THE influential British Foreign Affairs Committee has again condemned the UK government for failing to engage with Hamas. Its stricture is stronger because it points out that in the two years since it last called for open dialogue, the Bush-devised formula of freezing out Hamas has yielded absolutely no positive results.
The Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections in January 2006 gave it a working majority with 76 seats in the 132-member Palestinian Parliament. However, though Bush had blasted Iraq apart to make it safe for democracy and so create a template for pluralist elections throughout the Middle East, he was only going to accept the verdict of the people, if the result chimed with his own purblind opinions. Hence, the refusal to recognize the choice of Palestinians followed by the Washington-imposed government of national unity and the bloody breakdown in relations between Hamas and Fatah, leading to Hamas’ isolation in Gaza.
As the British legislators make clear, there can be no solution without the involvement of Hamas. Equally,w they point out that London is now talking to Hezbollah — branded as a terrorist organization by Tony Blair during the Israeli invasion — as a recognized political party in Lebanon. So why not Hamas?
Unfortunately, the committee’s report does not press on to examine the flimsiness of the arguments behind the political ostracizing of Hamas. Bush and Blair insisted that Hamas both renounced violence and recognized Israel’s right to exist. This year began with an exceptional demonstration of Israel’s own failure to renounce violence with the appalling Gaza siege and deadly bombardment. Equally the current Netanyahu government has openly declared that a Palestinian state has no right to exist. Where is the equivalence in the treatment of Hamas violence and territorial stance on Israel and those of Israel on Palestine ?
The hope has to be that Obama is edging gently away from the inflexible Bush dictum. But someone needs to make the first move. Despite the urgings of the British parliamentary committee, it is unlikely the beleaguered Brown government will launch any new Mideast initiative in what are almost certainly its last floundering months in office. The initiative may, therefore, need to come from the EU, thus far quietest member of the Mideast Quartet. Certainly, Obama would have to seek support from Brussels as well as Moscow before he made even the mildest suggestion that Hamas has to be brought into the process.
It is, however, unfortunate that Hamas is currently stopping Fatah delegates from leaving Gaza to attend the long overdue Fatah Convention in Bethlehem which is supposed to start cleaning up the party’s tarnished reputation for corruption and incompetence. Hamas wants hundreds of its supporters released from detention in the West Bank. Understandable though the proposition is, this obstruction of its political rival’s attempt to reinvent itself, damages Hamas’ standing as a party that must be included in the peace process. Worse, it reinforces the enmity between these two leading parties and by extension the Palestinian divisions that the Israelis have become so adept at exploiting.
Gitmo closure
EXCERPTS from the editorial that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Monday:
On the third day of his presidency, Barack Obama dramatically departed from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration by signing an order promising that the Guantanamo Bay detention center would be closed no later than Jan. 22, 2010. But procrastination from the White House is making it easier for congressional critics to frustrate a step vital to restoring American legitimacy.
Last week, the administration announced that two task forces convened by the president — one examining the status of the remaining 240 Guantanamo detainees, the other studying interrogation policy — wouldn’t meet their July 22 deadline for recommendations. Delay in the federal government isn’t unusual, and Obama has been multi-tasking since the day he was inaugurated. Still, dilatory decision-making on Guantanamo threatens to give new meaning to the axiom that “justice delayed is justice denied.”
Unlike Bush, Obama is committed to cooperating with Capitol Hill. But Congress isn’t reciprocating. Last week, Senate Democratic leaders sidelined the most serious threat to Obama’s policy on Guantanamo, an amendment by Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., to a defense authorization bill that would have kept the facility open and prohibited the transfer of detainees to the United States. But House Democratic leaders continue to oppose providing funds for the closure that the administration is seeking.
In defending his amendment, Inhofe cited polls showing that “most Americans do not want to close Gitmo, and certainly do not want these terrorist detainees to be transferred to the United States.” What he didn’t say was that those apprehensions have been fed by nonsensical claims that Obama would free dangerous terrorists to run loose in the streets. In fact, prisoners not sent to other countries probably would be held in “supermax” institutions that already hold hundreds of convicted terrorists and from which no one has escaped.
Administration officials are minimizing the importance of the delays, pointing out that 11 detainees have been transferred to other countries, one has pleaded guilty to terrorism-related offenses and another is facing trial.
In pressing Congress to move on health care reform, Obama said last week that “if you don’t set deadlines in this town, things don’t happen.” He needs to follow that advice when it comes to closing Guantanamo.
