If you want to be notified the next time I write something, sign up for FREE email alerts or subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

What can Hamas do to win the next challenge? IMHO, if they decide to make real compromises, it will be much easier for Palestinians to swallow, just as Sharon’s credibility allowed him to pull out from Gaza; and just like what the Likud Party did when they toke control in 70’s of last century.

But; Hamas is Hamas, and Likud is Likud…

Introducing Hamas - the new Likud (Excerpts only)
By Bradley Burston

Presenting, the unthinkable.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may we introduce … Hamas - the new Likud.

It’s 1977 all over again, People of Israel. Once again, everything we knew, is wrong.

Sound familiar? The party in power, the only party which has ever held power, the party which made a people, has shown itself to be bottomlessly corrupt. It has long been unresponsive to crying social needs. It has proven incapable of making peace. It is ineffectual at bringing its people security.

There is no end to the cronyism, the economic inequality, the graft, the hidebound, unwieldy construction of interlocking, profoundly anti-democratic institutions.

Then one day, voters who have swallowed and suffered this for decades, revolt. Overnight, a virtual one-party system is overturned in a stunning victory by a lean, clean, dynamic rival, a movement long shunned for a violent past and an unbending, maximalist take on who should own the entirety of the Holy Land.
…

In 1977, the Likud of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir was derided abroad - and by the left at home - as a group led by terror warlords, a movement with roots in armed wings that had engaged in bombings and cold-blooded shootings.

It was seen - incorrectly - as inexperienced in everything except opposition. It was seen - ingenuously, by the left - as little more than an outgrowth of the Irgun and Lehi, heirs to Deir Yassin, implacable in its opposition to sharing or ceding land.

It was on May 17, 1977 that Begin’s Likud defeated Labor. Exactly six months and two days later, the first leader of an Arab nation to publicly set foot on Israeli soil - a man who had ordered his armies to attack Israel on Yom Kippur - shook Begin’s hand and drove with him to Jerusalem, where he would address the Knesset the next day.

It was the Likud that would trade away every last inch of the Sinai desert - 89 percent of all the land mass captured in the 1967 war - in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt.

It was the Likud, in what was effectively its last, arguably suicidal act as a political party, that would recast the nature of political discourse in Israel by leaving the Gaza Strip unilaterally.
…

Whether it is or not, whether Israel will actually withdraw from more of the West Bank, will depend to a great extent on what Hamas decides its guns are for. If they are for attacking Israelis, no government in Jerusalem will be able to suggest a further pullback. But if the rifles are for keeping order, and for enforcing a truce, a withdrawal could well take place, and Hamas will be able to claim yet another victory.
…

For Hamas, the ideological leap will be tremendous. Though some in Hamas have made noises about finding a way to live with the 1967 borders, the concession for them will be as painful as that of Begin’s creed of Greater Israel, which originally called for a Jewish state in all of what is now Israel, as well as all of the territories and the present kingdom of Jordan.

How likely is the scenario that Hamas will see to calm in hopes of an Israeli withdrawal?

Just how likely a scenario is our present reality?

In a matter of 20 days, both Israel and Palestine have witnessed the passing of their founding generation, the generation that seemed capable of burying us all.

God is in the unexpected. Left to our own devices, our fossilized expectations, our unwillingness to believe in a better future, we?ll mess up His work every time.

Thank God that we can be so wrong.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=675451&contrassID=2

Good analogy; but is it correct?

I guess not. Hamas is not the new “Likud.” I think that the socio-religious dynamic that brought Hamas to power is different from the one that brought the Likud to power in 1977. I’m afraid that Hamas see themselves today, not as a hardliner Palestinian nationalist party that rejected Oslo, but as a component of global militant Islam. Palestine is just a venue.

Yes, we have to keep in mind that Hamas is part of a wider Islamic movement. Its aim is to create a religious society. I’m afraid it cares less about “Palestinian” identity than about an Islamic one; and take the example of the flag incident, when they replaced the Palestinian flag with their “Islamic” cloth, flying over the Parliament house. That’s just a start!.

Also, remember that Hamas is not even a member of the PLO. In fact, today they announced that they will restructure PLO. To what? God knows.

On the other hand, it should be remembered that all along there was never equality between the two sides, Israeli and Palestinian. Begin was not dealing with Palestinians, he was dealing with a recognised nation/state - Egypt and the Sinai did not have the ideological significance that the West Bank and East Jerusalem have to both sides.

Will it work?

We can only hope. Again, patience is needed while bold requests are made of the other - Israel to Hamas, Hamas to Israel. Forget recognition right now. Those who did not formally recognize one another have talked and come to compromises. Actions are, however critical. Hamas commits to a cessation of all violence and merges its militia with Fateh, it succeeds in making life better for the Palestinians and agrees to negotiate coming to the table with all its positions. Israel facilitates in helping Gaza prosper, the port, the airport, quick access to markets. Hamas must make sure this happens without major incident. Colonies are dismantled.

While I see Bradley’s analogy as an optimistic one, I hope that Israel start listening to what “their” enemy is saying instead of wishing they would say or do this and that.

Enjoy this post? Get future updates sent to you for free! Join by email or RSS.