory seized in 1967.
But none of that means that Hamas doesn't have a great deal of mainstream Palestinian support. You have to realize that Hamas isn't
only an organization for planning suicide bombings. They are also an extensive quasi-political organization, providing social services and help for the poor, and running community centers. And it's an extensive quasi-religious institution. One of the main reasons Hamas has strong support is that it is widely (and apparently correctly) viewed as competant in providing social services and not being corrupt, in stark contrast to the Palestinian Authority, which has been extremely incompetant and extremely corrupt under Arafat and his cronies.
Abbas is sort of a middleman between the old corrupt generation of Arafat lackeys and a new reform-oriented generation of politicians. Most of the reason he has clashed so much with Arafat is because he supports reformers who want to get rid of the corruption in the PA. And the new finance minister has been fawned over (at least, by the American press and government, as well as the Israeli government to some degree) for doing a tremendous job introducing transparency to PA finances and weeding out corruption. On the other hand, Abbas' cabinet was criticized by many Palestinians, particularly the reformers, as still having a bunch of corrupt Arafat cronies in it. Under Abbas the PA seems to be cleaning up its act somewhat, but it may not be fast enough to give the PA credibility right away, or to win back mainstream Palestinian support right away.
The Palestinian leaders, who have spoken and given support to the peace process, should make it known that they will go ahead despite Hamas' objections. And if Hamas wants to retaliate, the palestinian leadership should freely accept Israel / U.S. help for defense.
The problem with this is that unlike with, say, Al Qaeda trying to plan complicated attacks in foreign countries where its agents are the minority, at this point suicide bombings are routine enough and easy enough to plan that it doesn't take much in the way of high-level leadership from Hamas or any other group to carry them out. Getting rid of Hamas' leaders may slow down Hamas somewhat, and it may move support over to other groups...but those groups will
also carry out suicide bombings. The pool of willing bombers and of those who have the know-how to put the bombs together is large enough that simply killing and arresting Hamas members will never stop the bombing.
Instead, mainstream Palestinian opinion needs to be turned from Hamas to a reformed PA seeking to implement a peace plan. For that to happen, they need to believe that the peace process has a real chance of getting them a state, and they need to see Abbas' pursuit of the peace plan improving their lives--which at the moment are truly dreadful, because of the everpresent threat of violence (even though the Israeli army is the best trained in the world at avoiding civilian casualties in urban combat) but even more because of movement restrictions and curfews which have ground the Palestinian economy to a complete and utter dead-stop (as in 70% unemployment).
So basically, Abbas needs to get the movement restrictions lifted, and to stop the Israeli army from occupying cities or refugee camps for a few days every time there's a bombing. Sharon has said he's happy to do at least the latter once Abbas assures him the PA can take care of the terrorists. So that's what needs to happen. Help from the US or Israel would be ok, but it has to look like Abbas is more than a puppet, that he's in charge. Bottom line, the most important thing is that things have to be better in the short-term both for the Israelis (fewer bombings) and for the average Palestinians (fewer restrictions; law and order imposed by a police force, not an army).
A negotiated agreement with Hamas would have been the easiest way to get that, although I would have been really surprised if that had worked out. But now that it hasn't doesn't mean Abbas should just "screw Hamas". He needs to gain support from people who currently support Hamas but who would support peace if they thought it would improve their lives (which the limited Palestinian autonomy of the Oslo Accords
did not) and come under acceptable terms (and I think Palestinians are slowly realizing they will have to accept a very limited right of return and other compromises). How to do that is a tough question, but it can be done with a little luck and enough support (the right kind of support) from Israel and the US.
