Nevertheless, the overriding fact is that the occupation still remains militarily, politically, economically, and demographically untenable for Israel. That hasn't changed. It wasn't belated recognition of the historic injustice to the Palestinians which motivated Sharon/Ohmert and their new allies to decide on a pullback, however incomplete and unsatisfactory to the victims. From the standpoint of most Israelis, a pullback is a matter of necessity.
In order to effect any kind of withdrawal, though, Israel needs security guarantees, ie. that cross-border raids and shelling will cease. If it hasn't been apparent to it's political and military leadership that these need to be negotiated rather than imposed, it's been made abundantly clear in the latest incidents. In other words, what Israel paradoxically requires most is a strong Palestinian Authority - one which is both willing and able to rein in the militants who want to continue the struggle.
In current circumstances, that can only be Hamas. Fatah was willing but unable to perform that role. It will be interesting to see over the course of the next weeks and months whether (1) the Israelis stop trying to overthrow Hamas and quietly approach it instead with a view to negotiating what can be described as a a very extended ceasefire or de facto peace settlement and (2) whether the Israelis can offer enough territorial, economic and other incentives to persuade the Hamas leadership to undertake and police such an arrangement.
At any rate, this is the course being pressed on the Israeli government by a former foreign minister under the Barak government, Shlomo Ben-Ami. His opinion piece in today's Financial Times is reproduced below. Though it may be hard to see through the current fog of war and high emotion, it's not to be ruled out that the logic of a mutually exhausting stalemate will push both parties in the direction he outlines.
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Only deal with Hamas can bring peace By Shlomo Ben-Ami Financial Times July 13 2006
Regardless of whether or not Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip and its massive retaliation against Lebanon achieve its military objectives, one thing is clear. Israel's two-front war has dealt a mortal blow to the "convergence plan" for the West Bank, the raison d'être of Ehud Olmert's government and Kadima, his ruling party. Three months after its inception, the Israeli government has been left without a political agenda. Oddly enough, only Hamas can save it from prospectless political agony. The case of Hizbollah is different. In Lebanon, it is the credibility of the international community that brokered and legitimised Israel's withdrawal that is at stake.
Disengagement and the dismantling of settlements in the West Bank is a far more formidable task than the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza of Ariel Sharon, former prime minister. But if disengagement in Gaza - a compact strip whose border with Israel was never questioned - ushered in such a state of war, what are the chances that a similar undertaking would succeed in the West Bank? Here, a much more subtle, fluid and ambiguous division of responsibilities with the Hamas government - which has been discarded as a partner - is required.
Operation "summer rain" in Gaza has dramatically exposed the fallacy of Israel's strategy of unilateral disengagement from Palestinian lands, and the first to take notice are the Israelis themselves. An opinion poll by the Reut Institute in Tel-Aviv conducted during the current flare-up showed a sharp decline in the public support for the convergence plan. Only 38 per cent would back it now, while 49per cent would strongly oppose it.
The sad lesson of the Gaza disengagement is that the spectre of Kassam missiles being launched from a new frontline in the West Bank against big urban centres in the Tel-Aviv area can no longer be seen as far-fetched. If Mr. Olmert wants to save his convergence plan, he will have to co-ordinate it with Ismail Haniyeh's Hamas government. This means using the current war in Gaza as an opportunity to reach a settlement that goes far beyond the issue of the abducted Israeli soldier. An Israeli government ready to abandon incursions and targeted killings could draw strength from the Reut Institute's poll indicating that 45?per cent of Israelis would now support direct negotiations with Hamas.
Hamas is more susceptible than Mahmoud Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation to a long-term interim agreement with Israel. What the PLO, obsessed as it is with the endgame, refuses to contemplate - a temporary settlement - is something Hamas would probably be ready to consider. But, for a settlement with Hamas to be more enduring and reliable than one with the PLO, Hamas must return to being a disciplined, hierarchical organisation that is capable of observing a ceasefire. For both the collapse of the logic of Israel's disengagement from Gaza and Hizbollah's assault on the understandings that accompanied Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 are a sad reminder that Arab democracy is not necessarily the key to peace and stability. The question is one of order and authority. The current two-front war was, after all, triggered by independent militias over which the elected governments have no authority. To be a reliable partner, Hamas must avoid descending into Fatah's disastrous brand of institutionalised anarchy. Nor should it become a state within a state like Hizbollah.
But the main rationale for a deal with Hamas over the convergence plan lies in the fact that Israel and Hamas are united by a profound scepticism for the peace process. Neither believes in the feasibility of an immediate negotiated peace, nor are they possessed by past dreams of a celestial "end of conflict". Israel is not ready to pay the price of a final settlement. Hamas is not yet capable of compromising its core ideology by unequivocally endorsing the two-state solution and the 1967 borders, and practically waiving the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
An agreement over the convergence plan serves Israel's interest to have a stable, albeit temporary, border in the West Bank. It suits Hamas because it would end the international ostracism its government has endured since it came to office and allow it to reconcile its ideological rejection of Israel with a big step towards the "end of occupation". It would also give it the breathing space it needs to address the domestic agenda that was, after all, the main reason people voted it into office.
The writer is a former Israeli foreign minister and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy