Should Israel Negotiate with Hamas or Merge into a New Palestine?
The idea of negotiating with Hamas is more of a justification for a Hamas victory than a serious idea.
There are many calls for a cease-fire and a one state solution, particularly among pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel advocacy groups. If we dig into what this would require of Hamas and and Palestinians generally, however, it is clear these approaches are recipes for more violence and death, rather than peace.
Negotiating with Hamas
Israel is at least technically negotiating with Hamas, but this is window dressing for both Hamas and Israel. The core question is about who runs Gaza, and who can legitimately claim to have won the war, and neither side has budged one inch on their core demands.
Hamas’ ultimate goal is for Israel to cease to exist, and the area instead to be placed under Islamic rule. This is extremely clear from their charter and public statements.
The (politically toned-down) 2017 Hamas Charter reads:
20. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
It is unsurprising that Hamas’ current, unshakable negotiating point is that there will be a permanent ceasefire that allows them to return to ruling over Gaza. This will allow them to regroup and fight another day.
Israel is similarly insistent that Hamas has to go. All their proposals and language are about a temporary cease-fire or humanitarian pause, after which they can return to the job of driving Hamas from power.
There has been no movement on these two positions, and never will be. Only when one of Hamas or Israel are destroyed as governing entities will there be a resolution.
The U.S. Qatar, Egypt and others float (and sometimes mis-state) various ceasefire proposals, claiming progress. But the irreconcilable difference between Hamas continuing to fight another day vs being destroyed is never addressed, so there is never real progress. This war ends when Israel defeats Hamas as a governing entity and not until then.
New Progressives call for a one state solution
Most sensible people favor a partition of the area into a safe, secure Israel next to a safe, secure, and peaceful Palestinian state — a two-state solution. But today’s protesters are fixated on a one-state solution, where there is a single, democratic state, with a Palestinian majority, and equal rights for all.
This sounds pretty good, until you consider that it’s actually a recipe for a mass violence. Pure democracy without protections for minorities is a danger anywhere, and a predictable disaster in a Palestinian state that rules over a 7 million person Jewish minority.
The protesters’ real demands are evident in their “river to the sea” rhetoric, and also in their comments if you press them (which I have). In the solution they demand, the descendants of all Palestinians who were driven out in the 1948 and 1967 wars would “return” to their ancestor’s houses, villages and land areas, and be full citizens of Israel. Very quickly, they would form a clear majority, and “Israel” would then be democratically controlled by Palestinians.
At that point negotiations are over and the combined polity consisting of perhaps 15 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews would determine their combined future by voting. Predictably, given the level and duration of hostility and radicalization in Palestinian schools, the government would be intensely anti-Israel (actually anti-Jewish), even as it nominally governs a country initially still called “Israel.”
The immediate effect would be the destruction of Israel, possibly a civil war, or even a (real) genocide.
- The name “Israel” would doubtless be changed immediately by the new majority
- Rights of women, LGBTQ, Jews and Black people abolished
- Passage of new laws to conform to Islamic law
- Replacement of judges, police, military, and other officials with Palestinian and likely religiously Islamic enforcers
- Tolerance and likely encouragement of paramilitary, religious, and civic forces who oppress, expel, or even kill Jews
Thought experiment: negotiating with other extremists such as QAnon, or Marxists
What I think well-meaning, Western, coddled students don’t understand is that you cannot negotiate with a cultist. They know this when it comes to the Republican next door, but cannot see it when thinking of a murderous terrorist on the other side of the world.
For Hamas, in particular, to be talked into peace is impossible, but anti-Israel advocates demand that Israel do exactly that.
I propose that the pro-Palestinian advocates who demand a single state first go talk to some QAnon extremists and convince them to become rational, racially tolerant, and willing to enter a coalition. Then they would have credibility to demand that Israel lay down their weapons, welcome hostile groups into the country, and compromise with terrorists rather than defend themselves. (Similarly, to cite a far-left example, one can imagine trying to convince a Marxist that the free market is really a good idea.)
This is of course impossible. You cannot engage a person who’s very identity is irrationality or hate, and talk them out of their beliefs. Yet the anti-Israel crowd demand exactly that, with Israelis’ very lives on the line.
It will never happen, but it’s an interesting exercise or thought experiment.
Credibility
Until then, I’m not going to take advocates’ calls for an immediate ceasefire or one state solution seriously. I encourage everyone to press anti-Israel advocates on their plans, and to look beyond an immediate, unconditional cease-fire.
—
As always, I write for free in hopes of broadening the ideas people consider and engage with. Please share this article with others so they can wrestle with new ideas.
