Recognising Israel..

[KeyboardJockey]

The only way is for Hamas to face the reality that Israel exists & to be willing to negotiate recognition of it & stop living on the impossible dreams of the right of return & a one state solution. Until they do this, Israel will have an excuse to continue to refuse to negotiate seriously. The ball is in Israel's court. They need to start withdrawing some of the WB settlements to get negotiations going. But as long as Hamas demands the impossible, they will sit on the sidelines in Gaza.

I agree Hamas has to face the reality of the existece of Israel or be sidelined. However, I also agree that the ball is now in Israel's court. Unfortunately Olmert is not the person with either the ability or the support to make the necessary changes especially after the disaster of the Lebanon campaign which has damaged him.

One state is a dead duck as it would cause far more deaths and casualties than the actions of the IDF / Opposition to IDF over the last 40 years. The PA does have the potential to be a viable state but the settlers have to be brought back in to Israel proper not living in enclaves on the WB. This is going to take an Israeli leader with balls and support which is not IMHO a description that applies to Olmert.

Mind you I don't trust Fatah either to do the necessary work without corruption.

I think the best that those outside of the immediate area can do is back those organisations that are bringing people together such as this:http://campusj.com/2007/02/22/prof-promotes-arab-israeli-school/

Its up to individuals to reach out when the politicians have failed.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

and any 'negotiation' is about the size of the bantustans at best. .

I dont' quite agree with you there. Sources I'm speaking to are saying that with adjustments in favour of Palestine the area bounded by the security fence may end up as the national border. I'd prefer to see the whole of the WB excluding Jerusalem (which I believe should be an international city overseen by all three monotheistic faiths) in Palestinian control.

 

[moono]

Sources I'm speaking to are saying that with adjustments in favour of Palestine the area bounded by the security fence may end up as the national border.

That isn't possible as Sharon's Stockade is illegal, according to international law.
Israel must abide by existing international law and existing international law requires withdrawal from occupied territories. It also requires the demolition of all sections of the Stockade on Palestinian territory.

 

[newharper]

Thjese two articles, though both from 2006 may be of interest Tom.

This is by Ismail Haniyeh at the time the new Palestinian prime minister and a Hamas leader.

They want us to recognise Israel, call off our resistance, and commit ourselves to whatever deals Israel and the Palestinian leadership reached in the past.

But we have not heard a single demand of the Israeli parties that took part in this week's elections, though some advocate the complete removal of the Palestinians from their lands. Even Ehud Olmert's Kadima party, whose Likud forebears frustrated every effort by the PLO to negotiate a peace settlement, campaigned on a programme that defies UN security council resolutions. His unilateralism is a violation of international law. Nevertheless no one, not even the Quartet - whose proposals for a settlement he continues to disregard,

Peaceful means will do if the world is willing to engage in a constructive and fair process in which we and the Israelis are treated as equals. We are sick and tired of the west's racist approach to the conflict, in which the Palestinians are regarded as inferior. Though we are the victims, we offer our hands in peace, but only a peace that is based on justice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1743652,00.html

The Second is from Helena Cobban in The Christian Science Monitor.

Paradoxically, such a peace agreement might be made easier, not harder, by the Hamas victory. This is primarily because Hamas, unlike the Fatah movement that it defeated at the polls, is a single, disciplined, national organization. It has shown this discipline in many ways. For example, over the past 10 months it has - with one exception - stuck by an agreement it reached with the other Palestinian parties to refrain from attacking Israel. It did that even though Israel never joined the cease-fire, and indeed carried out numerous anti-Hamas actions in that period.

The strong internal discipline within Hamas, as opposed to the indiscipline and factionalism within Fatah, indicates that a strong Hamas leadership can be a more effective participant in peace diplomacy than the Fatah leadership has ever been. (Interestingly, this view has been expressed even by some Israelis.)

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0131/p09s02-coop.html

After coming to power, Hamas announced it was giving up suicide attacks and "offered a 10-year truce [with Israel] in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem."[9][10][11] Hamas also declared a unilateral ceasefire with Israel which, after Israeli air strikes in response to Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza, was formally renounced.[12]

wiki

Ok most of those demands were unlikely but I don't think anyone one wanted to talk to them, just to keep on demonising them.

As I said, you don't start the negotiations by letting the other side know your final position.

 

[newharper]

Excert from a good article by Tony Karon, a senior editor at TIME.com

The Bush administration has faithfully echoed Israel's zigzagging evasion of talks with the Palestinians, a course that began when Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001. Even as, in op-ed after op-ed in U.S. papers, Hamas signals its desire to engage, and even as Israel continues to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Hamas, Israeli leaders insist that negotiations with the organization are impossible. Hamas, after all, has waged a terror war against Israel and adamantly refuses to recognize the Jewish state.



Few now remember that Israel used the same argument to avoid talking to Arafat's Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah, too, had engaged in terrorism against Israelis (and still does occasionally) and refused to revise its charter to recognize Israel until 1998, five years after Arafat and Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin had their historic handshake on the White House lawn. Non-recognition of Israel is the default starting point for Palestinian nationalism, as Hamas deputy head Abu Marzook recently made clear in the Los Angeles Times, not because of some religious absolutism but because, for Palestinians, Israel's creation in 1948 meant their violent dispossession. Hamas believes it is being ordered to legitimize this dispossession before negotiations can even begin, and it refuses to do so.



The fact that Fatah did eventually recognize Israel -- and got so little in return -- has cost the organization dearly on the Palestinian street. Nine months into the Western financial blockade that followed Hamas' election victory, a survey conducted by the Western-funded Palestinian Center for Social and Political Research found 54% of Palestinians dissatisfied with Hamas' performance in power and only 40% ready to vote for it again. Nonetheless, when asked whether Hamas should recognize Israel in order to get the siege lifted, 67% said no.

Bush, Abbas, The European and arab states get a good kicking also.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=13348