May 12, 2006

By VIRGINIA TILLEY
www.counterpunch.com

To the great consternation of most of the world, the European Union, followed now by Norway and Canada, has halted payments to the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The stated reason is that Hamas has not recognized Israel’s “right to exist” or “renounced violence,” but the action so violates all common sense that its logic requires our closer scrutiny.

Let us first be clear: no conceivable good can come from this policy. It will slash the PA’s capacity to govern a shattered and desperate population. It will wreck the capacity of Hamas to mediate and contain tense factional divides. It could even demoralize and destroy the Palestinians’ long-standing commitment to democracy, ruining Palestinian political stability and therefore any possibility of peace negotiations. So why impose sanctions that can only result in dangerous disintegration of the political situation?

A certain withered diplomatic logic does underlie this measure. The PA itself was invented in 1995 to administer Oslo’s implicit two-state solution. Hamas’s refusal to recognize Israel’s “right to exist” would seem to negate the diplomatic agreement that established the terms of its own authority. Until it agrees to those terms, the international community might deem that Hamas has rendered the PA’s legitimacy uncertain.

Unfortunately for its proponents, this rationale has crashed on one glaring pitfall: the premise that Israel itself supports the terms of Oslo or the Road Map. Prime Minister Olmert has openly declared the “Road Map” a dead letter. His stated policy of “ingathering” settlers into the major West Bank settlement blocs is accepted by everyone as signaling Israel’s intent permanently to annex major portions of the West Bank. The advancing Wall and settlement construction are ample material evidence that this plan is Israel’s real program and is already half-achieved. No one disagrees that these developments signify permanent territorial dismemberment of any Palestinian “state.” No one disagrees that the terms of Oslo have vanished like the morning mist.

It must therefore be evident even to the EU, Norway, and Canada that Israel has negated the diplomatic agreement that established the terms of its recognition by the Palestinians. So why pretend that Israel has not openly cast onto the trash heap of history the very peace deal that these countries now insist Hamas endorse?

The first answer is too obvious to belabor: craven capitulation to US pressure. The entire international community has been cajoled or threatened into continuing lip service to the Road Map while standing by passively as the US and Israel render the Road Map obsolete. Diplomatic nonsense always requires some political or moralistic palliative, however. The cover story is that Hamas’s recognizing Israel’s “right to exist” and abandoning armed struggle will somehow restore the diplomatic conditions of the Road Map, trigger comprehensive Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank, and allow peace finally to break out. Let us take this argument step by step.

First, it is simply unbelievable. All agree that Israel’s withdrawal of major settlement blocs in the West Bank (especially, the major cities of Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, and Gush Etzion) is not foreseeable. The Israeli government itself has declared them permanent. No international actor or combination of actors has the political will and/or clout to change Israeli policy. Israel will not withdraw the major settlement blocs under any circumstances short of a national emergency. Hamas’s suddenly waxing nice will not constitute that emergency.

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