When so-called “proximity talks” began between Israel and the Palestinians a few months ago, I noted that one of the major obstacles any new peace effort was bound to run into is the question of how to deal with Hamas and their control over Gaza. With direct talks about to start in Washington between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, I think this question is even more pressing, and I have found it rather strange that there seems to be so little attention paid to this issue in the media. So when I saw that a good section of the latest issue of Foreign Affairs was devoted to exploring issues in the Middle East, and that one of the pieces addressed this very issue,  I thought I should take a closer look at what Professor Daniel Byman, author of the article, had to say about how this violent terrorist organization fits into the broader picture of peace-making efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.

The iron rule of Hamas in Gaza clearly remains a factor which cannot be ignored, and today brought the sad news that not only were 4 Israelis murdered in a terrorist attack in the West Bank, but that Hamas has praised this horrible event (which included the death of a pregnant woman) as a positive development in the battle against Israel. For them to say this is not only politically unproductive, it is morally repugnant and shows quite clearly that Hamas has no interest in promoting peace or stability in the region.

In my mind, Hamas is not only an enemy of Israel and a threat to the future of a viable Palestinian state, but has shown itself to be an organization completely devoid of basic human decency. That being said, the fact remains that in one way or another, Israel and the PA are going to have to find a way to deal with the Hamas leadership. In general, professor Byman and I are in agreement that the key to neutralizing Hamas in the long run is to work toward marginalizing the group through a combination of support for the PA increased isolation of Hamas, but he does bring up one interesting point which I had not previously suggested, namely, that “…because the effort to transform Hamas into a responsible government could fail, the international community must be prepared to support a more aggressive military response by Israel if Hamas does not change.”

I agree that this process is going to be difficult, and I agree that should it fail Israel may have to take serious military action to neutralize the threat of a Hamas-run entity on their doorstep (and in the long term, I suspect Egypt and Jordan, as well as perhaps the PA, would also quietly support such an effort to return Gaza to PA control) but I find it hard to believe that world opinion is going to shift toward supporting any sort of Israeli military action again Gaza any time soon.

Writing before the start of these talks, Professor Byman notes the potential for a side-lined Hamas to attempt to derail negotiations through acts of violence as they have in the past. Now , unfortunately, this seems to be the case again, with yet another report of a terrorist attack, this time on Israeli police officers in Hebron. These incidents raise a number of disturbing questions : Whether President Abbas and his security forces will be able to quell the rising violence in the West Bank, what the Israeli response to the attacks might be, and how all of this will impact the direct talks.

Hamas also does not have to be directly behind such attacks or attempts to disrupt talks - there are any number of anti-Israel terrorist groups, such as Islamic Jihad, which operate in Gaza, and with Hamas looking the other way these organizations could easily be allowed to do the dirty work of Gaza’s current rulers. While small-scale terrorist attacks do occur with alarming frequency in Israel (and are rarely reported in the media outside of the Middle East) there can be no coincidence between the timing of these most recent acts of violence and the start of direct talks in Washington. What remains to be seen now is how President Abbas and Prime Minitser Netanyahu will respond to these events, and whether they will let Hamas cast the deciding vote in whether or not these peace talks will fail before they have even begun.

-Daniel E. Levenson

Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

The New Vilna Review