As the Hamas-led multiple missile offensive against Israel marked its first week, voices were heard in Israel and overseas, well-meaning or despairing, calling for Israel to start talks with the Palestinian Islamist group’s leaders.
Hamas soon knocked that notion on the head. After hurling some 150 missiles against Israel, one of its officials, Nizhar Riyah, issued a clear statement of intent Monday, May 21:
“Hamas is determined to wipe Israel off the map and replace it with the state of Palestine,” he said. Hamas will fight “until the last Jew is expelled” - not only from Sderot but also from Ashkelon and “all of Palestine.”
In February 2006, Hamas beat Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah in the Palestinian general elections, which the incoming Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, against every Israeli security interest, allowed to take place.
Ret. Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, then head of Israel’s national security council, strongly advised them to make the best of a bad job and engage the new Palestinian leaders in talks. This recommendation was emphatically reported by DEBKAfile’s analysts just days after the election. But it was turned down by leaders who preferred to follow advice from Washington.
Just as US State Department urged Israel to permit an election which gave Hamas its victory, officials at State also had a plan to deal with its unfortunate aftermath: a campaign spearheaded by the US and Israel, and adopted by the Middle East Quartet, to boost the Palestinian loser, Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas, and boycott the winning Hamas.
It was soon clear they had backed the losing horse - and still are.
In the intervening 15 months, Hamas was not idle. Instead of breaking down under international pressure, Hamas went from strength to strength, taking advantage of Israel’s indecision and inaction and the ineffectiveness of Abu Mazen and his sidekick Mohammed Dahlan.
The Palestinian fundamentalists quickly jumped aboard the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah bandwagon. That bandwagon is now racing ahead in the Middle East arena, leaving Israel behind with the United States and its crises.
In these circumstances, and after the Lebanon War less than a year ago, Israel must on no account turn to Hamas for talks, because the only agenda on offer now would be terms for Jewish state’s capitulation and demise.
The outcome would reflect the consequences of Washington’s two years of talks with Iraqi Sunni insurgent leaders, brokered by dozens of Arab and Muslim mediators, including Jordan’s King Hussein. The result has been the exacerbation of terror in Iraq.
For Hamas, diplomacy would serve only as a respite to gear up for more aggression. Saudi King Abdullah tried his hand in Mecca earlier this year. Once again, Washington and Jerusalem were deluded into believing the Saudi royal hand could tame Hamas and persuade its leaders to share power with Fatah in a unity government.
Full Story - DEBKAfile
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