Roger Cohen at the NYT: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grabbed headlines with an invitation to Iran to attend a conference on Afghanistan, but the significant Middle Eastern news last week came from Britain. It has “reconsidered†its position on Hezbollah and will open a direct channel to the militant group in Lebanon.
Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.
Britain aligned itself with the U.S. position on Hezbollah, but has now seen its error. Bill Marston, a Foreign Office spokesman, told Al
Jazeera: “Hezbollah is a political phenomenon and part and parcel of the national fabric in Lebanon. We have to admit this.â€
Hallelujah.
Precisely the same thing could be said of Hamas in Gaza. It is a political phenomenon, part of the national fabric there.
One difference is that Hezbollah is in the Lebanese national unity government, whereas Hamas won the free and fair January 2006 elections to the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority, only to discover Middle Eastern democracy is only democracy if it produces the right result.
The United States should follow the British example. It should initiate diplomatic contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah. The
Obama administration should also look carefully at how to reach moderate Hamas elements and engineer a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.
A rapprochement between the two wings of the Palestinian movement was briefly achieved at Mecca in 2007. The best form of payback from America’s expensive and authoritarian allies — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — would be help in reconciling Gaza Palestinians loyal to Hamas with West Bank Palestinians loyal to the more moderate Fatah of
Mahmoud Abbas.
Resolve is not the most conspicuous characteristic of those three allies. But Obama must push them to help. As long as Palestinians are divided, peace efforts will flounder.
With respect to Hamas, the West has bound itself to three conditions for any contact: Hamas must recognize Israel, forswear terrorism and accept previous Palestinian commitments. This was reiterated by Clinton on her first Mideast swing.
The 1988 Hamas Charter is vile, but I think it’s wrong to get hung upon the prior recognition of Israel issue. Perhaps Hamas is sincere in its calls for Israel’s disappearance — although it has offered a decades-long truce — but then it’s also possible that Israel in reality has no desire to see a Palestinian state.
One view of Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, Gaza blockade, West Bank walling-in and wanton recourse to high-tech force would be that it’s designed precisely to bludgeon, undermine and humiliate the Palestinian people until their dreams of statehood and dignity evaporate.
The argument over recognition is in the end a form of evasion designed to perpetuate the conflict.
Israel, from the time of Ben Gurion, built its state by creating facts on the ground, not through semantics. Many of its leaders, including Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, have been on wondrous political odysseys from absolutist rejection of division of the land to acceptance of a two-state solution. Yet they try to paint Hamas as irrevocably absolutist. Why should Arabs be any less pragmatic than Jews?
Of course it’s desirable that Hamas recognize Israel before negotiations. But is it essential? No. What is essential is that it
renounces violence, in tandem with Israel, and the inculcation of hatred that feeds the violence.
Speaking of violence, it’s worth recalling what Israel did in Gaza in response to sporadic Hamas rockets. It killed upward of 1,300 people, many of them women and children; caused damage estimated at $1.9 billion; and destroyed thousands of Gaza homes. It continues a radicalizing blockade on 1.5 million people squeezed into a narrow strip of land.
At this vast human, material and moral price, Israel achieved almost nothing beyond damage to its image throughout the world. Israel has the right to hit back when attacked, but any response should be proportional and governed by sober political calculation. The Gaza war was a travesty; I have never previously felt so shamed by Israel’s actions.
No wonder Hamas and Hezbollah are seen throughout the Arab world as legitimate resistance movements.
It’s time to look at them again and adopt the new British view that contact can encourage Hezbollah “to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role.â€
The British step is a breakthrough. By contrast, Clinton’s invitation to Iran is of little significance.
There are two schools within the Obama administration on Iran: the incremental and the bold. The former favors little steps like inviting Iran to help with Afghanistan; the latter realizes that nothing will shift until Obama convinces Tehran that he’s changing strategy rather than tactics.
That requires Obama to tell Iran, as a start, that he does not seek regime change and recognizes the country’s critical role as a regional power. Carrots and sticks — the current approach — will lead to the same dead end as Hamas and Hezbollah denial.
Oh Arash, youre so ugly and fat. here is what you said yourself (I concealed your AIM identity for your privacy)
Benjamin… (11:29:10 PM): lol
Benjamin…(11:29:15 PM): fatty pattys were more like in high school
Benjamin… (11:29:19 PM): and it was only one girl
Benjamin… (11:29:21 PM): two dates
Oh and do you think its a coincidence that Israel was a staunch ally of the Phalangists in Lebanon? Do you have any knowledge or background on the Phalangists? Do you see why we think you’re such an idiot? You cant see even a single step ahead to know that you’re retarded irrelevant arguments can be so easily flipped on their heads and reversed to embarrass you. Now, run away again, unable to respond like a coward when I exposed your lies about Hezbollah, the 1973 war, Norman finkelstein and so many other instances I cant even recall.
http://www.vajgoon.blogfa.com/post-157.aspx
Instead of saying ‘sorry’ Israel’s stooges keep pumping out the poison
In January, while Israel’s military was pulverising Gaza for 22 days and nights and incinerating its women and children with phosphor bombs, the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK published an article by its Friends of Israel wing, entitled ‘Israel has no option but to defend itself against Hamas and Iran’.
According to this, “Israel is fighting in Gaza to stop the firing of rockets at towns and cities well within Israel’s internationally recognised, pre-1967 borders. These rockets are not home-made fireworks; they are sophisticated weapons, which often kill innocent people. They are fired without precision…”
So sophisticated are the rockets, in fact, that only 1 in 400 actually kills somebody. But rockets never were the issue. There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank. Yet the illegal Israeli occupation there continues and so does the ethnic cleansing, the land theft, the illegal settlements, the colonization, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the throttling of the economy, the abduction and ‘administrative detention’ of civilians and the massive block on freedom of movement. There is no let-up in the oppression of West Bank Palestinians who DO NOT fire rockets, and no sign of an end to their misery.
The bloody assault on Gaza therefore has more to do with Israel’s ambition to expand its racial dominance in the Holy Land than crude and erratic rocket-fire. Stroppy Hamas and the unflinching Palestinians holed up in Gaza stand in the way of the Grand Plan and must be removed or totally subdued.
Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, said the Jewish State would stretch “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates”. At the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947 Rabbi Fischmann, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine said in his testimony: “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.” A map of ‘Greater Israel’ presented by the Word Zionist Organization soon after WWI (see ) shows the geographical extent of Zionist greed. Gaza and the West Bank are totally engulfed by it.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/They_have_no_shame.html
haha, arash I like how you are focusing on THAT part. Obvioulsy when I say you are as big as a whale I am exaggerating, and so I exaggerated here. Notice WHEN IT COMES TO THE ACTUAL CONFLICT YOU CANNOT RESPOND. Notice you cant respond to the fact that you blatantly lied and made things up about hezbollah and the 1973 war. WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE FOR YOUR MANY MANY MANY LIES. Do you thinik its a coincidence you dont EVER ddebate the ACTUAL DOCUMENTARY RECORD? Now, this is when you will again dissappear, only to return to engage Nahid on her nonsense. We all see that in your response Arash, YOU DID NOT ADDRESS ANYTHING THAT HAD TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL CONFLICT!
Arash the fatty, its not a coincidence that you NEVER address all the lies of your that I expose. 73 war? Hezbollah? 67? Nope. Youre more interested in Nahid the Holocaust denier. What about the Phalangists do you know anything about the history of the movement? Nope, youre more interested in the number of fat girls youve dated. So, now run away, unable to respond to the actual debate.
Arash, now go show my comments to one of your “scholars” that you hang out with. hahahha. What kind of a retard goes and shows the comments of some little blog to professors? Its very bizarre behavior. Imagine Pouya if you went up to vali Nasr and showed the comments of littlegreenfootballs.com. He would think you are a weirdo.
Shocking, when it comes to the actual issues, Arash dissapears like a coward!
Its amazing, Arash is willing to talk about ANYTHING but Israel! Its just extraordinary. Oh and Arash:
Benjamin… (11:29:38 PM): lol
Benjamin…(11:29:45 PM): i’m actually giggling
Benjamin…(11:29:49 PM): i can’t believe i said that too
Not much to “giggle” about these days, is there?
🙂 I work with a lot of people in the State Department and many different universities and other professors, we were talking about the same subject and sympathy toward Hizbollah, I went to show them what kind of idiots are in this country with kind of views. And of course, it was pretty funny.
Nahid is a perfect example of an Idiot, your way of stalking, insults, and abusive rampage is a perfect example of people who are pro-palestinian.
Agha pouya, keep in mind, good luck ever running for an office, or getting a government job in high position(i’m pretty sure u r not interested) and maybe and I mean maybe qualify for your moral application for the Bar. Notice I did say something about the State Department.
again, completely unable to address the topic at hand. Its pretty extraordinary. Its good to know the State Dept. is hiring people who can’t even put together sentences correctly :
“I work with a lot of people in the State Department and many different universities and other professors, we were talking about the same subject and sympathy toward Hizbollah, I went to show them what kind of idiots are in this country with kind of views.”
Yes, we all have a lot to worry about, with our “kind of views”. Again, instead of wanting to debate the historical record, Arash is more interested in threatening Pouya. What a coward Arash is.
BTW, instead of threatening Pouya, you should focus on your OWN ability to pass the bar. No one at the state dept. is going to help you pass Arash. remember you weren’t even able to get ACCEPTED to a respectable law school. Passing the Bar is no easy task, and with your thought process (I had to explain to you at least 3 times that HRW is different from the UN human rights council…you kept getting confused, im guessing, because they both had the words “human rights” in them), its not looking good.
hahaha, nice one Smiley Face.
I’m going to leave Arash the Occupation Soldier’s (aka The Joker (bc we love laughing at you) comment because it is so very telling of Zionism. Here, we have a veiled threat to silence criticism of Zionism.
Arash the Occupation Soldier (aka The Joker (bc we love laughing at you), I don’t believe a word of what you have to say about knowing anyone important in gov. For one thing, if somehow you do know people in gov’t, this just goes to show how low our gov’t has gone to associate with fools like you. Secondly, if you do know people, which I strongly believe you don’t, it MAKES ZERO DIFFERENCE bc I have done nothing wrong. Posting the criticism of spirited Jews against your murderous ideology is hardly controversial.
Furthermore, I’m currently on a full gov’t scholarship (no strings attached) to be at Harvard and they have time and again tried to recruit me for my language skills (Persian and Arabic).
To joojei.
But no need to worry about running for office, bc I won’t. I never planned too, I’m too blunt to be a politician. But I hope you’re not planning on it either bc I promise you, not me (I have more important things to do) but many many people will expose you and everything you have ever said here every step of the way.
Sweet dreams.
I think you need to be able to speak English above the 3rd grade level to run for office, Pouya.