Hamas!
FP 27. Semptember, 2012

Haaretz Published Sep.19, 2012

Giving Israel a new look at Hamas
By Zvi Bar'el

In portraying the nature of the Hamas movement, Gaza correspondent Shlomi Eldar demonstrates just how little the Israeli intelligence community seems to know about its own ignorance of the subject.

Lehakir et Hamas ‏(Getting to Know Hamas‏) by Shlomi Eldar. Keter ‏(Hebrew 410 pages), NIS 98 “Hamas offers two alternatives: 1. A separate track, dealing only with the release of Gilad Shalit in return for 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners. 2. A release of prisoners will take place in the broader context of a strategic approach ‏(as follows‏), and the number of prisoners released will not be in the hundreds.”

That is an excerpt from an extraordinary document its authors called “Hamas and Israel: Peaceful Coexistence.” Its publication for the first time, in the fascinating book “Getting to Know Hamas” by Shlomi Eldar, the Gaza-affairs correspondent for Channel 10 News, is more than a journalistic coup. According to Eldar, the document − composed by Khaled Meshal, the political chief of Hamas, after Shalit was seized by Palestinian militants in a 2006 cross-border raid, and sent by messenger to then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert − represents the first demonstration of strategic thinking on the part of Hamas: thinking that Israel does not recognize and does not want to get to know.

The detailed document, whose existence and transmission to the prime minister were denied completely by Olmert’s office at the time, constituted an offer by Hamas to conduct a multilevel dialogue with Israel, beginning with discussion about a cease-fire and the building of long-term trust, and ending with a coexistence agreement to last 25 years, and the establishment of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders.

The document does not mention recognition of Israel or a peace agreement per se. It does, however, stipulate not only a cease-fire ‏(“tahadiyeh” in Arabic, which literally means “lull” but has come to mean a “temporary truce”‏), but also cooperation on the civilian front, such as the opening of border crossings and a renewal by Israel of tax-money transfer to the Palestinians.

The coexistence document represents the high point of repeated attempts by Meshal to build a system of practical cooperation with Israel, an effort that began after Hamas was swept into power in general elections held at the beginning of 2006. Such attempts are confirmed in the book, both in documents cited by Eldar and in descriptions of talks Eldar had with Hamas leaders. And it is here that the profound importance of the book lies. Along with a series of tactical and strategic decisions made by Hamas during this period, Eldar acquaints us not only with that organization but also with Israel’s ideological, strategic outlook in its struggle against it.

Eldar does not fall into the common trap of portraying the official Hamas creed, which is likely to discourage anyone trying to conduct a political dialogue with it, as the ideological principles that actually guide the organization on a day-to-day basis. Eye-opening and important analyses of Hamas ideology have already been made by political scientists Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela in their 2000 book, “The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence,” which portrays the inevitable mixture of ideology and political constraints with which the movement has to contend in order to survive and rule.
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