-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2001/dec/1214unholy.html
}}}>Begin
Unholy Alliance -- Sharon, Hamas Work in Concert Against Peace
By Rabbi Michael Lerner, Pacific News Service, Dec 14, 2001
Though enemies, Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian militant
group Hamas are working in a tacit alliance, writes PNS contributor Michael Lerner.
Their shared goal: the elimination of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority.
Lerner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is editor of TIKKUN Magazine, a bimonthly Jewish
critique of politics, culture and society, and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San
Francisco.
The strategies of Ariel Sharon and Hamas are far less irrational than portrayed by
American media. Each has been cooperating in what amounts to a tacit alliance to
achieve a shared goal: the elimination of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority
and its replacement by Hamas. Israel's announcement that it will not deal with the
PLO any more is only one part of this process.
Ariel Sharon has never hidden his contempt for the Oslo Accord, precisely because it
aimed to create a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders of the West Bank and
Gaza. When campaigning, he presented himself as the strong military man who
could play the role of peacemaker. But he always reassured his own right-wing
constituents that he had no intention of ceding any land to Palestinians.
Sharon was the inventor of the strategy of filling the West Bank with settlements in
the 1980s to prevent any possibility of Palestinians creating their own state. His
fondest dream would be to find the political excuses that could allow Israel to
reoccupy the entire West Bank and establish another hundred settlements.
Arafat represented a thorn in his side, because Arafat kept insisting on returning to
negotiations and on building the Palestinian state promised in the treaty Israel had
signed in the White House garden in 1993. Moreover, the United States has made it
clear that it wants Arafat in power and negotiations in place so that Arab leaders can
say to their own populations: "See, our cooperation with the United States against
Osama bin Laden has produced a return to the peace process." But continued
conflict in the region allows Arab elites to displace resentment against the injustices
of their own undemocratic societies onto anger at Israel. So they seek a balance:
continued negotiations and an endless peace process, but not the creation of a
viable Palestinian state.
When the United States became preoccupied with the war against terror, Sharon felt
free to increase the violence and repression of the Occupation and to accelerate the
assassinations of those "suspected" of being directly or indirectly connected to acts
of terror. Those assassinations, primarily directed against Hamas leaders, ensured
that Hamas would strike back in retaliatory blows against civilian targets within
Israel.
Instead of striking back against Hamas, Israel instead has used Hamas attacks as
justification to destroy the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority and to debate
what would be the best moment to kill Arafat. With Arafat dead and the Palestinian
Authority in shambles, Hamas would become the prevailing force in the Palestinian
world -- and the image of the Palestinians would then be more like that of the
Taliban. Sharon would be able to portray Israel as fighting the same fight as the
United States -- a battle against terrorists -- a move he has tried with less success
against Arafat. With Hamas in charge of the Palestinian camp, Sharon could rally
much broader support, because even those of us who support Palestinian rights
would be forced to admit that a Hamas-dominated Palestine would be a real threat
not only to Israel, but also to world peace.
Hamas has much to gain as well. Convinced that the peace process is betraying
Islamic claims to Palestine, Hamas is willing to wait another 30 or 40 years until
Israel tires of endless war and terror -- if, that is, it can be assured that when
Israel
tires, fundamentalists will come to power. Hamas despises the secular forces around
Arafat, and worries that if the Palestinian Authority is not destroyed it could become
the government of a secular Palestinian state. Hamas is openly contemptuous of the
many Christian Palestinians who influence the Palestinian Authority.
So it is hard for Hamas to resist the open invitation from Ariel Sharon: Israel will do
the dirty work of destroying the Palestinian Authority and rejecting any peace process
if Hamas does its part by blowing up innocent Israeli civilians.
Sharon refuses to negotiate unless there is a period of non-violence, thereby
signaling to Hamas forces that all they have to do to block negotiations is to escalate
their terror. And if the violence gets intense enough, Sharon will find himself "with
no
alternative" but to kill Arafat and wipe out the Palestinian Authority.
This position, of course, creates an overwhelming incentive for Hamas to engage in
acts of terror.
Washington could break this cycle by threatening economic sanctions until Israel
ends the Occupation. I won't hold my breath. More likely, it will demand new
negotiations, which will drag on endlessly and give a new facelift to endless
perpetuation of the Occupation and the suffering of the Palestinian people.
There is only one way for Arafat and the moderates to protect themselves from this
invidious alliance: unequivocally reject the fantasy of armed struggle against Israel
and convert to the principled non- violence of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma
Gandhi. Instead of supporting or condoning any form of violence, engage in massive
non-violent demonstrations, punish rock-throwers, and refuse to respond to the
ongoing violence of the Israeli occupation with further violence. Otherwise,
moderates may soon find themselves the victims of an all-too- clever path that links
fundamentalists on both sides. But I won't hold my breath for this course, either.
Sharon is banking on America's focus on bin Laden to distract attention from the
level of brutality Israeli forces are using in the West Bank and ensure that he will
have political space to escalate his attacks on the Palestinian Authority.
Unless we speak out clearly and quickly to reject his unholy, if tacit, alliance with
Hamas, the resulting chaos will likely produce ever more frightful bin Ladens in the
future -- and they are as likely to strike America as Israel. For those of us who
support Israel, this is a moment when our voices of critique may provide the "tough
love" it so desperately needs.
Back to Top | NCM Home | Pacific News Service
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Pacific News Focus: Palestinian-Israeli Relations
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Unholy Alliance -- Sharon, Hamas Work in Concert Against Peace
Pacific News Service, Dec 14
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NCM: Middle Eastern
Pacific News: Relations
Copyright © Pacific News Service
End<{{{
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