30 years and thousands of lives too late, Hamas considers compromise

In an interview with Associated Press On April 24, a senior member of Hamas’s Politburo made remarks that were interesting to some and infuriating to others. Khalil al-Haya said that if the Palestinians were able to establish an independent state on the 1967 border between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Hamas would in fact lay down its arms and become a full-fledged political group. Stated. Recognize the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The latter point is debatable. Because Israel will never agree to flood its territory with millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. However, the former point is significant in that it marks the first time that an Islamist group has explicitly addressed the issue of disarmament and an end to guerrilla-style hostilities against Israel.

The statement comes six months after Hamas launched a horrific attack against Israel on October 7, resulting in an escalation of the deadly and destructive war in Gaza. Israeli officials maintain that the war will only end if Hamas returns the hostages and surrenders, but there are no clear terms to explain on what terms such a surrender would be acceptable to Israel. It’s not actually specified.

Over the years, Hamas has given mixed signals about its position on a two-state solution, particularly after the group revised its charter in 2017 to signal a more pragmatic stance on accepting Israel’s existence. It has given the impression that But recently, another senior political leader, Khaled Mashal, has made contradictory statements, rejecting a two-state solution and suggesting he is unwilling to accept an Israeli presence in any part of historic Palestine.

Hamas’ disorganized and inconsistent political positions and stances are nothing new for the Islamist group. The organization has had regular internal conflicts between its indomitable ideologues and a small number of relatively moderate figures who understand the limits of what Palestinians can achieve. This goes back 30 years, during the golden age of the Oslo peace process. The Oslo Peace Process was an imperfect but workable framework that provided a path and opportunity for the Palestinians to obtain an independent state within the 1967 borders. Hamas violently and relentlessly attacked Yasser Arafat, who had “abandoned” 78 percent of historic Palestine and recognized statehood only in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hamas claimed that its project of armed resistance could accomplish what Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) could not through political negotiations. But Islamist groups are questioning how terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings on Israeli bus stops, restaurants and wedding halls, can actually reverse Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, or how advanced nuclear weapons with a state system in place can It has never been clear whether armed countries can be completely defeated. artistic army. The only consistency in Hamas’s strategy is that any continued chaos and instability is sufficient to perpetuate the conflict in some form until a satisfactory resolution is finally achieved. be.

Terrorist groups have worked tirelessly to undermine any meaningful prospects for stability and coexistence, criminalizing the word peace and making it synonymous with despicable betrayal of Palestinian rights. The group will launch attacks against Israeli targets provoking Israeli attacks, incursions, shelling, and retaliation against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its various infrastructure and institutions in the West Bank and Gaza. The late 1990s saw Palestinians gain their own passports, ID cards, gradual autonomy, and infrastructure projects including an airport (I visited on his two flights) and an impending port. And it was a very promising time.

All these gains and clear and indisputable benefits gained from the negotiations with Israel towards the implementation of the two-state solution in the 1967 border dispute were attacked and ridiculed by Hamas. Having grown up in Gaza, I vividly remember the organization’s propaganda that completely rejected the PLO’s efforts to obtain an independent Palestinian state, as Hamas wanted to establish a sweeping Islamic state. . Completely illogical demands that Hamas knows will never be met, even though many in the Palestinian Territories were filled with hope that a reasonable compromise was better than a perpetual conflict. He maintained a maximalist position.

Even as the group participated in the 2006 parliamentary elections built on a political framework centered on a two-state solution, Hamas refused to accept the 1967 borders, disarmament, and renunciation of violence, and the P.A. attempted to obstruct and ultimately prevent peacekeeping. Establishment of a Palestinian state. This ultimately led to the division of the Gaza Strip into Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the PA-run West Bank.

To make matters worse, since 2007, Hamas has turned the Gaza Strip into a bastion of “resistance” from which all kinds of attacks against Israeli territory are launched, and has taken advantage of the withdrawal of Israeli settlements in 2005 to turn Gaza into a prosperous A wasted opportunity to become an effective role model. Palestinian governance that can be recreated in the West Bank without occupation and settlement.

After 17 years of brutal wars, tens of thousands of lives lost, and repeated destruction of Gaza, Hamas is now realizing the futility of its existence. Palestine is facing tactical and operational defeats, demonstrating its fatal folly and lack of a viable path to achieving a Palestinian state.

This raises several questions. What have the past 30 years been wasted on? Why did Hamas denounce and sabotage the Oslo peace process with suicide bombings and refusal to participate in the political process? We didn’t get it 30 years ago. What did this group achieve through violent means? Why did Hamas launch the October 7 attack, resulting in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis, when it could have expressed a willingness to accept a two-state solution to the 1967 border dispute? I wonder? What has the alliance between Hamas and the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” brought to the Palestinians in Gaza, other than political stagnation and endless conflict in which Gazans are used as pawns?

As a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza and witnessed Hamas’s rise to power firsthand, I can’t help but be outraged by Alhaya’s comments. Especially considering how much of my family I lost in this war, and how all of my immediate family and relatives across Gaza were left homeless and without a place to return to. They live in constant danger of losing their lives because Hamas refuses to release the hostages and end the war.

The group, celebrated and normalized by some ignorant college students and elements of the pro-Palestinian movement, is clearly facing an existential crisis and is willing to do what seemed dangerous just a few years ago. I’m trying to accept it. This is a sad recurring theme in the Palestinian national project, where practical ideas, approaches and solutions are ignored, leaving Palestinian leaders only demanding the very solutions they once rejected.

Nevertheless, amidst the chronic despair and stalemate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is imperative to seize every opportunity. Hamas, despite his manipulative and dishonest attitude, should engage this group to begin a thousand-mile journey to renounce violence and accept the inevitability of Israel’s existence and its survival. . Due to the weakness of its operations in Gaza and its diminishing political prospects if it is expelled from Qatar, Hamas may now be willing to take on ideas and proposals that it would not have otherwise accepted.

While Hamas itself recognizes the futility of armed resistance and the inevitability of compromise and concessions to gain Palestinian rights and self-determination, some pro-Palestinian activists and advocates are It is ironic that it reinforces the narrative of undemanding, maximalist “resistance.” A space for Israel to live side by side with the Palestinian state.

Given the destructive and deadly actions of Hamas over the past three decades, which have thwarted hopes for Palestinian independence and peace with Israel, it is both distressing and heartbreaking that the group has made such a late comeback. It is. I wish the pro-Palestinian movement, especially among young college students, would take a cue and not waste decades on “feel good” movements and extremist activities, but instead leverage Western privilege. , I hope that we can actually accomplish something of value to the Palestinian people.

After 75 years of forced displacement, occupation, repression, and missed opportunities, cooler heads now prevail, and coexistence with Israel and Israel as a necessary evolution to ensure the survival of Palestinians in the land that remains. The time has come to rationally rebrand peace. . It may be difficult for some to hear, but the millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in Israel do not have a full right of return. Instead, once a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both territories should be fully open to all who wish to return to this new Palé.Stynian.

Ahmed Fuad Al-Khatib is a Gazan-born Middle East writer and analyst and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.