A Repeat Performance: Hamas, Israel, and the Political Process

In late July 2010, a few weeks before the end of the four month period allotted for the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks, President Obama called again for a renewal of the direct dialogue between the parties. The responsibility for renewing the negotiations was placed equally on Israel and the PA, although over the past few months a slight change was evident in the atmosphere surrounding the international, and especially the American, effort to put a meaningful political process on track.

First, Israel’s image as the primary opposition to direct, concrete negotiations has been softened; this in reaction to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s repeated declarations that Israel is willing to renew the negotiations at any time. Moreover, Obama’s call was directed insistently at PA president Mahmoud Abbas. After months of enjoying broad support for its demands of Israel as conditions for renewing the direct negotiations – a complete and unlimited freeze on all construction in the West Bank, and a commitment to discuss the permanent borders – the PA once again became the object of pressure to return to talks, albeit endowed with an American promise that Israel will have to discuss the borders and the demilitarized areas between it and the future Palestinian state. In addition, the Arab League called on the PA to return to the negotiating table, thereby increasing the pressure on the PA and, theoretically, the prospects for renewal of these direct talks.

Meantime, the relative quiet on the Gaza front was broken. Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip escalated, as did the Israeli military response. This development, which took place after a noticeable easing of the Israeli closure on Gaza, reflected a problematic aspect of the political process – the split in the Palestinian arena.

The rivalry between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and their conflicting issues have proven in the past an impediment to the political process. Thus, in early 2009 the direct talks between Israel and the PA under the framework of the Annapolis Conference were suspended when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in reaction to the escalation in rocket attacks toward the western Negev; the talks have not been resumed since. Those talks, which aimed even to formulate a “shelf agreement,” and the positive developments they entailed regarding management of the conflict in West Bank, highlighted the difficulties involved in bridging the gaps on the core issues. In light of these challenges, it is doubtful that the widespread claim that the Gaza war late in the tenures of the Olmert government and the Bush administration is what actually cut short a wave of concrete advances toward a settlement. Nonetheless, it is eminently clear that escalation on the Gaza front readily provided Israel and the PA with a reason to suspend the dialogue and postpone a renewal of the talks.

The international criticism of Israel for the comprehensive military operation it launched against Hamas in late 2008-early 2009 limits its ability to initiate a subsequent operation of similar intensity. However, continued escalation of the shooting from the Gaza Strip – by Hamas operatives or as a result of a weakened effort on Hamas’ part to restrain militant Islamic factions – is expected to be countered with a military response, more intense than the responses so far to the sporadic shooting from the Strip since the end of Cast Lead. If an additional round of violence indeed occurs on the Gaza front, the obstacles that are already hindering renewal of the talks between Israel and the PA will be intensified.

Renewed clashes between Israel and Hamas may well be seized by Israel and the PA as a way out of the political distress they incurred with the pressure placed upon them to return to direct talks. However, deflecting international attention from the effort to renew the political process to an effort to quell violence – if it indeed erupts – will only be temporary. When the battles end, expectations for the renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue will once again be revived on the international front and pressure on both sides will be renewed even more vigorously.

On the other hand, a renewal of violence, which will again illustrate the gap between Israel's and Hamas's relative power and will cause death and destruction primarily in the Gaza area, will intensify the political-local challenges that confront the PA as it considers weakening its stance regarding direct negotiations. Furthermore, another confrontation will make it more difficult for the political system in Israel to enlist the general public’s support for a political-territorial compromise, which both necessitates the dismantlement of settlements and poses a security risk. This will inevitably lower the chances of recreating the mutual trust between Israel and the PA, which is an essential condition for direct talks and even more so, for formulating agreements regarding the content of a permanent settlement.

In addition, the renewed escalation on the Gaza front, which will give Israel and the PA a pretext to postpone the resumption of the political process – even if it does not thwart an actual intention to advance toward a settlement – will damage the PA’s efforts to preserve its image as the side that is theoretically willing to renew the talks, will strengthen Israel’s image as the aggressive side, and will undermine the positive impression created by the recent relaxation of the economic closure over Gaza. In other words, Hamas will score a political goal.

A deferred renewal of the direct talks due to the escalation between Israel and Hamas will then join the long list of cases where Hamas, by fanning the flames and inciting an Israeli response, has succeeded in disrupting processes that signaled a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Over the years, Hamas has succeeded time after time in preventing advancement toward a settlement that contradicts the radical sections in the organization’s ideological platform. Hamas has also prevented the PA from taking advantage of chances to strengthen its position on the home front and the international front as a leadership working to realize the historical goal for which it was established, as well as thwarting the threat of being sidelined in the Palestinian political system. Yet another process that accompanied any standstill in the Israeli-Palestinian talks and as such any postponement of the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel was the acceleration the of Israel's delegitimization in the international community.

Israel and the PA will need to enlist significant public and political effort in order to prevent Hamas from realizing additional accomplishments such as these. Despite a potential increase in violence between Israel and Hamas, the PA will have to relax its conditions for renewal of the direct talks so that it can accept the Israeli invitation and the demand by the American administration and the Arab League to return to direct negotiations. The Israeli government must also try to make it difficult for the PA to use violence as a reason to evade returning to direct talks. Israel will be able to do so if it perseveres in its calls to renew the dialogue, especially if it attaches a practical, well structured offer of compromise that will be hard for the PA to refuse and complicates enlistment of international support for this obstinacy.