“Hamas and Fatah have agreed on the structure of a technocratic authority to run Gaza after the genocide is over. Whether Israel and the United States will accept this idea remains to be seen, but it does signal that Hamas also believes a deal might be on the horizon. The real wild card here, as always, is Israel.” (Mitchell Plitnick, Mondoweiss, 6 Dec.,2024) According to human rights lawyer/writer Plitnick, Israel’s far right government will not agree to an end to the war on Gaza, only to an extended truce, as they have done in Lebanon. He says Israel and the US likely had a private “side agreement” with respect to Lebanon, allowing Israel to continue to fire rockets at Lebanon despite the ceasefire there. UN peacekeepers who are basically permanently stationed in the border area of southern Lebanon have recorded such breaches of the ceasefire by Israel during the last two weeks, with nary a peep out of Washington DC, while Hezbollah’s measured response of rocket fire (no injuries) has been widely publicized. (This reminds me of being on the Gaza border in 2014 when our Jewish-Israeli host, Nomika Zion, told our group that every ceasefire between Israel and Gaza in the many onslaughts over the years had been broken by Israel. She lived in Sderot and was a witness.)
It is worth remembering that a proposal for permanent ceasefire was agreed to by Hamas last July, involving staged return of hostages, and a withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza. This is nothing more than what the ICJ has ruled is required by international law in its recent ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation.
Back to understanding Hamas. (Read the book!) An August 12,2024, interview with historian Tareq Baconi on Jewish Currents’ “On the Nose” podcast sheds more light on the leadership of Hamas. They have made clear for instance that they intend to lay down arms when their goal of self-determination is accomplished. They do not want to govern on their own. They are guided by the consensus of the Palestinian people, which is why they have over the years tempered their more authoritarian Islamicist agenda.
Although socially conservative, as are most Middle East governments, the book Understanding Hamas explores Hamas and women’s rights. It examines shifts in Hamas’ policy in response to public preferences. Women hold important positions in the government, women are encouraged to get higher education, hijab-wearing is not a requirement.
There are once again peace talks going on in Cairo, mediated by Qatar, and hopefully by the time you read this piece, a ceasefire has been agreed upon.
Helena Cobban: “Why should anybody trust that a ceasefire that’s concluded with Hamas would be respected by Hamas?”
Dr. Azzam Tamimi (author and specialist on issues related to Islamic political thought, Islamic movements and West Asian politics): ”Hamas is an Islamic movement. It is informed by Islam. And in Islam, if you signed a contract, it is your religious duty to fulfill the terms of that contract. You cannot be the first to violate or breach it.” (Understanding Hamas @ 136)
What needs to happen for there to be peace with Palestinians? The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory has to end.
“if you ask the leaders of Hamas and the members of Hamas, there is a clarity of vision regarding this issue. This is not a war between the Muslims and the Jews. This is not a religious war. Jews lived in this part of the world, across the Middle East, for centuries, with the Christians, with the Muslims…because there was a formula for peaceful coexistence. The problem started with Zionism.” (Tamimi, ibid. @ 144)
Would Hamas intend to displace the Jews if they were elected to power?
Tamimi cites Nelson Mandela’s statement: “ ‘[N]o more Apartheid and we can live in peace’. And we in Palestine say the same thing: no more Zionism and we can live in peace. We’re not going to send any Jew anywhere in the world, they can remain. We don’t have a problem with them as Jews, but we have a problem with them as people who believe that they have God- given rights to discriminate against us. That’s the problem”. (ibid. @146)
With the release of Amnesty International’s recent 300 page report concluding that Israel is in the midst of conducting a genocide, and the powerful declaration of same by Dr. Amos Goldberg, Israeli Holocaust/Genocide scholar, Fellow of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMwqhdVV5as , we may at last be witnessing a sea change in media coverage of this crime against humanity. We are seeing mainstream media finally paying attention to what is happening in Gaza, finally noticing the unspeakable violence being perpetrated daily on Gazans by Israel. And anti-war protest is being covered in a less hostile way. May we continue to raise our voices in support of peace, justice and equality. May we refuse to look away until this genocide is truly ended. Onward.
