BUT who can Israel speak to?

Question

The Americans have declared that 'now' is THE time for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

I believe most decent people, on both sides, long for peace. But my question is: who can Israel have a dialogue with, given that Hamas still openly calls for the country's destruction?

Who can Israel have as her partner in peace? Fatah?

PLEASE, NO AGGRESSIVE RESPONSES, cheers!

HOPELESS and LONDONER IN ISRAEL, you both make great points. I do take on board what all the others say also, but I still don't understand HOW Israel can be expected to talk with Hamas, when Hamas won't recognize Israel's right to exist?

QUESTION - does anyone think there's any chance that Hamas will ever change its' position on this? I know my question may sound naive, just wondering what you all think?

EDMUND T - I agree with you, that the Palestinians in general of course can't be held responsible for what extremists do. But remember, they did elect Hamas, and Hamas IS extreme and DOES openly call for the destruction of Israel. So how can Israel talk peace with them? This is not just a rhetorical question, I really do want to know!

Also, I agree with you that there needs to be a Palestinian state; hopefully then, no more violence from either side! But the extremists will still use terrorism, because they don't want ANY Jewish state! So again, what's the solution to this - you say the surrounding Arab states would help, would they?

HOPELESS

Allow me to clarify. My objection is to Hamas is that ever since it first came into being, it has openly called for Israel's destruction. It has always insisted that Israel has no basic right to exist.

You have never found me saying the same about Hamas now, have you?! I don't deny it's right to exist. All I ask is that it stops carrying out terror attacks - both on Israelis AND any Palestinians that don't support it!

Remember, Hamas has killed Palestinians that joined rival group Fatah. Could YOU make peace with a person that not only wished to kill you but a person who also insisted you had no right to be alive in the first place?

Answer 1

Hamas believes that the entire land of Palestine is holy Muslim land, not one inch of which can be yielded under any circumstances, even if they wanted to. So until we can find a way of changing their perspective on this, I don't see any chance of ever achieving a negotiated agreement with them.

That leaves Fatah, and the problem with negotiating with just a part of the Palestinian people is that anything we agree with them may have to be revisited again if we want to bring the others on board at a later date.

But despite all of the above reservations, it is still worth trying to make an agreement with Fatah. If we can reach some form of accommodation with them which will improve the lot of the Palestinians in the West Bank without compromising Israel's security, then the Gazans may eventually see that Hamas is no good for them and force them to change policy.

However, I think we all need to manage our expectations.

(Edit to HopelessZ00: I hear you, but what should we do then? If we hold everything up until Hamas and Fatah sort out their differences, we could be waiting a long time, and the living conditions of the Palestinians will just continue to deteriorate...)

Answer 2

World Luv makes several excellent good points that i will add on.

Fatah is and was a very corrupt and lazy organization.

Hamas is and was more progressive etc.

The Palestinians grew tired of the situation and the occupation which i might add effects their lives in a negative manner daily much more then the bulk of the israeli population feels.

they have road blocks,house demolishines and raids on peoples houses humilating whole families.

In short Palestinine has no soverignty and Fatah did nothing or very little to ease the settler problem. The settler problem is basically the root of the major problems in the West Bank atleast speaking of the Israelis.

To make Fatah more popular Israel could be more open to diolouge in regards to the settlements, which would equal automatically better conditions for Palestinians in many ways and thus boost Fatahs support among Palestinians.

As for Hamas i agree they are a problem in a number of their views, such as you say calling for the "Death of Israel" and declaring all of Palestine/Israel "Holy land" that the jewish state cannot posseive.

On the bright side Hamas controls an area only the size of Washington DC and even now they are begining to lessen their grip on the Gaza.

They (that being Hamas) has acknoledged that their seizure of Gaza was/is only temporary, so in the near feature we can look
forward to corrupt Fatah taking over Gaza soon.

I might add also that also that despite Hamas's controversial views that i myself do not agree with that they where democractically elected and despite their views they where none the less democratically elected so they are rightful Stuarts of the Palestinian Territories at the moment.

Answer 3

The problem with Israeli's is that they see all Palestinians as terrorists and are not seeing "the forest for the trees". A minority withing the Palestinian population is responsible for the violence, does that make a moderate government (the one in the west bank) a terrorist entity? Many Israeli's would say yes, but lest we forget the terrorist activities of people like Nelson Mandela and the founders of Israel.

If Israel is genuine and wants peace all they would need to do is recognize Fatah (or any other democratically elected party) as equal partners in peace.

There are two very simply solutions to the problem: become one state where Israel governs all, or become two states based on 1967 borders.

If its two states, israel must trust the palestinians to rule their own country. If the people continue the violence after the state of palestine is founded then forces from neighboring arab states can intervene, but seeing as the occupation would end there would be no cause to the myriad of terrorist groups.

Palestinians cannot be held responsible for a handful of groups that continue to attack the same way the Israeli people cannot be blamed for attacks by rogue settlers and religious zealots.

Answer 4

It was quite a shock when Hamas was voted in, and an even bigger shock to me to find out that there was a few Christian Palestinians that voted for them. None of the suicide bombers were Christian and the Christians have been known for promoting peace. So why then did some vote for Hamas? From talking with friends there I now understand - they were so fed up with what was going on that they were desperate. They didn't want Hamas, but Fatah wasn't getting anywhere so they wanted to have another group try and unfortunately Hamas was the only other alternative.

The reason people were so fed up and desperate for a change, is because every peace agreement has hardly been worth the paper it was written on. Yes, there were some violations of agreements from the Palestinians, but even more and flagrant violations came from the Israelis.

Here's an article called "Who Murdered the Oslo Accords?" - http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2915oslo_mrdrd.html

B'tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, gives a list of topics with info on each where you can find out why the Palestinians have almost all but given up trying to forge peace with Israel. See http://www.btselem.org/English/List_of_Topics.asp
Palestinians have been subjected to house demolitions, collective punishment, deportation, curfews, roadblocks, administrative detention, torture, restriction of movement, the separation wall, land expropriation and settlements, revocation of residency permits, and on and on.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs wrote about the flaws in the Oslo accords that you can read here: http://www.wrmea.com/jews_for_justice/intifada2000.html

Amnesty International writes about the occupation many times, here's one on the 40th anniversary: http://web.amnesty.org/web/wire.nsf/June2007/Israel

For peace to occur there needs to be an understanding of what each side is going through. I truly believe most Israelis do not know what it's really like inside the Palestinian territories so at least, please read about it such as at the sites I've listed. On the other hand, I don't think Palestinians understand the fear Israelis have over their security and how violence does not promote their cause at all but rather the opposite.

There also needs to be leaders willing to sit down and really LISTEN and talk - and to see each other as allies towards a common goal: PEACE. Both want it, so work together to achieve it!

Finally, there has to be implementation of a peace agreement that both sides follow!! This has been missing, especially on the Israeli side.

Hamas, in my opinion, are not the best choice to be negotiating but they were democratically voted in so instead of refusing, Israeli leaders need to come to the table open and ready to dialogue. Even if the Hamas leaders have openly called for Israel's destruction, the majority of Palestinians are in favour of recognizing Israel's right to exist so there has to be faith that the people will only support that in the end. Refusing to negotiate is certainly not getting a peaceful result so at least try!

Answer 5

I am an American Jew who has been saying this idea for a couple of days now in the Israel section of Y/A. Have the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israel become one single state. You will have to give the Palestinians full rights and privileges that are the same that are now given in Israel to the Jews. They should be able to vote, make political parties, and even be drafted into the army. If you can start this happening first with Fatah and the West Bank, eventually the Gaza Strip will realize the resistance to peace is futile. This plan cannot be accomplished over night. There still will be some bigotry and hate on both sides. Eventually, this too shall decline. As for the United States and Condy Rice, it is not our choice to make. I believe the United States should offer help, but not dictate what either side should do. If we in the US don't like it we can lump it. My country is not perfect either, we still have bigotry, hate, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-this and anti-that. But we are still learning. As Israel is still learning what it means to be a free republic in a hostile land.

Answer 6

I'm not saying that Hamas is doing a great job, but they were elected democratically, and they have been stopping Islamic Jihad from firing rockets into Israel(at least showing good faith in doing so) , but I think that Fatah has to talk with Hamas, and yet again try to work towards peace for the sake of the people that live in Gaza. And eventually, when Israel and Palestine come up with a reasonable peace plan. Then Israel and Fatah/Hamas can try. It will be awful difficult with 3 parties so its better to say "that israel and hamas have to accept each other" and plz understand me why I say reasonable, giving up east Jerusalem and then not taking out the settlements from the west bank but building even more, and a highway which will separate the west bank and east Jerusalem is not a peace plan. So years later I sure don't want to hear, but we offered peace and they did not accept. The only plan will be west bank in full, east Jerusalem, and Gaza. As the whole world also agrees on this. Peace!

edit: many always think its Fatah and Hamas , the problem is that most of the rockets that go into Israel are from Islamic Jihad Group. Fatah could not control Gaza. And sadly Hamas is trying to control it too much. In Gaza there are at least 7 groups(only an estimate) someone plz tell me if I'm wrong. So the Palestinian people need to come up with some way to negotiate with Gaza first. It can't be left out. It would be a mess then. Allah o alam=God knows

Londoner in Israel: I agree with you, but also you have to understand that if Israel makes peace with Fatah alone. It's seen as favortism and then seen as , now Israel and USA want to do this and leave us out. And that will then bring more disruption in peoples lives. Its up to Fatah and Hamas to figure out these differences with outside help in the form of dialogue, in my opinion. But for sure , if Hamas is not included, it will bring more anger to the ME countries, therefore more disruption to Israel.

Spreez: plz look at a map: east Jeruselem , west bank , gaza, don't even make up half the land in Israel, up to you if you want to live in a war zone forever?

Londoner: its already been 60 years, dont worry! hehe( a pun) I don't think Fateh will accept east Jerusalem with the highway placed in the middle of the west bank and more settlements anyway. Its going to take a lot longer , just my opinion. Cheers!

edit at Tabatha: you keep saying that extremists do not accept Israel, but many Israelis including yourself(from what I see) don't accept Hamas. Its always 2 sided. Takes 2 to dance. It will take 2 to sit down in the end and accept. All wanted the Palestinians to have democatic elections. They listened and they did. Now because all don't like the result. And say well they are terrorists so there is no negotiations. Now the democracy has to be taken away? Plz understand what I'm saying , I mean if all were to accept Hamas, for ex. and include them. Maybe , just maybe, there would be a change? I mean for ex. if i say "Tabatha does not want peace , she only wants everything her own way, and won't listen to me. What happens? You don't want to deal with me right? If people continue to say that to hamas how will they want to deal with anyone?

I do understand you very well tabatha, but yes honestly i would try to make peace, like londoner in israel says: how many more years does this have to go on? i hear and feel he is tired. As I'm sure many many many that live in Israel , everyday have to hear about it on the radio, in talking, tv, bombing , it must be exhausting. And yes Tabatha I know how it feels, I was in lebanon last summer and had to be evacuated, i was in Kashmir for 3 years in war. I understand the feeling.

Answer 7

As I have always maintained, the key to extremism is to keep it SMALL and MARGINALIZED. The basic issue is that extremists amongst the Palestinian Arabs are neither small nor marginalized. Until those basic issues are addressed, no peace can come from any sort of talk.
What we see now is more of the same, no different that what has been going on since 1993.

Answer 8

I had the same question. But what do the Americans mean by peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Giving the Jewish land away to the Palestinians or most of it to them? That's not peace, that's called taking away land and bullying Israel. That's why it looks like there won't be peace, in my opinion. Israel doesn't have a partner in peace, but with God on their side, they will own Israel and other parts of the Middle East. That's what the prophecies say.

Answer 9

Well, if Israel and Fatah work towards peace, that would be great.
As for Hamas, I know they are giving stress to everybody and I am really afraid that they mess it up now but I also would like to say that there are Israeli people who also don't want peace. Maybe they don't go and bomb themselves with citizens but when it comes to having peaceful dialogues they refuse to show any willingness to make peace and you can see such samples here on yahoo answers.

Answer 10

Palestines (both groups) are ready to make peace with Israel. Question is , Is Israel ready to make peace? The only thing that they care about is about gaining there dream land until they mke there dream country!! They dont care if they are hurting people!!!