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Hamas will make a deal
If Israel withdraws from the territories it occupied in 1967,
the movement will end armed resistance
By Azzam Tamimi
01/30/06 "The
Guardian" -- -- A so-called expert was asked on
the BBC's Arabic service last week what he thought Hamas should
do now it is likely to be the government in the Palestinian
territories. Hamas would have to change, he said, because the
Palestinian people would want a government that recognises
Israel, is willing to resume peace negotiations and will be
acceptable to the United States.
If this is truly what the Palestinian people want they might as
well have settled for Fatah and not elected Hamas. They gave
Hamas their trust precisely because it is not what the expert
was suggesting: it does not recognise the state of Israel, is
not willing to pursue a humiliating peace and is more interested
in being accepted by the Palestinians than by the US or anyone
else.
The fact that Hamas does not, and will not, recognise the
legitimacy of the state of Israel does not mean that Hamas is
not capable of negotiating a peace deal that would end the
bloodshed. Hamas is prepared to negotiate a settlement based on
the concept of a hudnah (truce). As far as Hamas is concerned -
and that is the position of the majority of Palestinians inside
as well as outside Palestine - Israel has been built on land
stolen from the Palestinian people. The creation of the state
was a solution to a European problem and the Palestinians are
under no obligation to be the scapegoats for Europe's failure to
recognise the Jews as human beings entitled to inalienable
rights. Hamas, like all Palestinians, refuses to be made to pay
for the criminals who perpetrated the Holocaust. However, Israel
is a reality and that is why Hamas is willing to deal with that
reality in a manner that is compatible with its principles.
Contrary to the claims of alarmists who see the Hamas election
victory as a threat to peace, new opportunities for making peace
could now emerge. The peacemaking episodes of the past were
based on assumptions absolutely unacceptable to the majority of
Palestinians and those who support the justice of their cause.
From Oslo to the road map it was always assumed that Israel was
the victim that needed to live in peace and security and that
the key to this was the end of Palestinian terrorism. The new
peace process that Hamas may indeed be willing to be part of
should be based on the fact that the Palestinians are the
victims and have been victims since Israel was created on their
soil. It is not Palestinian terrorism that is the problem, but
Israeli aggression.
Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, who was cut to pieces when Israel shot him
with an air-to-surface missile, spelled it out long ago. We
shall never recognise the theft of our land, he said, but we are
willing to negotiate a ceasefire whose duration can be as a long
as a generation, and let future generations on both sides decide
where to go then. His ceasefire conditions are fully compatible
with international law. Israel would have to give back what it
occupied in 1967 - then without any Jewish settlements - and
release all Palestinian prisoners. For that Hamas would halt its
armed struggle and instead pursue peaceful means.
The IRA, whose leaders negotiated a deal with the British
government, continues to dream of uniting Northern Ireland with
the Republic; it was never a condition for the peace talks that
they should first abandon that dream.
Well, let the Palestinians dream of the end of Israel and let
the Israelis dream of Eretz Yisrael from the Nile to the
Euphrates, but let's negotiate an end to the violence. Hamas
alone is capable of that because Hamas will not give up the
right of Palestinians to go back to the villages and towns from
which the terrorists who stole their land drove them.
Azzam Tamimi is director of the Institute of Islamic Political
Thought; his book on Hamas will be published this summer -
info@ii-pt.com
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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