Haaretz brings news that Israel and Hamas are in the midst of serious negotiations under Egyptian auspices over a long-term truce. According to the report, Israel has proposed up to a 10 year truce while Hamas has countered with a one-year offer. As part of its offer, Israel would be willing to lift its 18-month blockade of Gaza:
Hamas spokesman Ayman Taha has said recently that Israel has offered his Palestinian Islamist group a 10-year cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt is also demanding a truce of a number of years’ duration. But Taha, Hamas’ spokesman in the Gaza Strip, said the group would agree to a cease-fire of no more than between one year and 18 months. Another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said a long-term cease-fire “kills” the right to resistance by the Palestinians.
The London-based newspaper Al-Hayat, meanwhile, reported on Monday that Israel has offered Hamas a cease-fire for an unlimited amount of time and the opening of Gaza’s borders in return for abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the report, Hamas rejected the offer on the grounds that it linked the opening of the border crossings to Shalit’s release.
Part of the negotiation involves how to monitor the borders in a way that is acceptable to both Israel and Hamas. The presence of Israeli or Fatah monitors at the crossings is a sensitive one for Hamas as Israel in the past has used its presence to force the closing of the border for reasons that were less than transparent.
It appears that Hamas is balking at including the freeing of Gilad Shalit as part of the package that would include lifting the siege. I hope and presume that the freedom of Shalit is something that is included in the final agreement. Relations between Israel and Hamas should be as normalized as possible under current conditions. They cannot be so if Shalit is not free.
If true (and its important to note that hopeful reports like this often turn out to be empty ones), this is a most welcome development as it provides hope of a more stable relationship between Hamas and Israel. This also indicates that Israel IS negotiating with Hamas (albeit indirectly), something which Israel and the U.S. have taken great pains to claim they would never do.
Nowhere in this report is there any mention of Hamas recognizing Israel, which was another one of the supposedly “non-negotiable” principles that Israel and the U.S. demanded before it would negotiate with or recognize Hamas. One might even see the Israeli proposal for an unlimited or even 10 year truce as creeping toward Hamas’ own position, which publicly offered a long term hudna to Israel, a proposal that has been on the table for some time and rejected previously by Israel.
If the story is correct, it also proves that Israel’s vaunted claim that it invaded in order to silence Hamas rockets was for naught. Just as the Jewish peace camp has claimed all along, the only thing that will silence the rockets is negotiations–each side compromising and giving up on something it considers important in order to get from the other side something it considers even more important.
I also take personal satisfaction from this development, as it puts the lie to Israel’s more noxious right-wing supporters who comment here (most of whose comments haven’t been published–though many more-civil ones opposing my views were), who’ve levelled disgusting insults and threats over the past four weeks at me for my alleged anti-Israel views and my alleged slavish support for Hamas. I plan soon on mounting an “exhibition” here of some of the foulest ones to allow everyone to see just what these creeps are made out of.
All this will give George Mitchell something substantive to talk about with Olmert, Barak and Livni when he arrives on Wednesday.
“Relations between Israel and Hamas should be as normalized as possible under current conditions. They cannot be so if Shalit is not free.”
can they be “normalized” with 38 Palestinian lawmakers in Israeli jail?
First, I said “as normalized as possible under the circumstances.” Second, of course there should be no Palestinians lawmakers in Israeli jails. This is a deep affront to Palestinian democracy. I frankly don’t understand where you’re coming from. YOu don’t think I support Israel’s policies toward Hamas or the Occupation? Or do you? Or are you just looking to try to pick nits w. me?
I definitely hope that normalization occurs.
The combination of needs that would accomplish that are known.
I personally consider Hamas to be the main decider on this question, with a great deal of power, but having to choose between compromises, not getting what its most militant want.
That’s laughable considering that Hamas has for the past year or so offered the very hudna to Israel which the latter seems to be proposing (if the Haaretz/Al Hayat story is to be believed). No, Israel is the main decider here. It has the prevailing power, it has had numerous opportunities to turn things around & it has chosen to bury its head in the sand every time. I’m hoping that one of these days Israel will take its head out of the sand & take a good look at the landscape & realize it has to make a deal to win what it wants which is peace, security & the opportunity to make decent lives for its citizens.
I know you think that you are defending Hamas in that statement, but in suggesting that they have no power to influence their future, you are “blessing” them to a life of victim status.
Even if their power is limited, it is NOT nil in the slightest.
They have the power to make a cease-fire POSSIBLE or IMPOSSIBLE, as does Israel.
Shalit, who the hell cares about this one little freak? Over 560 people were slaughtered in 2006, hundreds more last year, 1700 already this year and there are 10,000 Palestinians illegally held in Israeli prisons and you whine about this one prat whose life was dedicated to making the lives of Palestininans unbearable.
Please spare me the bullshit Richard.
This little oik ain’t worth a goddam second glance after the horror inflicted on the Palestinians.
Go and tell the Samouni family all about this jerk, see what the jerks just like him did to the family and wrote on their walls.
If this jerk was not in their prison he would have been killing members of the Samouni family.
By including him and not the 10,000 Palestinians in jail what are you saying? That this jerk is worth 10,000 Palestinians in jail, the thousands murdered by Israel, the thousands of homes bulldozed and the mosques, schools, colleges, parliament buildings, a starvation regime and 60 year illegal occupation.
God help the world if anyone thinks that.
Now let me say this very clearly. Israel is in the wrong. They have no bargaining power now because the world understands what they have done and are doing.
So much so that even 60 minutes aired a brutal report on their behaviour. In America.
Marilyn: I have warned you about adhering to my blog comment rules. YOu did for a time, but apparently you’ve thrown all caution to the winds. Your statements, including ones I have not published, are grossly racist. And no amt. of Palestinians suffering can justify your spewing the same racism that Israelis spew against Palestinians except in reverse. If that’s what you need to do then you need to find a site more congenial to your spewing. This isn’t it.
Your comment privileges have been revoked.
A truly civilized political perspective?
Richard, one possible reason that hamas may be balking at including Shalit in a hudna deal (the one they offered once that israel seems now to be willing to take, pretending it’s somehow original) is that he may – or may not be – alive any longer. There were reports coming out of hamas during the attacks on palestinians in Gaza that Shalit may be hurt, and later, an official said he had no idea where Shalit is.
There’s a strong possibility that Shalit is not among the living – killed possibly during the indiscriminate bombing, perhaps when hamas people felt the trouble of holding him is no longer worth the effort to defend his life with theirs. I can see hamas operatives concluding – in light of israel’s actions – that Shalit stopped being a bargaining chip. I have no idea, of course (I doubt many even in gaza know what’s up with Shalit), but the indications are not positive.
In fact, hamas’ reluctance to include Shalit in any border openning deal – an outcome dear to their hear – may be a hint pointing in this not-so-positive direction. Als, I’d say that israel’s sudden eagerness for a hudna – and including Shalit in such a deal – may bespeak of their own doubts as to the soldier’s welfare, and could then be a move to get more information out of hamas.
Just reading the tea leaves here….
I’m starting to realize there are certain media codes used by the Israeli gov’t when they’re about to announce major troop losses or the death of kidnapped soldiers. They announced that Goldwasser & the other soldier may’ve been injured during the Lebanon kidnapping. It turns out they died during it.
The fact that Israel announced during the Gaza war that Shalit may’ve been injured could’ve been preparing the nation for the fact that the IDF may actually have killed him in the bombing campaign or some other part of the operation. That would be terribly sad, but not the first time it has happened. Nachshon Waxman was also killed during an attempt to free him from kidnapping.
Just Foreign Policy and Jewish Voice for Peace are launching a campaign to urge President Obama to reform U.S. policy. In particular, they are urging President Obama to end the blockade of Gaza, end the policy of trying to isolate Hamas, get serious about U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and insist that weapons that the U.S. supplies to Israel only be used in self-defense.
They plan to deliver the petition to President Obama on February 23.
TO SIGN THE PETITION –
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1814