IP: How Sharon and Hamas work in concert against peace.

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2001 11:45:27 -0800
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ultradevices com>
>
> [I don't quite agree that Sharon is explicitly working with the 
> Hamas or glad to see Israeli deaths. But I do think that two sides 
> couldn't do a better job of mutually creating a lose-lose scenario 
> for the people of Isreal and Palastine]
>
> Unholy alliance
> How Sharon and Hamas work in concert against peace.
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/12/15/sharon_hamas/index.html
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
> By Michael Lerner
>
> Dec. 15, 2001 | The strategies of Ariel Sharon and Hamas are far less
> irrational than portrayed by American media. Each has been cooperating
> in what amounts to a tacit alliance to achieve a shared goal: the
> elimination of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and its
> replacement by Hamas.  Israel's announcement that it will not deal
> with the PLO any more is only one part of this process.
>
> Ariel Sharon has never hidden his contempt for the Oslo Accord,
> precisely because it aimed to create a Palestinian state in the
> pre-1967 borders of the West Bank and Gaza. When campaigning, he
> presented himself as the strong military man who could play the role
> of peacemaker. But he always reassured his own right-wing constituents
> that he had no intention of ceding any land to Palestinians.
>
> Sharon was the inventor of the strategy of filling the West Bank with
> settlements in the 1980s to prevent any possibility of Palestinians
> creating their own state. His fondest dream would be to find the
> political excuses that could allow Israel to reoccupy the entire West
> Bank and establish another hundred settlements.
>
> Arafat represented a thorn in his side, because Arafat kept insisting
> on returning to negotiations and on building the Palestinian state
> promised in the treaty Israel had signed in the White House garden in
> 1993. Moreover, the United States has made it clear that it wants
> Arafat in power and negotiations in place so that Arab leaders can say
> to their own populations: "See, our cooperation with the United States
> against Osama bin Laden has produced a return to the peace process."
> But continued conflict in the region allows Arab elites to displace
> resentment against the injustices of their own undemocratic societies
> onto anger at Israel. So they seek a balance: continued negotiations
> and an endless peace process, but not the creation of a viable
> Palestinian state.
>
>
> When the United States became preoccupied with the war against terror,
> Sharon felt free to increase the violence and repression of the
> occupation and to accelerate the assassinations of those "suspected"
> of being directly or indirectly connected to acts of terror.  Those
> assassinations, primarily directed against Hamas leaders, ensured that
> Hamas would strike back in retaliatory blows against civilian targets
> within Israel.
>
> Instead of striking back against Hamas, Israel instead has used Hamas
> attacks as justification to destroy the infrastructure of the
> Palestinian Authority and to debate what would be the best moment to
> kill Arafat. With Arafat dead and the Palestinian Authority in
> shambles, Hamas would become the prevailing force in the Palestinian
> world -- and the image of the Palestinians would then be more like
> that of the Taliban. Sharon would be able to portray Israel as
> fighting the same fight as the United States -- a battle against
> terrorists -- a move he has tried with less success against Arafat.
> With Hamas in charge of the Palestinian camp, Sharon could rally much
> broader support, because even those of us who support Palestinian
> rights would be forced to admit that a Hamas-dominated Palestine would
> be a real threat not only to Israel, but also to world peace.
>
> Hamas has much to gain as well. Convinced that the peace process is
> betraying Islamic claims to Palestine, Hamas is willing to wait
> another 30 or 40 years until Israel tires of endless war and terror --
> if, that is, it can be assured that when Israel tires, fundamentalists
> will come to power. Hamas despises the secular forces around Arafat,
> and worries that if the Palestinian Authority is not destroyed it
> could become the government of a secular Palestinian state. Hamas is
> openly contemptuous of the many Christian Palestinians who influence
> the Palestinian Authority.
>
> So it is hard for Hamas to resist the open invitation from Ariel
> Sharon: Israel will do the dirty work of destroying the Palestinian
> Authority and rejecting any peace process if Hamas does its part by
> blowing up innocent Israeli civilians.
>
> Sharon refuses to negotiate unless there is a period of non-violence,
> thereby signaling to Hamas forces that all they have to do to block
> negotiations is to escalate their terror. And if the violence gets
> intense enough, Sharon will find himself "with no alternative" but to
> kill Arafat and wipe out the Palestinian Authority.
>
> This position, of course, creates an overwhelming incentive for Hamas
> to engage in acts of terror.
>
> Washington could break this cycle by threatening economic sanctions
> until Israel ends the occupation. I won't hold my breath. More likely,
> it will demand new negotiations, which will drag on endlessly and give
> a new facelift to endless perpetuation of the occupation and the
> suffering of the Palestinian people.
>
> There is only one way for Arafat and the moderates to protect
> themselves from this invidious alliance: unequivocally reject the
> fantasy of armed struggle against Israel and convert to the principled
> non-violence of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Instead of
> supporting or condoning any form of violence, engage in massive
> non-violent demonstrations, punish rock-throwers, and refuse to
> respond to the ongoing violence of the Israeli occupation with further
> violence. Otherwise, moderates may soon find themselves the victims of
> an all-too-clever path that links fundamentalists on both sides. But I
> won't hold my breath for this course, either.
>
> Sharon is banking on America's focus on bin Laden to distract
> attention from the level of brutality Israeli forces are using in the
> West Bank and ensure that he will have political space to escalate his
> attacks on the Palestinian Authority.
>
> Unless we speak out clearly and quickly to reject his unholy, if
> tacit, alliance with Hamas, the resulting chaos will likely produce
> ever more frightful bin Ladens in the future -- and they are as likely
> to strike America as Israel. For those of us who support Israel, this
> is a moment when our voices of critique may provide the "tough love"
> it so desperately needs.
>
> (c) Copyright PNS
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> About the writer
>
> Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine, a bimonthly Jewish
> critique of politics, culture and society, and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun
> synagogue in San Francisco.
>
> --
> Robert J. Berger
> UltraDevices, Inc.
> 257 Castro Street, Suite 223 Mt. View CA. 94041
> Email: rberger () ultradevices com http://www.ultradevices.com
> Voice: 650-237-0334 Fax: 408-490-2868

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/