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It is hard to know where to begin talking about Gaza. We are awash in reports, information, photographs, even video of the onslaught on Gaza – the stepped up air and ground assault by Israeli forces onto the most crowded strip of land on earth. More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in the last few days, some half of them unarmed civilians and many of them children, including a number of babies. Hundreds have been wounded and are now being treated in a medical system that was on the verge of collapse long before these latest attacks (and among other targets, the head office of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, along with the main pharmacy and an ambulance, was destroyed by Israel on Feb. 28th. A 5 month old baby died in the same attack.). It’s true that parts of southern Israel are suffering rocket attacks now; one Israeli was killed last week and several have been injured in the last few days. As we JPN editors have written before, these (and all) Israeli citizens are being held hostage to their government’s irresponsible and obviously dangerous refusal to come to the one resolution that could end the rocket fire: a mutual ceasefire and an end to Israel’s siege on Gaza. Israel, backed and guided by the U. S., still refuses to negotiate with Hamas. (See JPN post “The Makings of War” from 2/23/2008 on the U. S. ‘s adamant position that Israel break Hamas.) Israel has stepped-up attacks on Gaza and threatens worse: on Feb. 29, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai promised the Palestinians a shoah/holocaust of their own. Racheli Gai writes that ‘the word “shoah” is not used in Hebrew exclusively in reference to the Nazi holocaust. However, this is the primary and dominant meaning of the word, so any use of it brings forth connotations of the holocaust/genocide. If we add to it the fact that it was used by a public figure, a military man threatening horrendous action against the people of Gaza, there is no way to ignore the presence of the ominous connotations. ‘ Mitchell Plitnick also discusses Vilnai’s use of the word “shoah” in his new blog post: www.allvoices.com/user/blog/631. But the calls for an end to the siege and direct negotiations with Hamas are getting stronger and stronger. See below for:
The calls are coming from many directions; now we must make them louder, loud enough to push the U. S. and Israel to end the siege and the bombardment now. Sarah Anne Minkin Ceasefire Now!www.ipetitions.com/petition/ceasefirenow/index.html [**Reminder: this petition is only for Israelis and Palestinians to sign] The escalation in and around the Gaza Strip is causing terrible suffering to people - to men, women, elderly and children, Palestinian as well as Israeli civilians. The military offensive conducted by the Israeli armed forces has so far caused hundreds of Palestinian casualties; many of them were unarmed civilians. The siege and economic blockade have reduced most of the Gaza Strip’s population to abject poverty, devastated its economy, and caused the death of critically ill patients, denied access to vital treatment. The Palestinian attacks on Sderot have severely traumatized its population, far beyond the physical casualties caused among them. This is not a conflict between two equal forces. The most powerful army in the Middle East, backed by the world’s single remaining super-power, is daily using tanks, fighter planes, helicopters and gunships against the lightly-armed militias and overcrowded population of a small area whose people have lived under occupation and in poverty long before the present siege. Yet the individuals caught in the fighting are all suffering - on both sides of the fighting, among both peoples. The pain of living in daily fear, of being wounded and mutilated for life, of grieving for the loss of loved ones, is the same pain - whether one’s country be oppressed or oppressor, occupied or occupier, rich or poor, powerful or powerless. The attacks on both sides of the border feed on each other and intensify each other. Palestinians in Gaza, rightly feeling themselves still living under occupation despite the Israeli ‘disengagement’, seek to resist occupation, but when some use launching of rockets against civilians, they manage only to provide an additional justification for tightening the siege on Gaza and the escalation of Israeli violence. The cycle of violence and bloodshed goes on and on, and the threat of an overall invasion and re-conquest of the Gaza Strip is openly and repeatedly made by the Israeli military and political leaders - with the cost estimated at hundreds or thousands of casualties. We, the undersigned - Israelis and Palestinians - do not accept this grim reality as inevitable. There is a clear and obvious alternative to bloody escalation and strangulating siege, an alternative providing hope: an end to the siege of Gaza, and a ceasefire and cessation of all hostilities. The siege of Gaza and the collective punishment of its population are totally unacceptable. It is a medieval form of war which is in utter contradiction to the present norms of human rights and international law - which Israel, as an occupying power, is bound to respect. There should be an immediate end to the siege, unconnected with any other issue, and the Gaza Strip must have free access to the outside world, for the free passage of persons and goods. It has already been clearly seen that the suffering inflicted on Palestinian civilians in Gaza did not and cannot solve the problem of Sderot. The only solution is a complete and mutual ceasefire, an end to all armed attacks by the Israeli occupation on Palestinians, including all shootings by infantry, tanks, artillery, aircraft and gunboats, and all targeted killings, armed incursions and arrests across the border, and an end to launching of rockets by Palestinians on Israelis. In addition, this should involve a reopening of the prisoners issue, starting with negotiations on the exchange of Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit with Palestinian prisoners. We regard such a ceasefire as an entirely realistic, achievable and desirable act, which would save lives, alleviate misery and create better conditions for any attempt to achieve peace between the two peoples - while understanding that no long-lasting solution is possible while the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem continue to live under occupation. First list of Palestinian signatories Dr. Eyad Sarraj, President, Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, Gaza February 27, 2008 Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas on ShalitBy Yossi Verter Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks. The figures were obtained in a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University. According to the findings, Israelis are fed up with seven years of Qassam rockets falling on Sderot and the communities near Gaza, as well as the fact that Shalit has been held captive for more than a year and a half. An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces’ reserves, have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas. It now appears that this opinion is gaining traction in the wider public, which until recently vehemently rejected such negotiations. The survey also showed that Likud voters are much more moderate than their Knesset representatives. About half (48 percent) support talks with Hamas. In Kadima, 55 percent are for talks, while among Labor voters, the number jumps to 72 percent. With regard to Tuesday’s High Court ruling rejecting petitions against ex-president Moshe Katsav’s plea bargain, about half of those polled said the decision was not justified. Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, who was part of a minority position against the plea bargain, can thus take some comfort that many people are with her. About one-third of those polled supported the majority opinion in favor of the plea bargain. On the suspended sentence and fine Katsav is likely to receive, about half of those asked (47 percent) said the sentence was not harsh enough, as opposed to 29 percent who said the punishment was “fitting,” and 8 percent who said it was “too harsh.” Palestinian revenge was inevitableFebruary 12, 2008 Last week’s bombing in Dimona was the first martyrdom operation committed by Hamas in more than five years. For some time, we have been warning the world that the relentless pressure on our people would eventually tell. In the last two months, more than a hundred people have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the Gaza Strip, including many civilians, women and children. Thirty people have died in the last month for lack of medical care brought on by the embargo. Only two weeks ago, we saw the appalling sight of over 40 women and children seriously injured when an Israeli F-16 dropped an enormous bomb in the middle of the densely populated Gaza City, a few meters from a wedding party. This kind of atrocity, piled onto the daily death toll, has finally tested the patience of Palestinians, and after lengthy restraint, revenge was inevitable. To many in Israel and the West, this act of resistance will be judged in isolation. They will no doubt say that it justifies the inhumane embargo on the people of Gaza and the arrests of more than 500 people and daily torture of innocents in the West Bank by both Israelis and the puppet government imposed on us by the U. S. What they seem to forget is that just in the last two years, 2, 000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action and thousands more injured. The cold-blooded fact is that the ratio of Palestinian deaths to Israelis is now over 40 to 1. The Hamas-led government has consistently called for a long-term cease-fire. For nine months before the election that brought us to power we observed a unilateral ceasefire, ensuring that no rockets were fired from Gaza by our movement. We observed this policy during the first six months in government, despite the fact that our words and actions were summarily dismissed by the Israelis and their U. S. allies. If the people of Sderot want to know why rockets continue to land around them, they should ask their own government why it has continually rejected our calls for a cease-fire and continued its policy of daily incursions and reckless targeting that put the whole population at risk. We have tried consistently to create some kind of reconciliation with Fatah. But every attempt has been ignored by Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. The threat by Israel and the U. S. to cease negotiations if he cooperates with the lawfully elected Hamas government has led to political impotence in Ramallah. This makes our citizens deeply cynical about the peace process. It makes them feel that Israel is simply exploiting the situation and Abu Mazen. The cranes and bulldozers are still busy in the settlements on our land in the West Bank. Neither is there any sign that the numerous checkpoints that are crippling our economy and social life are being dismantled. While Abu Mazen and Olmert talk of a final agreement, the apartheid wall continues to be erected on land that should be part of any future Palestinian state. If our people can see no genuine and realistic political or economic horizon and their attempts to establish a genuine truce are consistently rejected, it is inevitable that they will turn to resistance as the only outlet for their anger and frustration. What happened at Rafah recently is a sign of what is likely to happen on a much larger scale if people can see no end to the relentless pressure and aggression that is part of our daily life here in Gaza. While in the past we acknowledged the right of Abu Mazen to negotiate on behalf of our people, we believe that he has forfeited this mandate, as he no longer commands the respect of the majority of our people. Given the facts on the ground and the total mistrust that now prevails on all sides, we believe neither Israelis nor Palestinians are ready for final-status negotiations. It would be disastrous if the international community were to try to impose this, especially while we remain divided as a Palestinian people. We have consistently suggested that the best solution to our problems is a long-term cease-fire that provides both sides with the space and opportunity to address our differences in an atmosphere of calmness and normality. We can have little optimism for the immediate future when it is impossible to see any clear light at the end of the tunnel that we are now forced to inhabit. The writer is a senior political advisor to the foreign minister in the Hamas government. Uri Avnery Good Morning, HamasWE ISRAELIS live in a world of ghosts and monsters. We do not conduct a war against living persons and real organizations, but against devils and demons which are out to destroy us. It is a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, between absolute good and absolute evil. That’s how it looks to us, and that’s how it looks to the other side, too. Let’s try to bring this war down from virtual spheres to the solid ground of reality. There can be no reasonable policy, nor even rational discussion, if we do not escape from the realm of horrors and nightmares. After the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections, Gush Shalom said that we must speak with them. Here are some of the questions that were showered on me from all sides: –Do you like Hamas? Not at all. I have very strong secular convictions. I oppose any ideology that mixes politics with religion - whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, in Israel, the Arab world or America. That does not prevent me from speaking with Hamas people, as I have spoken with other people with whom I don’t agree. It has not prevented me from being a guest at their homes, to exchange views with them and to try to understand them. Some of them I liked, some I did not. –It is said that Hamas was created by Israel. Is that true? Israel did not “create” Hamas, but it certainly helped it along in its initial stages. During the first 20 years of the occupation, the Israeli leadership saw the PLO as its chief enemy. That’s why it favored Palestinian organizations that, it was thought, could undermine the PLO. One example of this was Ariel Sharon’s ludicrous attempt to set up Arab “village leagues” that would act as agents of the occupation. The Israeli intelligence community, which in the last 60 years has failed almost every time in forecasting events in the Arab world, also failed this time. They believed that the emergence of an Islamic organization would weaken the secular PLO. While the military administration of the occupied territories was throwing into prison any Palestinian who engaged in political activity - even for peace - it did not touch the religious activists. The mosque was the only place where Palestinians could get together and plan political action. This policy was, of course, based on a complete misunderstanding of Islam and Palestinian reality. Hamas was officially founded immediately after the outbreak of the first intifada at the end of 1987. The Israeli Security Service (known as Shabak or Shin Bet) handled it with kid gloves. Only a year later did it arrest the founder, Sheik Ahmad Yassin. It is ironic that the Israeli leadership is now supporting the PLO in the hope of undermining Hamas. There is no better evidence for the stupidity of our “experts” as far as Arab matters are concerned, stemming from both arrogance and contempt. Hamas is far more dangerous to Israel than the PLO ever was. –Did the Hamas election victory show that Islam was on the rise among the Palestinian people? Not necessarily. The Palestinian people did not become more religious overnight. True, there is a slow process of Islamization throughout the region, from Turkey to Yemen and from Morocco to Iraq. It is the reaction of the young Arab generation to the failure of secular nationalism to solve their national and social problems. But this did not cause the earthquake in Palestinian society. –If so, why did Hamas win? There were several reasons. The main one was the growing conviction of the Palestinians that they would never get anything from the Israelis by non-violent means. After the murder of Yassir Arafat, many Palestinians believed that if they elected Mahmoud Abbas as the new president, he would get from Israel and the US the things they would not give Arafat. They found out that the opposite was happening: No real negotiations, while the settlements were getting larger every day. They told themselves: if peaceful means don’t work, there is no alternative to violent means. And if there be war, there are no braver warriors than Hamas. Also: the corruption in the higher Fatah echelons had reached such dimensions, that the majority of Palestinians were disgusted. As long as Arafat was alive, the corruption was somehow tolerated, because everybody knew that Arafat himself was honest, and his towering importance for the national struggle overrode the shortcomings of his administration. After Arafat, tolerating the corruption became impossible. Hamas, on the other hand, was considered clean, and its leaders incorrupt. The social and educational Hamas institutions, mainly financed by Saudi Arabia, were widely respected. The splits within Fatah also helped the Hamas candidates. Hamas, of course, had not taken part in previous elections, but it was generally assumed - even by Hamas people themselves - that they represented only about 15-25 percent of the electorate. –Can one reasonably expect the Palestinians to overthrow Hamas themselves? As long as the occupation goes on, there is no chance of that. An Israeli general said this week that if the Israeli army stopped operating in the West Bank, Hamas would replace Abbas there too. The administration of Mahmoud Abbas stands on feet of clay - American and Israeli feet. If the Palestinians finally lose what confidence they still have in Abbas, his power would crumble. –But how can one reach a settlement with an organization that declares that it will never recognize Israel and whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state? All this matter of “recognition” is nonsense, a pretext for avoiding a dialogue. We do not need “recognition” from anybody. When the United States started a dialogue with Vietnam, it did not demand to be recognized as an Anglo-Saxon, Christian and capitalist state. If A signs an agreement with B, it means that A recognizes B. All the rest is hogwash. And in the same matter: The fuss over the Hamas charter is reminiscent of the ruckus about the PLO charter, in its time. That was a quite unimportant document, which was used by our representatives for years as an excuse to refuse to talk with the PLO. Heaven and earth were moved to compel the PLO to annul it. Who remembers that today? The acts of today and tomorrow are important, the papers of yesterday are not. –What should we speak with Hamas about? First of all, about a cease-fire. When a wound is bleeding, the blood loss must be stemmed before the wound itself can be treated. Hamas has many times proposed a cease-fire, Tahidiyeh (“Quiet”) in Arabic. This would mean a stop to all hostilities: Qassams and Grad rockets and mortar shells from Hamas and the other organizations, “targeted liquidations”, military incursions and starvation from Israel. The negotiations should be conducted by the Egyptians, particularly since they would have to open the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai. Gaza must get back its freedom of communication with the world by land, sea and air, If Hamas demands the extension of the cease-fire to the West Bank, too, this should also be discussed. That would necessitate a Hamas-Fatah-Israel trialogue. –Won’t Hamas exploit the cease-fire to arm itself? Certainly. And so will Israel. Perhaps we shall succeed, at long last, in finding a defense against short-range rockets. –If the cease-fire holds, what will be the next step? An armistice, or Hudnah in Arabic. Hamas would have a problem in signing a formal agreement with Israel, because Palestine is a Waqf - a religious endowment. (That arose, at the time, for political reasons. When Caliph Omar conquered Palestine, he was afraid that his generals would divide the country among themselves, as they had already done in Syria. So he declared it to be the property of Allah. This resembles the attitude of our own religious people, who maintain that it is a sin to give away any part of the country, because God has expressly promised it to us.) Hudnah is an alternative to peace. It is a concept deeply embedded in the Islamic tradition. The prophet Muhammad himself agreed a Hudnah with the rulers of Mecca, with whom he was at war after his flight from Mecca to Medina. (By the way, before the Hudnah expired, the inhabitants of Mecca adopted Islam and the prophet entered the town peacefully.) Since it has a religious sanction, its violation by Muslim believers is impossible. A Hudnah can last for dozens of years and be extended without limit. A long Hudnah is in practice peace, if the relations between the two parties create a reality of peace. –So a formal peace is impossible? There is a solution for this, too. Hamas has declared in the past that it does not object to Abbas conducting peace negotiations, on condition that the agreement reached is put to a plebiscite. If the Palestinian people confirm it, Hamas declared that it will accept the people’s decision. –Why would Hamas accept it? Like every Palestinian political force, Hamas aspires to power in the Palestinian state that will be set up along the 1967 borders. For that it needs to enjoy the confidence of the majority. There is no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of the Palestinian people want a state of their own and peace. Hamas knows this well. It will do nothing that would push the majority of the people away. –And what is the place of Abbas in all this? He should be pressured to come to an agreement with Hamas, along the lines of the earlier agreement concluded in Mecca. We believe that Israel has a clear interest in negotiating with a Palestinian government that includes the two big movements, so that the agreement reached would be accepted by almost all sections of the Palestinian people. –Is time working for us? For many years, Gush Shalom was telling the Israeli public: let’s make peace with the secular leadership of Yasser Arafat, because otherwise the national conflict will turn into a religious conflict. Unfortunately, this prophecy, too, has come true. Those who did not want the PLO, got Hamas. If we don’t come to terms with Hamas, we shall be faced with more extreme Islamic organizations, like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Ramzy Baroud: Abbas Needs a MiracleFeb. 27, 2008 Time is running out for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Although both men are still committed to their risky venture of marginalising Hamas at any cost, the latter’s obduracy and recent events in Gaza point to the inescapable conclusion — the undertaking was doomed from the start. For Olmert the issue demographics remains. He told Israeli daily Ha’aretz in an interview published in November 2007 that if it didn’t agree to an independent Palestinian state, Israel would “face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished”. The Apartheid analogy is of course not a new one. Leading South Africans themselves were the first to make the comparison, and Israel’s history of aiding and abetting the infamous Apartheid South African governments is no secret either. But Olmert’s belated rude-awakening aside, it is Mahmoud Abbas who is running out of options. Unlike Olmert, Abbas has no real, measurable powers. For one, his popularity amongst his own people has never been high. Past quarrels with late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat during the early years of the Palestinian Uprising singled Abbas out at an untrustworthy opportunist. Late professor Edward Said once called him ‘moderately corrupt. ‘ The formidable intellectual died before seeing the moderate corruption of Abbas morphing into a wholesale onslaught on democracy, freedom and every noble principle the Palestinians ever fought for. I wonder what Said would have said after seeing the people of Gaza suffering beyond comprehension while Abbas and Olmert meet in the latter’s Jerusalem residence, exchanging words of praise and vowing their undying commitment to ‘peace’. A photo released by the Israeli government Press office on February 19 showed both leaders leaving another futile meeting in Jerusalem, with Olmert — aware of the cameras flashing all around them — holding an umbrella for the widely grinning Abbas. The post card-like scenario is of course part of the continuing charade of peace talks, deadlines and deadline extensions, interrupted by temporary quarrels, which are sorted out by US envoys before resuming more talks. But how long can Abbas and Olmert carry on with this charade? For Olmert, the objective and endgame are clear: stall until a ‘solution’ can be finalised and imposed on the Palestinians. This in turns depends on the finalisation of the construction of the illegal settlements, the wall and the network of Jewish-only bypass roads in Occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank. However, Olmert’s poor standing among the Israeli public and the aforementioned ‘demographic threat’ will not make it possible for him to stall indefinitely. Still, with the US’ record of unconditionally backing Israeli policies, Olmert will remain in a relatively safe spot, regardless of which major presidential candidate goes on to claim the White House. One can hardly say the same about Abbas. His usefulness for Israel, and thus the US administration, is entirely dependent on his level of ‘cooperation’, which essentially means ensuring Palestinian disunity, fighting Hamas, and remaining a pawn in the US’ imaginative view of the entire region (whereby ‘moderates’ stand united against ‘extremists’ and ‘rejectionists’). Yet, unlike other Arab ‘moderates’, Abbas lacks all leverage. He ‘presides’ over an ever shrinking entity, itself under military occupation. Many of his people regularly accuse him of ‘treason’, or at best, of ‘selling out’. On top of this, his party is falling apart. Mohammed Dahlan is already acting with the air of presidency. Now based in Egypt, he has been gathering support for himself amidst scattered talks about his desire to form an alternative party to Fatah. Worse yet, Mohamed Nazzal, a visible member of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus told Aljazeera. net on February 19 that despite Hamas’ insistence on the inclusion of Marwan Barghouti (a leading Fatah figure who is greatly supported by the movement’s youth and strongly disliked by the old guard) in any future prisoner swaps, Israel has removed the latter’s name from the list, at Abbas’ behest. Abbas’ lack of any meaningful political vision is also promoting other members of his team to speak of political programmes entirely inconsistent with his own style. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Secretary General of the PLO Executive Committee told Reuters in an interview on February 20 — views which he repeated to AFP and Palestinian radio in Arabic — what Palestinians should consider should talks continue to falter. “If things are not going in the direction of actually halting settlement activities, if things are not going in the direction of continuous and serious negotiations, then we should take the step and announce our independence unilaterally.” Abbas’ answer was his intent to continue negotiating, and that he was “optimistic and hopeful.” It’s unclear where from Abbas’ hope originates. He stands on very shaky grounds, not only in his conditional relationship with Israel, the US and his own party, at home and abroad, but with Hamas as well. His earlier rhetoric about Hamas’s ties to Al Qaeda and the ‘forces of darkness’ are softening, but he knows he has no mandate to reach out to his opponents. But it is increasingly clear to the world that isolating Hamas means the continuation of Gaza’s mass hunger and suffering. This is so extreme that even Europeans are reportedly rethinking their stance on Hamas, which the EU had deemed ‘terrorist’. If Abbas, however, tried to rethink his relations with Hamas, he would be abandoned by Israel and the US, and might find himself a victim of a calculated coup led by his party’s strongmen. If he continues with the charade of endless and futile talks with Israel, the patience of his people would eventually run out. Considering all of this — Abbas’ shared responsibly for the plight of Gaza, his anti-democratic legacy and his inability to reunite his faltering party — the president seems condemned to a lose-lose scenario, one which would take no less than a miracle to put right. Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London). Thinking the UnthinkableEditorial Israel is in a diplomatic and military jam that keeps getting worse, but has no obvious solution. It is rapidly approaching the demographic tipping point, when Palestinian Arabs outnumber Israeli Jews in the land now under Israeli control. When that happens, Israel will find that it has become a minority-rule state, and it will have to make the choice it has avoided up to now: whether to be a Jewish or a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, it will no longer be the Jewish state of Israel. If it gives up on democracy, it will find itself more isolated — and threatened — than ever. Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, put it well last fall: If the peace process does not resume and lead to a Palestinian state soon, Israel is “finished.” The only solution is to separate from the Palestinians in the territories, and the only practical way is through Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and partition into two separate states. That process must be carried out by agreement with the Palestinians. Unilateral withdrawal, as happened in Lebanon and Gaza, has been discredited by events. But negotiations require a partner capable of carrying out its end of the bargain. The Palestinian Authority, Israel’s main negotiating partner, is toothless and incapable of imposing its will. It lost even nominal control of Gaza to Hamas, which bombards Israel daily and rejects the very idea of recognizing Israel. Out of this impasse, a new consensus is emerging that Israel must talk to Hamas. The Islamist party has offered Israel a long-term cease-fire, lasting decades. It is already negotiating indirectly with Israel, through Egyptian mediators, for a prisoner exchange that would free kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Egypt is also working to bring Hamas and Fatah back together. With Hamas in tow, Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority could negotiate with Israel for a deal that has some chance of working. As usual, the Israeli public is ahead of its leaders. A new poll conducted by Tel Aviv University and published this week in Ha’aretz shows that 64% of Israelis favor talks with Hamas, and only 28% are opposed. Several Israeli Cabinet ministers have come out in favor, as well. They understand that Israel urgently needs a strong Palestinian leadership to talk to. Jewish Peace News editors: Joel Beinin |