Neo-Cons and the Hamas-Fateh Split

When I read Aaron David Miller's piece in the Washington Post this week, I could already imagine what the responses would be from the neo-cons and Israel's staunchest defenders. In the piece, among other things, Miller argues that the settlements are not the main obstacle to peacemaking. The internal divisions within the Palestinian polity are going to make it difficult for any Palestinian leader to sign an agreement. There is a lot to be said for this. But for right-wingers, AIPAC-ers and Likudniks, this is a line of argument they treasure and hold dear. What good will pressuring Israel to stop settlements do, the argument goes, if the Palestinians can't get their act together. That is it. The argument ends there. They kick the can down the road and will continue to do so. They will say that settlements are bad but the Palestinians aren't ready for a deal, so why ask the Israelis to stop.

Some fine examples of this are on display by Jeff Goldberg (who wrote the Iran war anthem) and Marty Peretz. Here is Goldberg on this issue (emphasis mine):

It might be a bad idea to bring pressure on Israel on the issue of settlements before negotations [sic] even begin, for the simple reason that the U.S. would like the negotiations to succeed, but they won't have any chance of succeeding if pre-conditions sink them. I'm also suggesting that the entire peace process won't amount to much until the Palestinians resolve their civil war.

Then, here is Peretz referring to the one point he wanted to amplify in Miller piece:

Here's his most significant point: even if Israel and the Palestinian[sic] were to reach agreement on the settlements "negotiations would still confront another galactic challenge: a crisis within the Palestinian national movement, with two authorities governing two discreet areas with two different security services, two different patrons and two different visions of the Palestinian future. The upshot of the battle between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is that without a monopoly over the forces of violence in Palestinian society -without one authority to silence the guns and rockets- no agreement can be implemented."Almost no one is saying that. But it is not only true. It is virtually a truism.

These are typical responses that we should be prepared to continue seeing from the neo-con community. Note that both writers, and this is typical of these types of arguments, simply introduce Palestinian division as a problem and stop there with little care for understanding the genesis of that problem or what prolongs it.

But isn't Palestinian division a concern? Of course it is. And resolving this issue is an integral part of any negotiated solution. I've talked about the problems of legitimacy in Palestinian leadership and the role of political repression in the division and the intentionally different treatment the US and Israel have had toward the West Bank and Gaza. But those mentioned above and others like them don't want to parse this issue. They would rather use it as a foil to say that efforts to pressure Israel now are a waste of time.

Arguing that Palestinian division is an obstacle to peace only to deflect criticism of Israel's illegal actions and without candidly discussing the reasons behind Palestinian division and the role of the US and Israel in that division, is misleading, dishonest and the purest form of pro-Israel propaganda. It takes the heat off of Israel for its settlement expansion and provides cover for continued expansion for years to come. That's why writers like Goldberg and Peretz won't take the discussion on Palestinian division to its next and logical step. If Palestinian division is a problem, well, define it, understand its causes, suggest solutions.

Perhaps one of the reasons why neo-cons won't discuss solving the problem of Palestinian division is because it highlights the hypocrisy inherent in their ideology - democracy in the Middle East unless people who don't like Israel are elected. Or maybe it's because one of the longest-lasting neo-cons in the Bush administration played a significant role in sparking civil war between Hamas and Fateh. You may recall that it was Elliot "Iran Contra" Abrams who backed sending arms to Fateh in preparation for an overthrow of Hamas in Gaza. That went terribly wrong in June of 2007.

For Israel, a divided Palestinian side is one that it can put off making peace with. That's why it furthers this division time and again, to delay having to make what would be inevitable concessions in a two-state framework. I go into that here and discuss the arrests of Hamas affiliates throughout the West Bank. The problem of political arrests has intensified again as of late, and Khalid Amayreh does a good job of spelling that out here. Surely, the divide-and-conquer-minded Israelis didn't mind hearing this morning's news:

Hamas wing threatens PA leadership

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas' military wing on Wednesday threatened to target Palestinian Authority officials "if PA security forces continue to detain and sue resistance activists in the West Bank."

Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubayda read a statement on behalf of 12 military groups in the Gaza Strip saying "we are fed up with the PA security's behavior in the West Bank. Over the past period, we have preferred to give reconciliation efforts all the time needed, however, we hereby say we will not remain silent for long."

Abu Ubayda said PA forces had "gone to the extremes, forcing us to end our silence," adding that ongoing efforts to secure a unity deal with Fatah "were not enough to prevent chasing and detaining Mujaheddin. Nobody can blame us if we go after leaders of the Fatah-run authority everywhere, and treat them equally."

We also held an event on the United States' role in the divide at the Palestine Center earlier this year. The talk by Nathan Brown, titled "US Foreign Policy and the inter-Palestinian Divide," is available in audio and video formats. Here is the important excerpt from the transcript:

Now, I’ve been talking and mentioning American policy only in the most polite and oblique terms as sort of the international context. Now let me bring that in directly. What has U.S. policy been towards this split? Here, I’m going to drop all diplomacy. I think that essentially it was to promote the split and to maintain it. I don’t think anybody would actually put it quite that way. You go back to the pre-June 2007 period in which there was first a Hamas government and then a national unity government. The United States was very clearly placing its thumb on the scale of insuring that this government not work and that the national unity government not work. The odd thing about this is that there was very little that was secret about this policy. The exact details, what policy instruments the United States was using, was not always completely clear. But even this training of Palestinian security forces under presidential command was a matter of public record. So that when this famous Vanity Fair article that revealed that the United States was going to actively promote a coup came out, what it contributed was lurid prose and a few details and leaked memos, but basically nothing else that wasn’t a more pugnacious version of what had been declared to our policy up to that point.

Since June 2007, since the West Bank and Gaza split, American policy has been West Bank first, as Yousef was reporting at the beginning, essentially, figuring that the divergence in policy performance between the West Bank and the Gaza governments would solve the problem. That allowing some kind of level of security improvements, economic development and/or diplomatic process and the mix of those varies a little bit on the West Bank, and squeezing Gaza hard would make Palestinians come to their senses. That had essentially been American policy. Some of the mechanics of how this was supposed to happen, that is to say that if a Palestinian in Gaza thinks, “Gosh, this government is really bad in Gaza. Let’s get rid of it.” How are they supposed to do this? I think that question was postponed. “Well, tomorrow will be another day.” There’ll be something that’ll make it clear or they’ll be elections and Hamas would be forced to run on a record of poor policy performance forgetting that the split made elections impossible. A new round of elections would not be possible unless there were some West Bank and Gaza reconciliation.

There is plenty of room for serious discussion on the inter-Palestinian divide. Scholars on this issue discuss it candidly, fully recognize the American and neo-con-led role in creating it and suggest ways to end it. But be wary of those arguments that simply conclude on the note that Palestinians are divided, therefore the US should let the Israelis do as they please. The next time you hear the argument that the United States shouldn't pressure Israel because the Palestinians are too divided to make a deal, recognize it immediately for what it is: an excuse for the continued expansion of settlements and the furtherance of Israel's colonialism probably being made by the same people that brought you the Iraq war and want to bring you the Iran war.

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