If the five-month-old cease-fire between the Palestinians and Israel is broken, one should look no further than Saturday’s killing of eight Palestinians in an Israeli military push across the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the reason. Israel will call its latest actions necessary in the wake of missile attacks on its southern cities. But can the shooting of a Palestinian policeman, simply for watching an Israeli arrest operation from his rooftop, be considered necessary? Should the death of a 17-year-old Palestinian girl shot by Israeli troops as she stood at a window in her house be called necessary? These incidents could easily shatter the truce.
The new national unity government recognizes Israel’s right to exist and forgoes violence — conditions essential for talks about a viable Palestinian state adjoining Israel. It is pushing for a two-state solution; it wants a Palestinian state alongside Israel and not instead of it. Israel, for its part, does not appear to want to discuss anything. Last week’s Abbas-Olmert gathering yielded no substantive results because Olmert refused to discuss the fundamental issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the right of return, ending the military occupation and the Jewish settlements, and setting the borders of a prospective Palestinian state, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital. Abbas and Olmert are to meet again next week, probably in the presence of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who may have come to the conclusion that getting the parties talking to each other is the most she can do given the present circumstances. The empty bimonthly meetings between Olmert and Abbas are an admission by the Bush administration that it cannot move the process forward so must revert to a game of make-believe, to hold meetings meant to give the impression of momentum where in fact there is none.
At present, then, there are no meaningful discussions with the Israelis but plenty of gunfire from them. In the West, this is called self-defense. If the Palestinians resist, it is construed as violence, perhaps even terrorism.
Since Hamas and Fatah formed a coalition government, the world has been trying to figure out whether Hamas’ peace signals constitute true ideological transformation or are merely a ploy. The world should stop wondering. Hamas has filled its Cabinet seats with professionals and pragmatists. The Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1993 acceptance of Israel and disavowal of violence is a crystal-clear and binding agreement that no Palestinian government has the authority to revoke. The unity government’s platform explicitly pledges to honor all PLO commitments.
Israel and the United States are missing a huge chance for Middle East peace by continuing to boycott the Palestinian government because of Hamas. Hamas is no more relevant to Palestinian policy than the views of extremist anti-Palestinian Israeli Cabinet members are to Israeli policy. Foreign leaders say they’ll judge the new Palestinian government by its actions. When? Are not actions by Israel to be judged as well?
