“A senior member of the Hamas movement politburo, Imad el-Alami, previously based in Syria, returned to the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“Hamas sources said he was the last remaining member of the movement’s Damascus-based politburo to leave Syria.

“Hamas decided to leave Syria in [...]]]> Ha’aretz reports that the last Hamas leaders have left Damascus:

“A senior member of the Hamas movement politburo, Imad el-Alami, previously based in Syria, returned to the Gaza Strip on Sunday.

“Hamas sources said he was the last remaining member of the movement’s Damascus-based politburo to leave Syria.

“Hamas decided to leave Syria in order not to be seen as endorsing the regime of President Bashar Assad in his bloody crackdown against his own people.”

By leaving Damascus, Hamas has placed itself squarely on the same side as Arab public opinion, and Sunni Arabs especially. Along with Khaled Mesha’al’s decision to stand down from power within the organization, it suggests to Palestinians that the organization embodies the values of the Arab Spring. This also comes on the heels of its use of Gilad Shalit to liberate hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas may be taking advantage of these popularity boosts to attempt a comeback in the West Bank:

“According to the officials, over the past few weeks, the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service have intercepted relatively large amounts of funds that Hamas activists abroad have tried to smuggle into the West Bank as part of these efforts…

“However, following last October’s prisoner-exchange deal that saw Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit freed from Hamas captivity in return for the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, Hamas’ standing in the West Bank has been boosted.

“One indications of this has been the seized money, which, security officials believe, was intended to help reignite Hamas activities following a long period during which the organization had difficulty in operating in the West Bank.

“It appears that in the initial stage, Hamas is trying to spark activists back into action in various parts of the West Bank. By and large, Hamas has refrained from staging terror attacks from the West Bank in recent years, due both to operational difficulties and political considerations.”

Fatah cannot compete with this, as its signature policies of negotations and the UN statehood campaign were both stymied by the Netanyahu government with the Obama administration actively campaigning against the UN bid and acquiescing in practice to whatever Netanyahu does at the negotiating table.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“Instead of pursuing the mirage of a two-state solution, would-be peace makers should recognize the fact that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in [...]]]> Much like me, Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled don’t see much future for the two-state solution in the Arab-Israeli conflict. They argue, however, that a single state already exists:

“Instead of pursuing the mirage of a two-state solution, would-be peace makers should recognize the fact that Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in fact constitute one state that has been in existence for nearly forty-five years, the longest lasting political formation in these territories since the Ottoman Empire. (The British Mandate for Palestine lasted thirty years; Israel in its pre-1967 borders lasted only nineteen years). The problem with that state, from a democratic, humanistic perspective, is that forty percent of its residents, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, are non-citizens deprived of all civil and political rights. The solution to this problem is simple, although deeply controversial: establishing one secular, non-ethnic, democratic state with equal citizenship rights to all in the entire area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.”

What’s striking is how intuitive this is. U.S. Presidential Rick Santorum recently committed a gaffe by saying that all the inhabitants of the West Bank were Israelis because they lived under Israeli rule. The Israeli government refuses such a formulation because giving Palestinians in the Occupied Territories citizenship would, in fact, mean that Israel is no longer “the Jewish state” as that has usually been defined. However, the fact that Santorum’s is a mistake commonly made tells you a lot about the political configuration in practice on the ground.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“Nousseibeh suggested (in a recent book that) the Palestinians relinquish their struggle for statehood. He even asked them to accept that, for a long time, they would not have full political rights, and that they should settle for [...]]]> Carlo Strenger believes a two-state solution is no longer a viable option in the Arab-Israeli conflict:

“Nousseibeh suggested (in a recent book that) the Palestinians relinquish their struggle for statehood. He even asked them to accept that, for a long time, they would not have full political rights, and that they should settle for civic and human rights to make life as bearable as possible. His deeply pessimistic conclusion was that, given the realities, the human cost of continuing the struggle for a Palestinian state was too high…

“From a historical perspective, the two state solution’s demise was, maybe, inevitable. Except for six years, the Likud has been in power for the last thirty-five years, and the Likud never relinquished its dream of the greater land of Israel. When Rabin won elections for Prime Minister in 1992, both he and Peres felt that this was a last chance; they believed that what they would not achieve in Rabin’s term would not be achieved at all.

“Rabin had to govern, with a minority of the Knesset supporting him, and Israel’s right never felt that he had a mandate for the Oslo process. Netanyahu spoke at demonstrations where crowds held posters depicting Rabin as a Nazi. He was later recorded taking pride in having killed off the Oslo process.

“Now he can take partial credit for having killed the two state solution. The other half goes to the Palestinians: As Mahmoud Abbas said more than a year ago, the Palestinian’s greatest mistake was the second Intifada. Indeed, together with Hamas’ win of the elections in 2006 and the shelling of southern Israel, the Intifada’s horrible violence has made Israelis averse to taking further risks for peace.”

I am not the one to say whether Strenger is right. I would still like to believe it could work, but do not see a realistic chance of it happening under Netanyahu’s leadership. Whether two states remain possible depends on the combination of facts on the ground and the political will to alter them. I cannot judge the former, and perhaps given the latter, it might be better to say that it has entered a persistent vegetative state from which no recovery is foreseeable.

How one apportions blame depends largely on what you think happened in the diplomacy under Ehud Barak in 2000. I’m not even going to attempt to untangle that mass of conflicting assertions. Strenger is right that the Second Intifada strangled the Israeli peace camp, but that in turn flowed from a belief in Israeli perfidy during negotiations. The uprising’s most violent aspects were also the terrorist attacks on civilians inside Israel, and in the history of the conflict’s violence, one should not forget that Hamas only turned to those tactics and made them a key part of its struggle after Baruch Goldstein committed the Hebron massacre in 1994, a massacre which stemmed directly from the inclinations toward ethnic cleansing on the part of many in the settler movement which the Israeli state tries to control, but also supports with defense and infrastructure. What Hamas did, in other words, was escalate dirty warfare in the region, not introduce it.

Strenger also addresses the future:

“Our long-term task is to develop new models of dealing with the emerging reality. I wish I could say something clear and constructive, but for the time being I can’t. I have not yet seen realistic models other than the two state solution.

“The one state solution, at this point, is an empty concept, so is that of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. For neither case can I imagine how the parliament of the greater Israel-Palestine would function, or how equality of all citizens with respect to security could be achieved: I agree with Sari Nousseibeh that Jewish history from the Pogroms through the Holocaust, from the 1948 war to that of 1973, is too traumatic for Israelis to relinquish control of security for a long time to come…

“I am afraid that Israel will lose many friends in the gradual process of finalizing its sovereignty over the West Bank. Netanyahu and Lieberman have already aggravated many politicians and supporters of Israel, ranging from Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. And they have deepened the alienation many Jews in the Diaspora feel towards the current government’s policies that they cannot accept.”

I actually think that what will happen is that, within 10-20 years, Israel will impose Netanyahu’s vision of disconnected cantons with nominal sovereignty under Israeli domination. The path toward any one-state solution depends on demographics and, perhaps, the fate of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“The Israeli government will disavow any claim to sovereignty over the Gaza Strip. They’ll count on public opinion in Egypt to ensure some level of integration across the Gaza-Egypt land border, and [...]]]> Matthew Yglesias argues that population statistics will not compel Israel to adopt any particular policy toward the Palestinians. Here’s what he foresees:

“The Israeli government will disavow any claim to sovereignty over the Gaza Strip. They’ll count on public opinion in Egypt to ensure some level of integration across the Gaza-Egypt land border, and then they’ll wash their hands of the whole thing. Nobody’s going to give West Bank Palestinians the vote (if anything, the trends in Israeli politics point toward diminished civil rights for the Palestinians who already have Israeli citizenship) but this will solve the Jewish majority problem. That, however, is just a reminder that there really is no Jewish majority problem. The problem is that the Israeli government wants to exercise sovereignty over the West Bank without granting citizenship to its Arab residents.”

The idea of Palestinian cantonments in the West Bank can also be seen as an avenue by which Israel can functionally be a Jewish state while still retaining control of the Occupied Territories. Along these general lines, though, I remember that when I lived in Jerusalem from 2006-2008, I often heard assertions that the demographic argument was cooked up by Palestinians and leftists based on false premises to weaken Israeli resolve, and this was apparently a common argument in the right-wing nationalist media. I doubt this line of thinking has gone away in the past three years, and even though Prime Minister Netanyahu presumably understands the situation, a lot of Israeli public opinion will clearly never buy demography-based arguments.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“One of the leading figures behind a recent wave of non-violent protests against occupation has been sentenced by an Israeli military court to one year in prison.

“The court also ordered Abdallah [...]]]> Matthew Yglesias correctly notes that non-violent resistance requires an audience, so I’ll call attention to Israel’s conviction of Abdallah Abu Rahme:

“One of the leading figures behind a recent wave of non-violent protests against occupation has been sentenced by an Israeli military court to one year in prison.

“The court also ordered Abdallah Abu Rahme this week to pay a fine of 5,000 shekels (Dh5,140) after he was found guilty in August of incitement and organising and participating in illegal demonstrations…

“Permits are required for demonstrations of 10 or more people, according to the Israeli military law that governs much of the West Bank. That law was cited as justification to arrest Mr Rahme and some of the dozens of people who have protested against the separation barrier, which stretches hundreds of kilometres and reaches beyond Israel’s internationally recognised boundaries and deep inside the West Bank.”

This sort of thing is hardly new among Palestinians, though I suspect many will perceive it as such. Long before intifada there was sumud, or “clinging,” which was primarily nonviolent.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“A mixed group of Israeli and international human rights activists have been gathering weekly since August in this residential [...]]]> I wouldn’t call it a revolution, but events in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah are starting to put the Israeli left back in the public consciousness. The story goes back to last summer:

“A mixed group of Israeli and international human rights activists have been gathering weekly since August in this residential neighborhood to protest the eviction of two extended Palestinian families – a total of 53 people – from the homes they had occupied since 1956. Originally refugees from areas that became part of Israel after the 1948 war, the families were settled in the abandoned houses, then under Jordanian control, by UN refugee authorities…

“The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Sheikh Jarrah houses had belonged to Jews before 1948, when the city was divided between Jordan and the new state of Israel. The court ruling paved the way for the evictions, which were carried out by Israeli border police who broke into the homes in the pre-dawn hours of August 2, 2009, and evicted the families by force. One of the Palestinian families has since lived in a tent pitched nearby.”

Let’s first note what this shows about what counts as legal in Israel. A Jew is permitted to reclaim land in Jerusalem from before the war, and people who have lived there for half a century are rounded up and evicted in the middle of a night. A Palestinian with property in Israel they had to abandon during 1948, however, is probably not even allowed to enter Israel.

What’s getting attention in Israel is the police treatment of protesters, which itself has spawned a larger protest:

“In Sheikh Jarrah this week the demonstration was even bigger than those of previous weeks. 350 demonstrators, amongst them former minister and Knesset Chair Avraham Burg, former minister Yossi Sarid, MK Muhamad Barak’e and former MK Uri Avneri, gathered in a park near the neighborhood to protest the racist evictions taking place there in spite of intensifying police oppression of the struggle (see last week’s report). Two demonstrators offered the police officer in charge, Avi Cohen, a big bouquet of flowers, thanking him for helping the struggle gain nationwide attention by arresting about 20 activists every week. Cohen refused to accept the flowers and they were left at his feet.

“After about an hour of demonstrating in a tense atmosphere, demonstrators started marching towards the neighborhood. Border and Riot policemen stopped the march, while still allowing settlers and visitors of the Shimon Hat’sadik Tomb through. After a quarter of an hour police attacked the demonstration, arresting about 15 people and beating on others. The demonstration continued for another two and half hours, with police occasionally beating people and shoving them back, but attempting to avoid too many more arrests. The day ended with 22 arrested.

“During the demonstration it became apparent that settlers were attacking Palestinians inside the neighborhood, and two residents required medial care. At the same time police raided Palestinian homes and arrested people who participated in the demonstration and then went home. The demonstrators’ protests outside against the police’s siding with the violent settlers were met with yet more police brutality.”

The first arrests, it should be noted, were ruled illegal by Israel’s Supreme Court. Beyond the issues in Sheikh Jarrah and East Jerusalem more broadly, many Israelis are concerned about a long-term deterioration in human rights in the country. The crackdown on visas for NGO workers in the Palestinian territories also probably represents part of this.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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“Mr. Khaldi is part of a coterie of local businessmen close to Hamas who appear to have emerged as [...]]]> Sanctions on a territory tend to strengthen the internal hand of whomever can control the remaining supplies. In the Gaza Strip, that means Hamas, with its control of smuggling tunnels, taxes, and aid from abroad:

“Mr. Khaldi is part of a coterie of local businessmen close to Hamas who appear to have emerged as the big financial winners from the Israeli-imposed economic blockade of this tiny enclave.

“The two-year-old blockade has strangled Gaza’s economy and put the majority of Gazans out of business. Israel’s logic has been that a collapsing economy will convince Gaza’s people to push Hamas from power. But instead, Hamas – which rose to prominence as a ‘clean’ alternative to the famously corrupt Fatah – has benefited handsomely. Now, the movement and its friends appear to be supplanting Gaza’s traditional business leaders, which could entrench its political position as well.

“They’re doing so, veteran Gaza businessmen say, thanks to the fact that Hamas can generate capital while all its potential competitors are running dry. They charge that Hamas and its associates have been using their control of smuggling tunnels, money changing, and tax revenue to buy prime tracts of land and buildings across Gaza, particularly along the enclave’s main boulevards.”

Gazans already see Fatah as corrupt. With Hamas walking the same path, it isn’t surprising they’re starting to look to new players: Salafi groups which have been outside the political process.

(Crossposted to my blog)

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