Hamas Admits Failure Rather Than Recognize Israel’s Right To Exist
Hamas has thrown in the towel and admitted that Palestine cannot function with Hamas at its helm:
Hamas committed today to folding its eight-month government if that would restore the international assistance that was cut off after it won national elections earlier this year.
In a shrewd and dramatic speech, the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyah, said he would likely resign in the next “two or three weeks” to make way for a national unity government more acceptable to international donors than Hamas, the organization responsible for the deadliest attacks against Israel.
“When they put the siege on one hand, and having me the prime minister on the other, I said ‘no: Let us end the siege and let us end the suffering of the Palestinian people,’ ” Mr. Haniyah, 43, a former teacher and union official, told worshippers at Friday prayers here.
It was a public acknowledgment that Hamas had failed to run the Palestinian Authority on its own terms in the face of an American and Israeli-led cutoff of funds and aid, and that Mr. Haniya and his government would soon be replaced by a “unity” government of technocrats, currently being negotiated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas refused to meet the three conditions set out by the international community: to recognize the right of Israel to exist, to forswear violence and to accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements that imply a two-state solution. In turn, Israel withheld more than $50 million a month in taxes and customs collected for the Palestinians and the United States and Europe cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.
The efforts of Hamas to bring in sufficient money from Arab supporters, especially given the reluctance of banks to challenge the Americans, have not been sufficient to pay salaries to thousands of employees dependent on the Palestinian Authority.
Mr. Haniyah’s public confirmation was not a complete surprise to his listeners, but it marked a symbolic public moment here: an acknowledgment of the difficulties Hamas faced, internally and with the outside world, as it tried to move from fighting to governing.
Lesson learned? Not at all:
…Mr. Haniyah said that Hamas would remain a key player that would never waver from principle. This raises the question of whether a new government would be any more palatable to donors than the current one.
“We will not compromise,” he told worshippers. “We are going ahead with a government that will not give political compromises.”
Hamas has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, for example, but it is unclear that any new government, many of whose key officials will be appointed by Hamas, will do so either, at least in any explicit way.
…In theory, such a government would be able to win back international aid that paid about half of the $165 million the Palestinian Authority needs every month to pay salaries and operating expenses, with the money the Israelis collect on behalf of the Palestinians making up a part of the remainder. Even so, the Palestinian government was running a deficit.
But theory aside, the three conditions cause distinct problems for Hamas, and experts disagree over whether the group can, in the end, stay true to its declared objective of creating a state including all of historical Palestine (including Israel) and also satisfy donors. Hamas offers a long-term truce with an Israel in its pre-1967 borders, but has not repudiated its longer-term objectives.
Israeli officials have said they would not hand over the money they collect to a Palestinian government, led by anyone, that merely fudges the conditions.
“Any Palestinian government has to meet these three conditions — it doesn’t matter who is in it, what their names are,” Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, said in an interview with the Jerusalem Post published today.
Even with a new government, it seems clear that Hamas intends to remain the driving political force: It holds a majority in the parliament, and its reported candidates to replace Mr. Haniyah all have deep connections to Hamas. Reportedly the choice of Mr. Haniyah’s successor is a major block holding up a final deal on a new government.
Mustafah Sawwaf, a Palestinian journalist and analyst deeply familiar with Hamas, said that the intention to remain the principal player means that Hamas can never accept the three conditions for restarting aid.
“As long as Hamas is in control, it will not,” he said.
At first glance, this appears to be window dressing rather than a real advance…
This is the very definition of putting lipstick on a pig.
And I don’t know about you, but comparing cutting off foreign aid to a seige is about as morally bankrupt as you can get. But this is Hamas we’re talking about, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.
Israel’s #2 man Lieberman talks about the “dual loyalty” of Arabs in Israel and the need to ‘transfer’ them out, yet it is the other side that has all the radical elements. Israel does everything to ensure a non-functioning government instead of respecting a true democratic process and goes as far as to jail and murder the elected leadership. They have not promised to recognize Palestine’s right to exist or foreswear their own violence but see no problem with their double standard. The tax funds they’re withholding are also without interest. The Palestinians have been screwed, blued, and tattoo’d and yet they are still not groveling sufficiently over their collective punishment. Dr. Norman Finkelstein is right. Israel will at some point go one outrage too far and lose essential support while at the same time inflaming their neighbors to collective action. There’s a lot of unrest in local repressive states that are seen as too condoning of Israeli abuses. A few dramatic shifts in power and someone may have to dust off those nukes that they theoretically might possess. Panzer leader Heinz Guderian once remarked that the German army in Russia was like an elephant stomping ants, but in the end the ants would have the elephant stripped to the bone.
“Israel will at some point go one outrage too far…”
Zeig Heil, you racist skinhead.
Dmac – Of course an ad hominem attack is actually easier than crafting a coherent argument.
Pointing out Israeli/Zionist racism does not make one a racist. Neither does quoting German military leaders make on a Nazi.
But systematically destroying the US Constitution makes one a fascist and support of Bush on this agenda makes one a fascist goon.