What No One Promised Them and Why Doesn’t the EU Shut Up?

According to Israeli analysts, the self-proclaimed Hamas cease fire (hudna) was the result of pressure from three sources: a) the declaration by President Bush that Hamas must be destroyed. (The last two times he said that, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Hamas didn’t want to be next); b) Israel’s policy of targeted assassination was affecting the mid-level of leadership – the guys who actually do the set up, recruiting and arming of suicide bombers; c) a (minor) revolt among the Palestinian people about the utility of their suffering.

According to Israeli analysts, the self-proclaimed Hamas cease fire (hudna) was the result of pressure from three sources: a) the declaration by President Bush that Hamas must be destroyed. (The last two times he said that, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Hamas didn’t want to be next); b) Israel’s policy of targeted assassination was affecting the mid-level of leadership – the guys who actually do the set up, recruiting and arming of suicide bombers; c) a (minor) revolt among the Palestinian people about the utility of their suffering. Hamas says the suffering they endure will bring victory, and then worsens that suffering by ensuring through violence that Israel can’t afford to let large numbers of them work in Israel; Abu Mazen says their suffering is in vain and only negotiations will bring victory (we won’t discuss the parameters of victory in either case).

Hamas felt itself under the gun, so to speak. It was always understood that the hudna was to regroup and reorganize. Note that it included a suicide bomb last night that killed an Israeli woman, and reports of Palestinians using the reopened Gaza road to reposition military supplies for later use. The hudna has utility for Israel only to the extent that it saves Israeli lives during its duration and that Israel, the U.S. and Abu Mazen (as far as he is willing or able) use the time wisely.

So the sudden focus on some nonexistent requirement that Israel release thousands of Palestinian prisoners as a sign of “good faith” or in compliance with sudden “demands” by Hamas that this is a requirement for continuing the hudna is a huge mistake. Hamas is in no position to make demands.

No one promised Hamas anything in exchange for slowing down the rate at which it blows up Jews – and no one should oblige them by considering their demands to have any relevance at all to the shaky process begun by Israel and Abu Mazen.

Here the interference of the EU has become intolerable. Claiming to have a role through the Road Map, the EU, apparently under pressure from France, has staked out two dreadful positions. First is the requirement that official EU visitors to Israel visit Arafat as well – Italy and Hungary were terrific on this; more about Hungary next time. Second is that Hamas is, by EU definition, a chicken. It has “wings”, one of which blows people up, but the other of which provides essential social services to deserving Palestinians and should be supported. Well, Hitler was elected once, and the Nazis did raise German employment figures, so maybe the occupation of France should have been overlooked in the name of providing social services to the German people.

If the goal of the Road Map is to produce a Palestinian Authority able to negotiate a secure modus vivendi with the legitimate, Jewish State of Israel, and thus able to stake a claim to the independence it rejected in 1948, and if the EU wants to be part of the program to make it happen, they have join the U.S. and Israel in writing off Arafat and Hamas. And so does Abu Mazen.