Whoops! I Was Dead Wrong about Words and Deeds in the Middle East

In my last blog on this site, I wrote that Israel should drop its demand that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist and start trading in real, crunchy carrots, such as blockade-free roads for rocket-free skies. "The name of the game," I argued, "is changing what the Palestinians DO. So long as they can be led to behave AS IF they accepted Israel's right to exist, what they say will not matter."

Guess what? I was dead wrong. While common sense tells us that a substantive, material benefit such as peace, land, or freedom to cross a border should trump any number of words, that's not what Scott Attran and Jeremy Ginges found in a survey of some 4000 Israelis and Palestinians that they conducted over the past four years.

Israelis and Palestinians don't play by normal trading rules. Nearly half the Israeli settlers surveyed said they would refuse to trade any land in the West Bank for peace, and more than half the Palestinians surveyed would take no material benefit for giving up their claim to full sovereignty over Jerusalem or to their right of return to occupied territories. Material benefits here include cold cash. According to Attran and Ginger, no amount of money--not even ten billion dollars a year for a hundred years--would buy off the Palestinian claims.

But what if the Israelis simply offered words? What if they officially apologized for the suffering they inflicted on the Palestinians in the 1948 war? If that happened, say Attran and Ginges, Palestinian hard-liners would be far more likely to recognize Israel's right to exist. Likewise, if Hamas as well as Fatah explicitly recognized Israel's right to exist, "Israeli respondents said they could live with a partition of Jerusalem and borders very close to those that existed before the 1967 war."

Wow. All this for words alone.

How can this be? Simple. Under certain conditions, words are not the alternative to deeds. They ARE deeds--what linguists call speech acts. When a man officially declares that he takes a woman (or another man, for that matter) to be his wedded partner, he's DOING something, as plainly revealed by the words. "I do." When President-elect Barack Obama swore last week that he would faithfully uphold the Constitution (or uphold it faithfully, for syntactical nit-pickers), he did something crucial to the future of this country. He took the final step to becoming president of the United States.

Likewise, to apologize for what it has done to the Palestinians would be an extraordinary act for Israel, and no less extraordinary would be a declaration by Hamas that it recognized Israel's right to exist.

To see that each of these statements is an extraordinary act is to see the folly of demanding that Hamas alone be required to act before it can participate in any negotiations over the future of Palestine. So long as we cling to that requirement, we will make no meaningful progress toward peace in the Middle East.

That is why I cannot applaud George Mitchell's forthcoming trip to the Middle East with more than one hand. Having patiently persuaded the Republicans and the Unionists of Northern Ireland to lay down their weapons and share political power, Mitchell brings an impressive track record to his new assignment. But what could he have achieved in Northern Ireland if he had refused to talk to the leaders of Sinn Fein when the British government regarded its military wing--the IRA--as a bunch of terrorists? What could he have achieved if he had demanded that the IRA give up all its weapons as a precondition for talks? You know the answer: absolutely nothing.

Yet in the Middle East, we go on acting as if this formula for everlasting stalemate can somehow be made to work. When asked about negotiating with Hamas during her Senate confirmation hearing, our new Secretary of State said that we would talk to Hamas only when it renounced violence AND recognized Israel's right to exist. Next week, therefore, Mitchell will visit Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the West Bank. What he won't visit is Gaza. This is ostrich diplomacy. For in spite of Israel's attempt to crush Hamas once and for all and strengthen Fatah, its recent war on Gaza has done just the opposite, leaving Hamas more than ever the party that it has to reckon with--and that we have to recognize.

Is it really unthinkable that we should talk to Hamas without preconditions, or that we should realize just what we are asking of Hamas when we demand that it recognize Israel's right to exist? Is an Israeli apology for what it has done to the Palestinians really more intolerable than more misery, more hatred, and more killing of civilians on both sides?

I'd like to believe that our new president would say no. Having just told an interviewer for al-Arabiya--an Arabic satellite TV network-- that he wants a new partnership with the Muslim world "based on mutual respect and mutual interest," President Obama seems ready to listen to all sides in the Middle East conflict, and even in Israel itself, some major politicians are now sounding conciliatory notes. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that the Israelis must withdraw from the West Bank and share Jerusalem, and Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party and leading candidate in the coming election for prime minister, has said that he wants to build as broad a coalition as possible and improve practical arrangements with the Palestinians.

All this should lead us and the Israelis to take the unthinkable, unspeakable, but also indispensable step: talk to Hamas. Now.

Comments

[murphy80]

grow up and settle the matter.

[Jezreel]

I wouldn't give up on the possibility of Mitchell alking to Hamas so soon. George Mitchell is part Arab, himself. Yet, he is a fair and even handed man, judging by his work and his writings. I believe that he will talk to Hamas' Representatives when he visits Syria. I also believe that somehow Turkey has to be included in the negotiations because Egypt has lost credibility as a fair player after Mubarak's refusal to open the border during the Gaza massacre. Lastly, I hope that Mitchell will tour Gaza so that he can see first hand the destruction that Israel wreaked on its civilian population and infrastructure.

[Michale32086]

What does Mitchell being Arab have to do with talking to a terrorist organization????

Do you HONESTLY believe that Arabs are any more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight??

You DO realize that Arabs have brutally killed tens of thousands more Palestinians than Israel ever has, right???

Michale...­..

[aemathisphd]

Sadly, Michale, I've found that most people that debate these issues don't know much about what they're saying. The extent of what they know about Black September in Jordan or the massacres in Lebanon (for which Israelis were partially responsible but didn't pull the triggers) is extremely limited. Many think it was Israel that actually perpetrated Sabra and Shatilla. They have no clue at all. I don't want the occupation and I won't defend it, but compared to how some Arab nations have treated the Palestinians, the Israeli occupation looks downright tame.

[bodan1]

DO NOT SPEAK OR CONVERSATE WITH MICHALE HE IS A PROPOGANDIST
READ THIS AND SEE!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/09/israel-foreign-ministry-media

[chaos4700]

I keep forgetting. In your racist eyes, "the Arabs" are some monolithic, barely human horde of savages in your mind that all move in the same direction, like a herd.

I shudder to think about what you'd said about African Americans back in the 1960's. Or even today, really.

[southwindow]

apologies? recognition?
the peoples of israel and palestine will never give either. the do not see each other as people. until that changes, this is idle speculation.

[samerbayer]

I'm impressed. y don't we have many like you in the other side.

[aemathisphd]

Three points:

(1) The security situation in Gaza is such that it may just not be safe to visit Gaza. He should meet with representatives of Hamas, but I can understand his not wanting to go Gaza.

(2) The analogy that comes to mind when I think of negotiating with a party that denies your right to exist is Sharon Tate negotiating with Charles Manson. Except Hamas actually appears to be more crazy than Manson. That being said, I suppose talking to them can't make things any worse.

(3) As far as I know, nobody on the Israeli side favoring a final status agree with the Palestinians is against (a) dividing Jerusalem, or (b) allowing Palestinian refugees to return to the territory taken by Israel in the '67 war. (Ehud Olmert, who used to be a notorious right-winger, recently came out in favor of dividing Jerusalem again.) The issues, rather, are sovereignty over the Temple Mount and allowing '48 refugees into the 1949 ceasefire border, i.e., the Green Line. The first issue may be resolved; the second one is not going to happen, and the sooner the Palestinians realize that monetary compensation is all they'll get (and the sooner Israel apologize), the better.

[bodan1]

Delusional!!!
This is about the Israeli settlers taking land -stealing -water,and other resources.
This is all about the illegal settlements!! open your eyes stop thinking that Hamas does not want to share .
The original stated purpose of Hamas was to educate and feed their people,their original terms were that Israel stop building illegal settlements (the idea that Israel can not exist came about after Israel kept stealing land and diverting resources) and return to the 67 borders!!!
The Israelis empowered Hamas to fight the P.L.O control. Israel violated their agreement with Hamas in the 1980's this is how we have gotten to the situation they are in today!!

EDUCATE DONT HATE!!

[Michale32086]

}}}}
stop thinking that Hamas does not want to share .
{{{{{

HAMAS wants Israel destroyed.­..

I think that constitutes not wanting to "share"...

}}}}}
EDUCATE DONT HATE!!
{{{{{

I wonder if you can appreciate the utter irony and hypocrisy of your statement.­..

Michale...­..

[Lon]

A good article. In the Northern Ireland case there was an official, if in name only, split between the terrorist and the political parts of the IRA. Hamas does not have such a split, but they have suggested they are willing to play such games by having deals made that would be binding on them. The important thing is the recognition that nothing is getting done without the acceptance of Hamas (particularly after the counterproductive assault on Gaza that just ended).

[CapitalistRebel]

Completely agree. I don't see what can possibly be done without engaging with Hamas, since they are the elected gov't of Gaza. Even Pat Buchanan and James Baker have made public statements saying basically the same thing. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail on both sides and real progress can begin...

[aemathisphd]

Pat Buchanan is hardly a reasonable source to be sought out when discussing Israel.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Excellent essay, thanks.

Israel and Hamas need to talk -- even without recognizing each other. (Sounds like a Seinfeld routine.)

Best that be back-channel for now, same as Meir / King Hussein of Jordan once upon a time; to prevent war.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/973868.html

As to Mitchell, shuttle diplomacy does not mean shuttle everywhere BUT where you need to go. But let'e reserve judgement on his approach for now; the IRA didn't have as many backers and stakeholders as does Hamas.