Talk To Hamas? Bad Idea.

By Dr. Robert O. Freedman

In the aftermath of the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza, which proved unsuccessful in stopping rocket attacks into Israel, and given the rising popularity of Hamas in Palestinian public opinion polls, suggestions have been made that the time has come for Israel to begin negotiations with Hamas. This has been heard in the United States, Europe, and even Israel.

There have been three main arguments for this change in Israeli policy.

• First, it is argued, it is necessary to talk to a terrorist organization in order to get it to change its policy, just as Britain did with the Irish Republican Army.

• Second, for there to be a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas, which represents a significant proportion of the Palestinians, must be brought into the peace process, lest it sabotage it with rocket fire from Gaza.

• Finally, for Israeli towns like Sderot to ever know peace, a negotiated agreement with Hamas is needed. All three arguments are fallacious.

Let's explore each issue.

Talking to terrorists: The example of the IRA is a misleading one. The IRA never had as one of its goals the destruction of Great Britain. By contrast, the avowed goal of Hamas — a goal that has not changed in the more than two years since it won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006 — is the destruction of Israel.

A better example to look at is the evolution of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The United States and Israel refused to have any negotiations with the PLO until it changed its policy calling for the destruction of Israel and also renounced terrorism, something that the organization finally did in November 1988.

Thus for Israel, the United States and/or the European Union to begin talks with Hamas before it met these requirements, would give diplomatic legitimacy to its call to destroy Israel, and reward its terrorist actions, something that would only encourage more terrorism in the future.

Promoting a Palestinian- Israeli peace agreement: Here the argument is that Hamas must be enticed into joining Fatah's efforts to make peace with Israel, and the way to do this is to negotiate with it.

Given the fact that the organization is headquartered in Syria, and is strongly supported by Iran, the possibility that Hamas would change its policy before there was a Syrian- Israeli peace agreement is highly unlikely. In addition, the prospects for a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement, given the growing ties between Iran and Syria, are distant at best. Indeed, it is more likely, should Hamas and Fatah reconcile, that Hamas would pressure Fatah into taking a more militant position vis-a-vis Israel.

Providing peace to Sderot: There are a number of problems with this argument.

First, if Israel and Hamas negotiated a cease-fire, what would prevent Hamas from exploiting the time to further consolidate its hold over Gaza, and smuggle in the kinds of weapons through the porous border crossing with Egypt, which would not only threaten Sderot, but Tel Aviv as well?

Second, Israel's negotiations with Hamas would undermine the position of Mahmoud Abbas — a position that is not too strong to begin with — and possibly facilitate a Hamas takeover of the West Bank.

Finally, the very act of negotiating with Hamas, if it were undertaken by Israel, would give diplomatic legitimacy to the Hamas call for the destruction of Israel.

Under the circumstances, what is needed is not negotiations with Hamas, but strong military action against it. This time, Israel should not undertake a brief incursion, but a major invasion of Gaza to uproot Hamas once and for all.

If the Israeli leadership doesn't take such action, it risks Hamas growing into an even greater menace to the State of Israel than it is today.

Dr. Robert O. Freedman is Peggy Meyerhoff Pearlstone professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University and visiting professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. Among his publications are "Israel in The Begin Era," "Israel Under Rabin," "Israel's First Fifty Years," and the forthcoming "Contemporary Israel: Israeli Political, Economic and Strategic Challenges Since Rabin," (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2008).

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.