Israel, USA and other Western leaders are pressuring Hamas to accept cease-fire, but despite mounting casualties and powerful opponent, Hamas is refusing to accept cease-fire.
Hamas is a brain child of Israel, who helped to create it so that an extremist Muslim organization would be counterbalance to the secular PLO, which was showing signs of success.
Israel took Gaza from Egypt and West Bank from Jordan in 1967 War. In 1973 Israel issued a license to Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, to set up charity and religious organization in occupied territories called Mujama Al-Islamiya. With the support of Gulf States and Israeli Military, it prospered and developed vast network of clinics, schools and other welfare outlets. In 1987, with the blessing of Israel, it created a political wing Hamas. In the beginning Hamas leaders have regular contacts with the Israeli military.
Hamas started to show signs of independence and begin to get involved in violent resistance activities. Israel started to get worried, but Israel still considered Hamas useful to weaken PLO and divide Palestinian loyalties. But soon Hamas was becoming a powerful monstrous foe and blowing up on Israel’s face-just like America and West created Mujahedeen in Afghanistan who turned around and became self-created monster for the West.
Israel jailed Sheikh Yasin and later killed him with a missile. Hamas won elections in Gaza strip and Israel has been fighting Hamas for the last twenty years. PLO has no choice and it gradually moved away from secular ideology. The current president, Mahmmod Abbas, is indirectly endorsing status quo and does not want much upheaval, which suits Israel well.
Hamas’s alliances with Iran, Syria , and Muslim Brotherhood ex-President , Mr. Morsi, started to come back to haunt it. Egypt’s President General Sissi closed all the tunnels and borders to Egypt and it hit Hamas economically and militarily.
Hamas financially broke and unable to pay salaries of its 43000 civil employees, agreed to merge with PLO on the terms dictated by PLO. Israel did not like this merger of enemies and started to undermine it. It blocked the payments of salaries and loosening of any border restrictions as per merger agreement. Despite the merger with PLO, Hamas and Gaza residents were still suffering with scant daily living necessities and civil employees working without pay. Qatar offered to pay the salary of all the civil employees, but it was blocked by the USA on the grounds that it is against American Law to pay to terrorist organization.
James Baldwin writes in one of his article that, the most dangerous thing a society can do is to create a human being who has nothing more to lose-one will do it, you don’t need ten. The most precious possession of a human being is his/her dignity. Hamas and Gaza residents were cornered and have nothing more to lose. I do not think Hamas will accept cease fire unless it’s economic and border restriction conditions are met. The Israel and its Western backers have over-played their hand and are now in a rush to get ceasefire and return to status quo-a charade of endless negotiations while settlements are expanding.
What will happen after current episode? The two state solutions is a fantasy which has no relation to reality on the ground. The West Bank is immersed with settlements and Gaza strip is separated from West Bank with Israel in between. In reality there can be only one state-either Israel or Palestine. As the facts on the ground dictate, Palestinian cannot have a state, by default and by reality on ground; it can be only Israeli state. Sooner the Palestinians realize it, the better it is. They should abandon two state solutions, accept the Israeli state and demand equal citizenship rights. At some point, they may even have a majority in Israel; and they may be even in better condition than a Palestinian state in Gaza and West Bank choked by Israel all around it.
Fayyaz Sheikh
References;
Kenan Malik
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/the-monster-that-israel-helped-create/
Nathan Thrall
Nice historic background of Hamas. But the idea that Israel will accept a vast population of Palestinians in their midst is a falacy. The will never accept Palestinians as equal citizens. It is their stated policy that Israel is a Jewish state. Neither they would allow a free independent flourishing peaceful Palestinian state. They are not interested in any kind of peace agreement or two state theory. So what they want? They would like to kill as many Palestinians as possibel, keep them under their thumb, and slowly and graduall increase the settlements and increase Israeli/Jewish population.
Hamas was, as you stated, was created by Israel. Hamas is run by stupid fundamental religious fanatics. They should understand that they are no match for Israeli Armed forces. They should stop sending their useless rockets and bombs, because for every Israeli killed, Israel is going to kill hundred times more Palestinians. The best policy for Hamas should be to give up their aim of creating a religious state, strengthen the hand of President Abbas. Luckily, Abbas is a wise and cool leader.
I am glad Zaki Ahmad Sahib characterizes Hamas correctly. In our sympathy for the plight of the Gazans, Muslims generally lay the blame only at Israel’s feet. But I compare Hamas to the 50lb. weakling who persists in irritating the 200 lb. school bully by putting glue in the latter’s shampoo even though the former remembers the last time he did the same he ended up with broken bones. And when you throw 3 punches in a fight, you can’t expect the recipient to count and throw only an equal number of punches; if he can, he would throw 19 punches to teach you a lesson never to throw a punch at him again. So this comparison between the number of casualties on the two sides is sickening but this is war. The aim of war is to destroy your enemy. Moral of the story is Hamas should realize its limitations in fighting against Israel, avoid it as much as possible and stop firing rockets that go nowhere. That money could be better spent on social services that the Gazans desperately need. I am not saying Israel is guiltless or there are not serious human rights violations against the Palestinians but being chronically at war with someone who is manifold stronger and the has the support of all the powerful countries, and adding to the misery of the Palestinians is not a smart strategy. This strategy will never lead to a 2 state solution.
I do not think Shoeb was justifying bullying, but let us look at the example from full perspective. If a bully occupies the victims’ home, locks all the doors, victim is not allowed to go outside the house, whole family is humiliated, deprived of any dignity, daily necessities reduced to less than minimum, and is labelled terrorist for fighting back. The bully is permanently taking possessions of one room at a time. Bully wants the victim to accept whatever he dictates. Victim requests the whole world to help and get the bully out of his house and nothing happens. What choice the victim has ? Even if the victims knows that he will be beaten up, does he has any right to fight back? Even if he gives a futile fight , and gets beaten up, should we blame him and say he deserved it? or condemn the bully?
After Hamas agreed to merge with PLO and let PLO take over Gaza, it was golden opportunity for Israel and USA to support it in order to marginalize Hamas, but they opposed it. Mr. Nathan Thrall writes in NYT about this;
“Instead, after Hamas transferred authority to a government of pro-Western technocrats( PLO), life in Gaza became worse.Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn’t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn’t reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing. For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo “.
Let us keep in mind that military occupation of Palestine, expansion of settlements and building walls to make Gaza and West Bank a prison is being supported by our tax dollars. I think these dollars canbe best used here at home, where it is needed most and should not be spent to support occupation-a far cry ! Our politicians cannot dare to criticize Israel.
Fayyaz
I actually like this analogy of Fayyaz very much and i’ll use it to make my point. So let’s say this house had 100 members, a large joint family and there are 3 elders who make all the decisions for the family , and 5 bullies with guns have taken control of their house and locked the doors etc. Now one of the elders puts glue in the bullies’ shampoo and the bullies end up killing 5 members of the family, and tells the elder to stop irritating them. But say there is a secret tunnel through which a sympathetic neighbor keeps supplying glue to this family and the elders keeps putting the glue in the shampoo and each time the bullies kill ever more members of the family. All the influential – and COWARDLY – neighbors keep saying the same thing: that they are saddened by the killing of the family members but that the bullies have a right not to have glue in their shampoo and do nothing to come to the families’ help. In the meantime the remaining family members are suffering from malnutrition and disease.
What would one do now? Personally, if I were one of the elders, I would stop using the glue, even if that was the only outlet of expressing my frustrationI. Again, different people might have different ways of handling this situation and I am not saying mine is the only correct one.
If the Palestinians had recognized this hopeless situation that they are in in the 80’s or the 90’s and recognized Israel’s right to exist, there would have been less settlements, no wall, no Gaza blockade and no generations of people living in refugee camps. This issue will not be decided by defining who is right and who is wrong but by the practical realities at hand.
Yes! it is matter of personal perspective.
I agree if Yasir Arafat had recognized Israel early on, possibly history would have been different. Now Mahmood Abbas has recognized Israel, but Israel did not accept it and says you have to recognize it as Jewish State, Mahmood Abbas is reluctant to do that because it may affect right of return of Palestinians.
Hamas is a different story. Current fight of Hamas is not for Palestinian State. Hamas grabbed this opportunity to start the fight because it was politically dead and despite surrendering authority to PLO, situation in Gaza got worse. As Nathan Thrall points out, Hamas, its supporters as well as non-supporters calculated that even bombardment of Gaza and causalities are worth the price to break the blockade of Gaza. These are the only demands Hamas is putting forward and may achieve some of it: Hamas may also rise from the dead and may get a new political life. This time Hamas did not started the fight just to get beaten up. I think current fight could have been avoided if Israel and USA had supported the merger of PLO and Hamas, and also ease blockade of Gaza. It would have helped peace process and left Hamas as dead. Israel and USA opposed the merger because they wanted to keep the enemy divided.This calls into question the sincerity of Israel and USA to resolve the Palestinian issue.
Fayyaz
The impression, from the title of this article, one gets is that Israel created this “monster” Hamas, to do exactly what it is doing and provide Israel a reason to annihilate Palestinians slowly. Mighty rumbling of the mountain and out comes a mouse. Hamas started as a charity organization and who else should have issued a license if not Israel? Is that the whole “conspiracy theory”?
Power corrupts, many monsters might be traced back to have started humbly. Al Qaida is one as mentioned in the article. Ayub Khan hired Bhutto, Bhutto promoted Zia, Nawas Sharif promoted Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif hired Tahir ul Qadri as Imam in his mosque!!
The Palestinian issue is entirely territorial and political, not religious at all. Jews do have a claim on the land without invoking promised land as they did live there before Muslims. Palestinians also have a claim for having lived there for a long time too. The only solution will have to be two states, no Palestinian will settle for equal rights within the state of Israel. Hamas is emotional organization and if any one is taking advantage of them then that is Iran. I agree that Hamas is being stupid for launching useless missiles which aren’t any better than the stones Palestinians are used to throwing. Unity of Hamas and PLO is needed and if they have learnt any lesson from Pakistan, no state should be created with enemy territory separating parts geographically. They should work collectively to finally govern parts separately making a lose confederation. They should accept joint control of holy city of Jerusalem if offered as Israel will never hand that over. No land is holy enough to spill the blood which this land has already spilled.
Babar
In response to Mr Shoeb Amin’s analogy about a 50 lb weakling (Hamas) irritating the 200 lb (Israel). I think it the 200 lb bulley who is irritating the weakling. And the best strategy is to get the punches but do not reply. The Israelis are dangerously powerful. Even alone, they have the ability to defeat and dstrroy all the Arab states combined. The Arabs are weaklings before Israel. They are divided and they do not have a smart leader. The Israelis fear nobody, UN or the world opinion. Western powers are on her side and the all-powerful western media is friedly to them.