Khaled Mashal's Response Speech

Adopting the current fashion inaugurated by President Obama with his June 4 Cairo address, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashal joined the list of political leaders delivering major policy speeches in the Middle East. On June 25, Mashal delivered a response to the speeches of Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. His address presents Hamas’ comprehensive, updated political approach, thus also deciding the internal debate within Hamas between the so-called moderates and the so-called radicals – in favor of the moderates.

On the face of it, the political principles presented by Mashal are not highly different from the formal PLO stances presented in negotiations with Israel since the start of the Oslo process. According to these principles, Hamas is prepared to accept a political solution that mandates a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and with the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

At the same time, there are some major differences between the PLO’s stances that have developed over the course of the negotiations and this approach. First, the PLO agrees that a political solution would represent the end of the conflict, whereas Hamas does not. Based on statements by Hamas representatives on other occasions, Hamas is apparently leaving the end of the conflict to coming generations. Second, during negotiations the Palestinians demonstrated some flexibility regarding the way certain principles would be implemented. Thus, for example, the Palestinians were prepared to accept a situation in which the border between Israel and the Palestinian state would be drawn on the basis of the 1967 lines with some limited and mutually accepted emendations. The significance is that settlement blocs near the 1967 borders would be annexed to Israel, and in return the Palestinians would receive the identical amount of Israeli territory as part of a land swap. The argument was primarily over the size of the settlement blocs, with the Palestinians urging that they be as small as possible. With regard to the refugee question, despite the fact that the negotiators never formally ceded the right of return, they were prepared to examine practical solutions that assumed that the vast majority of Palestinians would not return to Israel. This apparently is what lies behind the expression “an agreed upon solution to the refuge problem” in the Arab peace initiative. For his part, Mashal refused to accept any bending of this Palestinian condition. He also expressed opposition to a demilitarized Palestinian state, presented by Netanyahu as one of Israel’s main demands; the PLO negotiators were prepared to accept limitation on the arming of the future Palestinian state. On another point emphasized by Netanyahu, Mashal embraced the general Palestinian opposition to recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and characterized the demand as racist. Furthermore, Mashal did not concede the violent struggle as a legitimate means of attaining the objectives of the Palestinian people.

In recent years, since Hamas became an active player in the internal Palestinian political arena, these guidelines have been uttered many times by different Hamas leaders presenting the idea of a hudna, a long term ceasefire, but they were understood as belonging to Hamas’ moderate wing, which is engaged in a dispute with the more radical one. It was also always commonly assumed that the more moderate stance was for external consumption only, and that therefore it emerged in meetings with foreigners and in interviews with Western media. Yet now, for the first time, Mashal presented this position as Hamas’ official stance, and did so in Arabic for the Arab public. It is hard to imagine that he did this without authorization from the Shura, Hamas’ highest authority. Mashal’s speech also reveals that the supposed split between Damascus-based radicals and Gaza Strip-based moderates is a false distinction. There are apparently moderates and radicals in both places, and Mashal himself is not necessarily aligned with the radicals. More important, Hamas has an orderly process of decision making, even if it is slow and based on consensus building. The consensus that has formed in Hamas in recent years centers on the positions presented by Mashal in his speech.

Most significantly, Hamas is willing to accept a process of negotiations with Israel, as it was when it endorsed the Palestinian prisoners’ document (officially the National Reconciliation Document) and the understandings that prompted the establishment of a national unity government in early 2007. Of course, it is difficult to renew negotiations for a permanent settlement while ignoring all that has happened since they started. On the other hand, Hamas’ positions allow a certain amount of flexibility to discuss partial agreements that would not obligate Hamas to accept the end of the conflict, and would also allow Israel side to postpone decisions about sensitive issues.

Mashal’s speech was intended to help Hamas in its internal rivalry with the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, and also to take advantage of Obama’s speech to gain international legitimacy for Hamas and launch a dialogue with the United States and other Western nations. In the internal arena, the speech presents Hamas to the Palestinian people as an entity willing to engage in the political process but loyal to the national stances of the PLO, while Abbas and his associates have betrayed them. The speech, which included the usual attacks on the PA and its denunciation as an Israeli collaborator, also attacked the PA’s joint work with General Dayton’s security team. Apparently the success in building the Palestinian security forces on the West Bank, assisted by Dayton’s delegation, is of great concern to Hamas. With regard to Western nations, the purpose of the speech was to convince the West that Hamas is a partner for dialogue. The speech will make it easier for elements in Western Europe and within Obama’s administration that support dialogue with Hamas to advance their position.

At the same time, under Egypt’s aegis and with its mediation, there are negotiations underway between Hamas and the PA over an arrangement for reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The three parties involved have for now abandoned the notion of a comprehensive “national reconciliation” between Hamas and the PLO/Fatah, and are discussing the possibility of establishing a joint committee to administer the Gaza Strip and allow regional and internal institutions to deliver the promised assistance for rebuilding the area. Such an arrangement would also allow agreement with Israel over opening the crossings to the Gaza Strip, and would possibly also help in attaining an agreement on the release of prisoners that would return Gilad Shalit. The target date set by Egypt for reaching an agreement is July 7, but at this point the sides are far from success. If the two sides do arrive at an agreement, it would greatly affect the approach of the international community on dialogue with Hamas, and would weaken the demand that Hamas meet the three preconditions set down by the Quartet: recognizing Israel, abandoning the use of violence, and accepting existing agreements.