A tale of two charters : Netanyahu's Likud party's charter refuses Palestinians a state

Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - his Likud party's 1999 Charter rules out any soveriegn, independent Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza, yet simultaneously refuses to talk to Hamas on the grounds that it's charter does not recognise the Israeli state

Hamas’ refusal to recognise Israel’s right to exist is the number one reason given for the refusal of the Israeli government and it’s allies to negotiate with the Hamas government which Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza elected in January 2006.

This claim is based on Hamas’ founding charter, which, as Palestinian scholar Khaled Hroub has pointed out, was written decades ago and does not reflect Hamas’ current positions (1).

It also makes the Charter of the Israeli Likud party, whose leader Benjamin Netanyahu is now Israeli Prime Minister, interesting reading.

It states that:

“The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. (2)”

Also “The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria [i.e the West Bank] and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values... Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting. (2)”

(The charter was written in 1999 which explains the reference to settlements in Gaza which no longer exist – though Likud opposed the withdrawal, leading to the split in the party which led to serial war criminal Ariel Sharon forming the “centrist” Kadima – which shows you just how extreme the remaining Likud members must be)

Strangely Likud's charter has not led to any other governments refusing to recognise the Israeli government until it changes it to recognise the right of a Palestinian state to exist, nor any sanctions being placed on Israelis for electing Likud.

Likud’s charter is much more blunt than most Israeli political statements on a Palestinian state are, but doesn’t differ greatly even from the Oslo agreement offered by Yitzakh Rabin’s Labor government in 1993 , which involved a Palestinian Authority in which Israeli forces could summarily arrest any Palestinian, but no Israeli could be arrested by Palestinian forces no matter what they had done. The West Bank and Gaza would continue to be occupied by Israeli forces. Israeli settlements and Israeli military posts would continue to separate Palestinian enclaves from each other. The best West Bank land and water would be reserved for Israeli settlers.

(This was still enough of a concession in Netanyahu's eyes for him to label Rabin a traitor and for his supporters to call Rabin a Nazi in a campaign of vilification which ended with Rabin being assassinated by an Israeli extremist.)

This is largely still the situation today, although Israeli governments have broken even the modest commitments they made under the Oslo agreements by continuing to annexe more land by force and build more settlements. The Gaza settlements were given up by Sharon under pressure from Bush, who wanted an apparent peace-making success to distract from his massive unpopularity in polls in the US due to Iraq and Enron, but Gaza remains under constant siege and regular military assault by Israeli forces. In return for the withdrawal from Gaza, the US gave Israel a free hand to annexe more of the West Bank (3) – (4).

Prime Minister Netanyahu has talked of a Palestinian “state” since, but each time makes clear that in fact he would not allow a state that was a state in anything but name. It would not have it’s own military or control of it’s own borders or airspace. Since the US and Israeli governments continue to demand Hamas sign up to “existing peace agreements” – i.e Oslo -  Israeli forces would also be able to enter this Palestinian “state” at will and arrest anyone they liked at will and be beyond the control of this “state”’s courts. Meanwhile the Israeli government continues to expand settlements and annexe land in the West Bank, in breach of Oslo (5) – (8).

Netanyahu’s calls for negotiations to begin were with Fatah only, not Hamas. Since Hamas won legislative elections in 2006and the only elected Palestinian Prime Minister is the leader of Hamas, this is a bit like offering to negotiate with a US President who’s a Democrat but refusing to accept the US congress’ inevitable (and constitutional) involvement in the process because the Republicans won control of congress in the last elections. President Abbas of Fatah cannot make agreements without parliamentary approval under the Palestinian constitution – and if he does, they won’t hold.

Fatah rejected this deal as categorically as Hamas did. Israeli historian Avi Shlaim points out that “The problem with Israel's concept of security is that it denies even the most elementary security to the other community.” – i.e the Palestinians (9) – (10).

There has never been an Israeli government which recognised the right of a Palestinian state to exist, making it more than a bit hypocritical for them to demand that Palestinian negotiators accept Israel’s right to exist before negotiations begin.

It also seems unlikely that they would accept recognition of an Israeli state which would not be allowed it’s own military or control of it’s own borders, would not have legal sovereignty over crimes committed in it’s territory ; and would have to allow Palestinian forces and settlers the right to control large parts of it and arrest Israelis under military laws. Yet this is what they demand Palestinian negotiators, including Hamas, accept, before negotiations even begin, when they demand recognition of Israel’s right to exist and that Hamas accept the terms of the Oslo agreement before negotiations can begin.

Despite Israeli government propaganda about rational, secular Israelis facing crazy fundamentalist Hamas the view that God gave Israelis Israel, including the West Bank and Hamas, is mainstream in Israeli politics. The use of the biblical term “Judea and Samaria” for the West Bank in Likud’s charter is one example. Netanyahu in his speech said Israelis’ right to the land – including the West Bank - was based on the presence of Abraham and others there 3,500 years before. It was also used in briefings by Israeli intelligence to the cabinet under the “centrist” Kadima and “left-wing” Labor party coalition government during Operation Cast Lead. Even some Israeli military judges, who oversee military law applied to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, have used the same language on the land having been given to the Jewish people by God (11).

Ehud Barak, the Labor Defence Minister during Operation Cast Lead remains Defence Minister under Netanyahu in coalition with Likud.

Unlike Likud in 2009, with it’s platform of preventing a Palestinian state, Hamas in 2006 did not campaign on a platform of destroying Israel. If they had campaigned on a platform of destroying Israel, Palestinians would have laughed at them. How could a few thousand militants with automatic weapons and home made rockets destroy the Israeli military with  its thousands of state of the art tanks, aircraft, helicopters, artillery pieces and drones?

It’s not true that Hamas have refused to negotiate either. Hamas leaders including Khaled Meshal and elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh repeatedly offered negotiations with Israel; initially on condition it withdrew from the territory it annexed in the 1967 war and since, later without pre-conditions. They’ve also stated they accept any Palestinian state would have to exist alongside Israel (12) – (18).

This ended after Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ offensive on Gaza in December 2008 to January 2009, in which around 1,400 Palestinians were killed, at least half civilians, many reported by Amnesty International to have been killed in war crimes, turning Palestinian public opinion against any deal with Israel (19) – (20).

The Israeli foreign ministry website shows the number of Israeli civilians killed by the rocket fire which was meant to be the reason for the Israeli offensive in the six months before ‘Operation Cast Lead’ began. One. It also shows that within a few weeks of the operation beginning , three Israeli civilians had been killed by rocket attacks (21).

That does not make the rocket fire or the killing of three civilians by Palestinian terrorist groups justified, but it does show that the Israeli offensive must have had some motive other than just stopping rocket fire, much of which was by factions other than Hamas.

It should come as no surprise that when you kill lots of the other sides’ civilians, more of them want revenge on you and kill more of yours.

The mindset that thinks you can always bomb any opponents into submission forgets that September 11^th and July 7^th did not make Americans or British foreign policy less extreme – so bombing Palestinians, Afghans or Iraqis is not going to make their politics less extreme or less violent towards us either. They are not some alien race, but humans who suffer much like us – and react similarly to us when attacked, with a minority calling for restraint and a majority for revenge on someone, anyone.

The Israeli government’s refusal to negotiate with Hamas even after it’s election victory led to Hamas’ political wing losing influence over some of it’s military wing – the Qassam Brigades. Factions other than Hamas were even harder for Hamas’ political leaders to control – and the Israeli offensive aimed at destroying Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza – for instance targeting police stations and police - while simultaneously holding Hamas responsible for every rocket fired out of Gaza.

Former heads of Mossad and Israel’s Shin Bet military intelligence have called for negotiations with Hamas without preconditions, along with former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami and many others.

(1) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A Beginners Guide’, Pluto Press, 2006

(2) = Likud – Platform, http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/knesset15/elikud_m.htm

(3) = Tanya Reinhardt (2006) , ‘The Roadmap to Nowhere : Israel/Palestine since 2003’, Verso Books , Chapters 1 and 4 (the late Tanya Reinhardt, who died in 2006, was an Israeli Professor of Linguistics and former student of Noam Chomsky. Her book quotes Israeli media sources extensively.)

(4) = Guardian 07 Jan 2009 ‘How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe’ by Avi Shlaim , www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

(5) = Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs 14 Jun 2010 ‘Address by PM Netanyahu at Bar-Ilan University, ’,http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2009/Address_PM_Netanyahu_Bar-Ilan_University_14-Jun-2009.htm

(6) = NYT 14 Jun 20010 ‘Netanyahu Backs Palestinian State, With Caveats’

(7) = guardian.co.uk 14 jun 2009 ‘Netanyahu backs an independent Palestinian state for first time’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/14/binyamin-netanyahu-israel-palestinian-state

(8) = Haaretz (Israel) 13 Oct 2009 ‘U.S. to Egypt: Fatah-Hamas deal undermines Israel-PA talks’,http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/u-s-to-egypt-fatah-hamas-deal-undermines-israel-pa-talks-1.6197 , ‘Sources told Haaretz that Mitchell made clear to the Egyptians on Saturday the United States expects any Palestinian government to follow the conditions of the Quartet, which include recognition of the State of Israel, acknowledging earlier agreements and renouncing terrorism.’

(9) = See (6) above

(10) = See (4) above

(11) = guardian.co.uk 26 oct 2009 ‘West Bank land belongs to Jews, says Israeli army judge’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/26/west-bank-jews-army-judge

(12) = Telegraph 09 Feb 2006 ‘Hamas offers deal if Israel pulls out’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1510074/Hamas-offers-deal-if-Israel-pulls-out.html

(13) = Guardian 4 Mar 2006 , ‘Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1723217,00.html

(14) = Guardian 22 Jun 2006 ‘Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1803184,00.html

(15) = Ynet news (Israel) 22 Dec 2007 ‘Report: Hamas weighing unconditional truce with Israel’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3485394,00.html

(16) = IHT 23 Dec 2007 ‘Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks’,http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/africa/hamas.php

(17) Guardian.co.uk 21 April 2008 ‘We can accept Israel as neighbour, says Hamas’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/israel

(18) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A beginner’s guide’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006

(19) = Amnesty International 02 July 2009 ‘Impunity for war crimes in Gaza and southern Israel a recipe for further civilian suffering’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702

(20) = Amnesty International 02 Jul 2009 ‘Israel/Gaza: Operation "Cast Lead": 22 days of death and destruction’, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/015/2009/en

(21) = Israel Foreign Ministry ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

Operation Kill Children to Boost Poll Ratings Achieves Partial Success

Pity it Tripled deaths from rocket attacks; but there are glimmers of hope

We can all relax now that Operation Kill Children to Boost Poll Ratings has achieved partial success. Barak and Livni now have their chances to be the next Israeli Prime minister who bombs and starves Gazans rather than Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s a triumph for humanity (1,2).

Cynics point out that the offensive actually increased rocket attacks. The Israeli Foreign Ministry website shows one Israeli civilian was killed by rocket attacks in the six months before the offensive, while three were killed in the three weeks during it (3).The cynics miss the point though. Reducing rocket attacks was never the aim.

More Palestinians have been radicalized by a thousand deaths and Israeli spokesmen have been able to claim that it’s the ‘undemocratic’ Hamas, not their own government, which has refused to negotiate. That may be the opposite of the truth and Hamas may be elected, but who cares. Israel “won”;the Labour-Kadima governing coalition matched Likud in the polls; the untermenschen Israeli Arab parties are banned from the next election (edit - a law later over-turned in Israeli courts) and the settlement of the West Bank continues. Palestinians are again relegated to their assigned roles of being ethnically cleansed and used as an enemy to rally Israeli voters against (4 – 11).

The Israeli government can also continue to propagandise about being the "only democracy in the Middle East", even while (yet again) trying to overthrow the democratically elected government of one of the other two (the Palestinian Authority) by force and repeatedly trying the same in the other (Lebanon).

There are some glimmers of hope though - Barack Obama has announced his administration will talk to Hamas, which would make it hard for the Israeli government to justify not acccepting offers of talks, especially if Obama threatens a cut in financial aid and arms shipments behind the scenes, as even George Bush Senior did when he was President (12).

Many people have also begun their own boycotts of Israeli produce and some company directors, including, I'm proud to say, one of my own relatives, have said their firms won't trade with Israel as long as the slaughter of civilians continues. So even if governments fail to put sufficient pressure on the Israeli government their citizens might yet do it.

(1) = Haaretz 31 Dec 2009 ‘Poll: Most Israelis support continuing Gaza military op’,
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051852.html

(2) = BBC News 08 Jan 2009 ‘Israelis back Gaza action - for now’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7816794.stm (see last two sections under sub-headings ‘Ratings War’ and ‘High Stakes’)

(3)= Israel Foreign Ministry ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

(4) = Telegraph 09 Feb 2006 ‘Hamas offers deal if Israel pulls out’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1510074/Hamas-offers-deal-if-Israel-pulls-out.html

(5) = Guardian 4 Mar 2006 , ‘Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1723217,00.html

(6) = Guardian 22 Jun 2006 ‘Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1803184,00.html

(7) = Ynet news (Israel) 22 Dec 2007 ‘Report: Hamas weighing unconditional truce with Israel’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3485394,00.html

(8) = IHT 23 Dec 2007 ‘Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks’,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/africa/hamas.php

(9) Guardian.co.uk 21 April 2008 ‘We can accept Israel as neighbour, says Hamas’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/israel

(10) = Khaled Hroub (2006) ‘Hamas : A beginner’s guide’ , Pluto Press, London, 2006

(11) = Haaretz (Israel) 13 Jan 2009 ‘Israel bans Arab parties from running in upcoming elections’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054867.html

(12) = 09 Jan 2009 'Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'',
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/08/barack-obama-gaza-hamas

De Facto in Gaza - where the elected government "siezed power by force"

The topsy-turvy world where the coup-makers are democrats, elected governments 'siezed power by force'and 'western backed' = legitimate and democratically elected

Much of the media have consistently referred to Ismail Haniyeh as “de facto" Prime Minister "in Gaza" and claimed that Hamas siezed power in Gaza by force and aim to destroy Israel. They're giving too much credence to the rhetoric of the Israeli government and its allies.

Haniyeh is the democratically elected Prime Minister of all Palestinians, West Bankers and Gazans. The January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections were verified free and fair by EU monitors. (2), (3), (4),(5).

Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah is the elected Palestinian President, but his appointment of his own ‘Prime Minister’ and Ministers in the West Bank is undemocratic and against the Palestinian Authority’s constitution, which gives parliament, not the President, the power to sack and approve ministers. Hamas has a parliamentary majority (6), (7).

The US and EU governments may recognise Abbas’ appointed, unelected PM and cabinet but the legitimacy of governments does not derive from other governments but from free and fair elections and adherence to a country's constitution. Fatah lost the 2006 elections because of Israel's campaign to overthrow Arafat and Fatah by bombing and sanctions under Ariel Sharon - and because of it's corruption, with many Fatah officials living in luxury by taking aid money that should be going to their people, while the majority of those people suffer malnutrition caused by food shortages.(8), (9), (10)

Hamas didn't 'sieze power' in Gaza either. A coup by Fatah gunmen, armed and trained by Egypt, the US and Israel, failed in Gaza but succeeded in the West Bank. Both factions' gunmen have murdered the other side's supporters (11), (12), (13), (14). The refusal of Israel and the Quartet to lift sanctions after a peace deal and coalition government formed by Hamas and Fatah in 2007 Israel led to renewed civil war (15), (16).

The ‘barrier to negotiations’ is not Hamas but the Israeli government’s refusal of all offers of talks with the elected Palestinian Prime Minister and attempts to overthrow his government by starvation and force. Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshal of Hamas have repeatedly offered negotiations and said that a Palestinian state could co-exist with Israel - and would have to since Israel's military is immensely more powerful than the Palestinians'.(17), (18), (19), (20), (21), (22).

Since Hamas' election the Israelis have made a great show of offering to negotiate with Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah but saying Hamas are terrorists who can't be negotiated with. They now call Fatah "the forces of peace". Four years ago they were saying Fatah were terrorists who couldn't be negotiated with (and Israel's Foreign Ministry website lists attacks on Israelis by Fatah's armed wing every year too). It isnt too hard to make sense of this - the aim is to divide and conquer the Palestinians. In negotiations with Abbas the Israeli government offer him nothing of any substance and continue expanding settlements and seizing water supplies and farmland from Palestinians forced out at gunpoint. As long as the focus is kept on Gaza by sanctions and bombing and rocket attacks on and from it the annexation of the West Bank can continue.

Hamas and Fatah are both involved in terrorism - but they also have political and social wings, with Hamas providing hospitals and schools for everyone (including Christians). Many of Israel's Prime Ministers were terrorists bombing their way to an Israeli state before Israel's foundation - and every one of them has been a war criminal with as much civilian blood on their hands as any Palestinian terrorist.

Bombing and invasions have been tried before to end rocket attacks and suicide bombings. Predictably they create more of them by killing 50 Palestinian civilians for every Israeli civilian killed.

Negotiations are possible - and the only way forward.

(1) = See e.g Guardian 07 Jan 2009 ‘Gaza’s Day of Carnage – 40 dead as Israelis bomb two UN schools’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-obama

and

Independent 06 Jan 2009 ‘Tunnels – the secret weapon for Hamas’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tunnels-ndash-the-secret-weapon-for-hamas-1228140.html

(2) = Associated Press 26 Jan 2006 , ‘Hamas Wins Landslide 76 Seats’, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/26/international/i094327S41.DTL&feed=rss.news

(3) = House of Commons Library Research Paper 06/17 ; 15 Mar 2006 , ‘The Palestinian Parliamentary Election and the rise of Hamas’, http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-017.pdf (see Section C, page 12 ‘Conduct of the Elections’ – also note the paper mistakenly gives the date of the elections as January 2005 – this must be a typo – the parliamentary elections were a year later)

(4) = Political Risk Monitor – Special Coverage - The January 2006 Palestinian Elections , ‘Palestinian elections: MEPs hail success of democratic process but urge Hamas to take the path of peace’, http://www.politicalriskmonitor.com/hamas/electobserv.shtml

(5) = Europa (EU) News Service 27 Jan 2006 ‘Palestinian elections: MEPs hail success of democratic process but urge Hamas to take the path of peace’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/030-4661-026-01-04-903-20060124IPR04643-26-01-2006-2006-false/default_en.htm

(6) = Ha’aretz 15 Jul 2007, ‘Fatah to boycott parliament session convened by Hamas’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/881670.html

(7) = FMEP/Reuters 9 July 2007, ‘Abbas Exceeded Powers in Sacking Government’,
http://www.fmep.org/analysis/analysis/abbas-exceeded-powers-in-sacking-government

(8) = Jerusalem Post 27 Jan 2006 'Fatah leaders reeling from 'the big punishment''
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1137605926202
5th paragraph reads "Fatah activists here blamed the party's veteran leadership for the humiliating defeat. "The people punished us because of the mismanagement and corruption of the mafia that came from Tunis," said Nasser Abdel Hakim, referring to the Fatah leaders who returned with Yasser Arafat from Tunis in 1994."

(9) = Israel National News 30 Mar 2008 'Fatah PA Corruption Exposed', http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125722

(10) = See http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-Palestine/thecoup/ under sub=heading 'Economic Warfare' and source notes and links for it - and also http://www.duncanmcfarlane.org/Israel-Palestine19thJan08/index.html#2

(11) = Haaretz (Israel) 28 Dec 2006 , ‘Israeli defense official: Fatah arms transfer bolsters forces of peace’, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/806603.html

(12) = Christian Science Monitor 25 May 2007, ‘Israel, US, and Egypt back Fatah's fight against Hamas’, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0525/p07s02-wome.html

(13) = Guardian 26 Jun 2007, ‘A thankless task with four bosses and no office’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2111447,00.html

(14) = Israel Today 18 Jun 2007, ‘Bush to replace arms Fatah surrendered to Hamas’, http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=13150

(15) = BBC News 9 Feb 2007 , ‘Palestinian rivals in unity deal’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6344297.stm

(16) = NPR 18 Mar 2007, ‘Israel Rejects Palestinians' Unity Deal’, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8983689

(17) = Telegraph 09 Feb 2006 ‘Hamas offers deal if Israel pulls out’,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1510074/Hamas-offers-deal-if-Israel-pulls-out.html

(18) = Guardian 4 Mar 2006 , ‘Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1723217,00.html

(19) = Guardian 22 Jun 2006 ‘Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1803184,00.html

(20) = Ynet news (Israel) 22 Dec 2007 ‘Report: Hamas weighing unconditional truce with Israel’, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3485394,00.html

(21) = IHT 23 Dec 2007 ‘Israel rejects Hamas request for cease-fire talks’,
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/23/africa/hamas.php

(22) Guardian.co.uk 21 April 2008 ‘We can accept Israel as neighbour, says Hamas’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/israel

Is trying to bomb an elected government out of power democracy or terrorism?

There’s a theory among ‘political scientists’ (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that one democracies don’t go to war on one another. If you needed evidence against this ‘scientific law’ then Israel’s continuing attempt to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government by bombing and starving the whole population of Gaza provides another example of the fact that there are no scientific laws of politics.

Hamas incidentally were not only elected by Gazans but by Palestinians in the West Bank too – but the Israeli and Egyptian governments succeeded in carrying out a coup that put Fatah in sole power in the West Bank. In Gaza however Hamas gunmen defeated Fatah (gunmen armed by Israel and Egypt). Yet this is widely referred to as having been a Hamas ‘coup’. Both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ishmail Haniyeh were democratically elected in elections declared free and fair by international obsevers, including EU delegations. Abbas is the leader of the Fatah party – which the late Yasser Arafat led. Haniyeh is a senior Hamas leader. Yet the Israeli, US, Russian, British and Chinese governments only recognise Abbas and Fatah as the Palestinian government and refuse to recognise Haniyeh or Hamas. Abbas has even appointed a new (unelected) government made up of Fatah members to replace the elected Hamas ones in the West Bank – which is against both the Palestinian constitution and the basic principles of democracy. Yet other governments and the media still refer to these appointees as Palestinian ministers. (click here for details and sources)- and also see here.

For decades Israel’s government condemned Arafat and Fatah as terrorists who could not be negotiated with. Since Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections the Israeli government have referred to Fatah gunmen as ‘the forces of peace’. While claiming that they can’t negotiate with Hamas because some groups linked to it continue rocket and mortar attacks on Israelis they continue to negotiate with Abbas and Fatah – despite the Israeli foreign ministry’s own website listing killings of Israelis by armed groups linked to Fatah. after January 2006 (see e.g entries for November 19th 2007 and January 24th 2008 and three in July and August 2006 on killings of Israelis by Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade ) (1).

The reason is pretty obvious. The Israeli government aren’t trying to get peace – they’re trying to divide and conquer Palestinians – with help from the US government. (click here for details and sources).

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, interviewed on the BBC’s News 24 today, claimed that the whole world had condemned Hamas’ ending of the ceasefire – omitting to mention that the Israeli government stated days before that it had never signed up to the ceasefire itself - which just goes to show that rewriting history is a never ending process. Israeli forces continued kidnappings and killings of elected Hamas MPs and indiscriminate bombing of Gaza just as much as Palestinian armed groups continued theirs against Israeli settlements. Both kill civilians – the only difference being that Israeli forces’ weapons are much more powerful so kill far more. Despite Israeli claims that they do everything to avoid civilian casualties the Israeli human rights group B’T Selem and others have reported every year that at least half the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces are unarmed civilians – and many are children (2). (also see here and here and here for more details and sources).

Regev said his government had ‘tried everything’ to end rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorist groups. Well that’s not quite true is it Mark? You’ve not tried talking to Hamas, even after dozens of offers of negotiations from Hamas. You’ve not tried accepting they’re the government the Palestinian people elected in 2006 – in fact your government has refused all talks with Hamas from the start and attempted to overthrow the government they elected by force or by trying to get Palestinians to replace them themselves to stop your own government continuing to kill them by the hundred through a combination of bombing and starvation.

(For anyone who claims Israel is supplying Palestinians with enough food perhaps they could explain why food shortages in Gaza under the Israeli blockade have become so bad that the UN Relief and Works Agency reports that many Palestinians are now forced to search through rubbish dumps for food. No doubt the reply will be the standard, unconvincing ‘it’s entirely Hamas’ fault and nothing to do with the Israeli government’. (3))

We have a word for it when we’re attacked by people who kill our civilians and soldiers in order to try to get our elected government to change its policy or else be replaced. We call it terrorism.

The most dishonest thing about the campaign to overthrow the elected Palestinian government is the pretence that the Israeli campaign aims to replace them with moderates in order to allow peace.

Did bombing Palestinians to try to get rid of Arafat and Fatah result in a government more acceptable to Israelis when Israel under Yitzakh Shamir, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon tried it for decades? Of course not. It hardened Palestinians’ attitudes, the same way Palestinian terrorist attacks move Israeli politics to the right – and brought Hamas to power – just as the September 11th and July 7th bombings shored up support for unpopular governments and their unpopular foreign policies in the UK and the USA.

Anyone who tells you that continuing Israeli ‘military action to defend our civilians’ will have a different result and bring peace is incapable of learning from experience or else dishonest. Decades of Israeli raids and bombings have only continued the cycle of Palestinian and Israeli ‘revenge’ attacks killing each others’ civilians.

If they’re dishonest the plan may be to ensure there can be no negotiations with a representative Palestinian government – to divide and conquer Palestinians and ensure Palestinians elect a government even more extreme than Hamas, with the plan being that then Israel can pretend its justified to bomb and starve enough Palestinians to force the rest into exile. Then Israel can take back Gaza and – more importantly – the West Bank, with its abundant water supplies and farm land – both almost as highly valued as oil in the deserts of the Middle East.

So if it’s ok to bomb and starve Palestinians in order to try to force them to replace those elected members of its government Israelis aren’t happy with then what would the Israeli government response to other governments recognizing the Israeli President but refusing to recognise its Prime Minister and cabinet ministers be? What would it be if they also kidnapped Israeli cabinet ministers and MPs or killed them? And if it killed a lot of other Israelis, including civilians in the process? Wouldn’t that be terrorism?

Hamas certainly has an armed wing and some of them are involved in terrorism. The Israeli government also has an armed wing though – its military – and it and many current and former Israeli Prime Ministers, cabinet ministers and MPs have been involved in war crimes against civilians, including , in the case of Ariel Sharon for instance, deliberate massacres. There is no entirely right or entirely wrong side here.

More attacks by either side only strengthen support for extremists on each side and weaken those who want to negotiate – people who favour negotiations exist even in Hamas – like the elected Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have a right to elect their own governments and to have those governments recognized. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians should die as punishment for what their government has done. It’s time our governments stopped their unquestioning support for Israel and recognized the government Palestinians elected too.

The plain fact is that trying to bomb an elected government out of power won’t bring peace – it’s terrorism and will only create more terrorism by the other side.

Source notes

(1) = Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs ‘Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000’,
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

(2) = B’T Selem press release 3 March 2008: Contrary to Israel's Chief of Staff, at least half of those killed in Gaza did not take part in the fighting,
http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20080303.asp

(3) = Observer 21 Dec 2008 ‘Israeli blockade 'forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food'’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/israel-gaza-strip-middle-east