More Rungs On Jacob's Ladder

Even in the digital age, a group of pilgrims in Israel and the West Bank is likely to end up feeling set apart from the world – hermeneutically sealed, you might say. Are those Crusader or Byzantine ruins atop Mt. Tabor in Galilee, or a combination of both (which is usually the right answer)? The cassocked monk who just brushed by us in Jerusalem's old city -- Armenian or Greek Orthodox? Does any of Queen Helena's 4th century building remain in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (yes, or so we were told; the center arch in the photo above)?

It's not that we didn't go on-line. But when we visited Wikipedia, it was to learn more about the history of the Freres Blanc, custodians of St. Anne’s Church and the pools of Bethesda, and to try to figure out which of the eight purported sites of the biblical Emmaus we had actually visited on Saturday morning.

We weren’t totally hermetic in our coenobiticality. News of pastoral crises quickly reached us – two friends’ unplanned hospital visits, another’s home being threatened by fire in Colorado Springs. We also heard in real time about the political firestorm sparked by the Supreme Court's health care opinion. But what I didn't learn until we were en route to LAX (and I opened the new issue of the Economist that had materialized on my Kindle) was that the walls bordering one of the sites we visited last week in Nablus on the West Bank, Jacob’s Well, had recently been shot up, the result of internecine Palestinian tensions.

The incident notwithstanding, I'm glad we didn't skip our Jacob's Well stop, which proved to be a favorite for several of our St. John's pilgrims. Because of Palestinian Authority reforms and improving economic conditions, the West Bank has been peaceful for the last few years. When there is talk these days of a third intifada, or popular uprising, it's about the chances of an armed struggle within the Palestinian movement between Fatah, which is working constructively with Israel, and Hamas, still officially dedicated to Israel's demise:

“There is no political horizon,” say disgruntled Palestinians. They increasingly question the point of the PA. It has failed to usher in a Palestinian state, and appears powerless to prevent Israeli military incursions or the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. “All the windows are closed, and the political elite has no keys to open them,” says Raid Nairat, an academic. The West Bank’s 30,000 security forces seem unkeen on a recent quest for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas that would force them to share power. Their recent round-up of 150 Hamas men helped dampen hopes of a deal.

So there are some more roadblocks on the peace highway, more rungs on Jacob's ladder. It's hard to imagine Fatah and Hamas sharing power (until their goals converge), Israel making a deal with just Fatah (since it would reasonably assume that Hamas would undermine it), and Israel making a deal with a united Fatah and Hamas (unless Hamas permanently renounces jihad against Israel). A Palestinian civil war might actually be welcomed by those who think it would take the pressure off Israel to make peace. Better to hope that Hamas will be pulled to the center by its ongoing nation-building work in Gaza and the election of a Muslim Brotherhood president in Egypt who is fully committed to the peace process.

From Bombs To Potholes

At the National Interest, published by the former Nixon Center, Paul Pillar writes that it's time for Israel and the U.S. to reconsider its refusal to talk to Hamas, now preoccupied with the mundane responsibilities of a ruling party:

The Israeli posture and, in lockstep with it, the American posture toward Hamas are stuck in an unhelpful time warp. It is a posture that simply applies the label “terrorist” to the group and assumes that an unchanging refusal to have anything to do with it is the only appropriate implication. A label is no substitute for a policy or for a strategy. And in this case, it is no substitute for understanding the current character and objectives of Hamas, which are not captured by the label.

Diplomatic Brotherhood

Egypt's incoming rulers, the Muslim Brotherhood, are readjusting their relationship with the two major Palestinian parties, David Kirkpatrick reports:

Brotherhood officials say that they are pulling back from their previous embrace of Hamas and its commitment to armed struggle against Israel in order to open new channels of communications with Fatah, which the Brotherhood had previously denounced for collaborating with Israel and accused of selling out the Palestinian cause. Brotherhood leaders argue that if they persuade the Palestinians to work together with a newly assertive Egypt, they will have far more success forcing Israel to bargain in earnest over the terms of statehood.

Hamas Mess

Palestinian splinter group splinters over unity deal.

The Peril Of Palestinian Unity

As Fatah and Hamas edge toward a unity government, Ethan Bonner writes, they push creation of a state of Palestine further down the road. Israel and the U.S. don't trust Hamas, and they must be assuming that before long the Islamist party will dominate the Palestinian National Authority. One expert puts it in a regional context:

“The Arab awakening is witnessing the rise of a reformist political Islam in Egypt and Tunisia, and I believe we will see that Hamas is no exception,” asserted Mahdi Abdul Hadi, chairman of Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem. “Western governments are dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and it is only a matter of time before they will meet with Hamas as well.”

A peace deal between Fatah and Israel would've been shaky, since Hamas would have undermined it. It will be better for Palestinians if their leadership speaks with one voice. That's the good news. The bad news is that Israel will build more West Bank settlements, further eroding the integrity of a future Palestinian state, while it and the U.S. wait for Hamas to earn a place at the negotiating table by renouncing violence and recognizing, at least for the record, Israel's right to exist as a Jewish nation. In turn, Israel's hard line will diminish the likelihood that Hamas will make such concessions, enabling even more time for more settlements. So the paradox is that while factional unity might help Palestinians in the long run, it looks like the death knell for the state of Palestine.

Sacrificing One Peace For Another

As Fatah and Hamas make nice, will the Palestinians' prospective new prime minister, PNA President Mammoud Abbas, have to step even further back from negotiations with Israel to placate hardliners? The Jerusalem Post:

[S]ome Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip voiced opposition to the deal, especially the appointment of Abbas as prime minister.

“It was Hamas that won the election [in 2006] and not Mahmoud Abbas,” said a Hamas legislator who asked not to be identified. “Many people in Hamas are not happy with this agreement.”

Another Hamas legislator, Ismail Ashqar, criticized the Qatari-sponsored pact, saying it “violated the Palestinian Authority Basic Law and bypassed the Palestinian Legislative Council.”

Ashqar said the ball was now in the court of Abbas who, he added, would have to stop the negotiations and security coordination with Israel to ensure the success of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

More Hamas

Karl Vick writes that the competing Palestinian movements have had little choice but to make friends with each other. Too bad the unity sounds more Hamas than Fatah:

When crowds in Tahrir Square toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the Palestinian faction led by [Mahmoud] Abbas lost its main patron. Mubarak strongly favored Abbas’ secular Fatah party, and as an enemy of political Islam kept a tight rein on Hamas activists in the adjacent Gaza Strip, which they governed since kicking Fatah out in 2007. Then the Arab uprisings cost Hamas a vital ally: Until recently, [Hamas leader Khaled Meshal] lived in Damascus, but Hamas is moving its headquarters out of Syria rather than side with President Bashar Assad against his population. Analysts in Gaza say Iran last year slowed or even stopped its subsidies to Hamas as punishment for not backing Assad. Bottom line: both factions lost their main state supporters just as their own people pried themselves from Arab satellite news to insist that they be heard, too.

What Palestinians demanded was that Fatah and Hamas bury their differences and form a united front against the Israeli occupation. This the factions promptly agreed to do, in a series of meetings held – not by accident – in Egypt. The new government emerging in Cairo may be dominated by Islamists, but it has pushed both sides to make up and adopt the non-violent strategy against Israel, complete with negotiations.

Just Say Yes

For a moment, imagine if Palestinians said yes to the creation of Palestine. An utterly naive proposition, I know. But instead of insisting on the chimera of “1967 borders with land swaps,” imagine if Palestinian negotiators in Amman provisionally accepted Israel's latest reported territorial offer, with the security wall essentially defining the international border and all West Bank settlements persisting as part of Israel. Many believe Israel must withdraw west of the 1967 green line, but let's assume that it won't and no one can make it do so. The concession would cost Palestine the equivalent of two-thirds of Anaheim’s land mass. If you find authorities who say it would actually be two Dearborns, the advantages of immediate statehood would be the same. What should matter is if Palestinians get enough land to run a country, settlements and all. A slightly smaller Palestine now would be infinitely better for its people and the region than a larger one in five or ten years or never.

Myriad issues would remain -- settlement security, water rights, transportation, and border crossing rights for Palestine’s citizens. If Israel balked at the PNA’s bold move, we would see which side was the stumbling block once and for all. If not, we may hope that in return Israel would stop building settlements and promise post-statehood talks on the status of Jerusalem, where Israel has the stronger claim (notwithstanding the likely presence on the holy mountain of pre-Davidic indigenous peoples). Israel thrived with its capital in Tel Aviv. For the time being, the Palestinians ought to be able to do so in historic Ramallah.

I understand President Abbas and Fatah would run afoul of their Islamist cousins, Hamas, by abandoning the green line and immediate access to a Jerusalem capital. The Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal, plans to step down soon, some say because he has his eye on a bigger job. Would that be Abbas's? In Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu has to worry about his obstructionists, too.

But it's not just extremists who are delaying peace. Significant swathes of both populations aren’t sure they want two permanent states. Israel expresses its ambivalence, its resentment over having to cede land to Arabs and fear of what will happen to its security if it does, by continuing to build settlements on occupied territory. Palestinians expressed theirs by spurning prior Israeli concessions and letting the Obama peace initiative fizzle over the secondary issue of settlement construction. Many Palestinians, perhaps a majority, still don't believe Israel has a right to exist, and they may be thinking that someday soon, it won’t. Watching events in Egypt, they may expect that the Arab spring will give way to a winter gale of Islamist hostility toward Israel. Until the Amman talks, to increase the external pressure on Israel, Abbas had been focusing not on negotiations but UN recognition. Many Palestinians who do favor two states believe a demographic reunification of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs will eventually put an end to the Jewish nation.

Which is why a security wall state, or any other breakthrough anytime soon, is a fantasy. Palestinians and their advocates find it more advantageous to invoke the international consensus against the occupation, proclaim the illegality of settlements, and continue to make comparisons to apartheid (prevalent in the Arab, Muslim, and haredim worlds against women but not in Israel against Arabs). Israel and her friends prefer to talk about the Palestinians as an invented people who are Jordan's problem, remind critics that Israel won the West Bank in a war provoked if not started by Arabs, and reliably promise that it would win the next one against any nation or group that dislikes its negotiating tactics. But none of the maps and legends, the endless game of historical, geographical, rhetorical tit for tat, would matter if both sides were fully committed to having two permanent states – because if they were, the states would probably exist.

Palestine? N.I.M.K.

As Jordan prepares to host the first talks between Israel and Palestinians in over a year, Ethan Bronner outlines the kingdom's aims and stakes:

King Abdullah is...eager to send a message to Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs the Gaza Strip, that despite the rise of Islamism in the region, the Palestinian Authority remains, in his view, the leader of the Palestinians. Mr. Abbas has started talks for a unity government with Hamas, but they are proceeding slowly.

The king also has a very specific interest in a moderate Palestinian state being established in the West Bank and Gaza — he has tensions with Islamists in his own country and in addition, he does not want to encourage any thoughts of a Palestinian state being established in Jordan instead, as some on the Israeli right advocate. More than half of the inhabitants of Jordan are Palestinian.

Jordan and Israel share a common interest in focusing Palestinian nationalism on the West Bank and Gaza to prevent its being focused on either of their states. Mr. Netanyahu and his aides say they also worry that any Palestinian state in the West Bank would ultimately be overrun by Islamists.

The Israel Paradigm

On Dec. 21, Terry Gross's "Fresh Air" featured an interview (podcast available here) with Anthony Shadid of the New York Times, who has covered the uprisings in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world and was held prisoner by Qaddafi's forces in Libya. His accounts of getting in and out of Syria and the terrifying incident in Libya, where his driver was killed, are riveting. He spoke movingly about watching history unfold in Tahrir Square and throughout the region:

I think when you look across the Arab world, absolutely, but even elsewhere, this idea of old kind of paradigms coming to an end and that people are searching for something that can represent them better, that's more meaningful to their lives, that somehow maybe transcends these older institutions that have held sway over so many places for so long - interestingly, I mean just as a kind of footnote here, or even, you know, a side note here, is that you often hear this from Islamists. When I was talking to Rashid al-Ghannushi, a very prominent Tunisian Islamist leader, he made the very same point to me, that what he was seeing going on with Occupy Wall Street, with the Arab Spring, was that, you know, people were looking for ideologies that were different. Of course he was volunteering his ideology as a replacement, but I think that sense of things coming to an end is very powerfully felt in a lot of places right now.

Here's the challenge, as Shadid sees it:

Are these new systems of politics that emerged in, say, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, you know, Bahrain, Yemen, any of those countries, are they going to revolve around this access of citizenship, or are these societies going to divide along, you know, I think more kind of basic notions of sect or ethnicity or other notions of identity that feel very exclusive?

Although it wasn't mentioned in the 40-minute interview, Arabs actually don't have to look far for inspiration. Israel is multiethnic and democratic. While it's a majority Jewish state, Arab citizens, whether Muslim or Christian, worship as they choose, vote, and own property, as do women. It has a strong secular sensibility. Some 10,000 demonstrators took to the streets this week to protest plans by Israel's ultra-orthodox minority, the haredim, to subjugate women. The more that emerging Arab polities resemble Israel, enabling freedoms that have been scarce or nonexistent in Arab countries so far, the better off their people, and especially their women, will be. As for Palestinians living under occupation on the West Bank, they're the least free in Israel but still among the freest in the region. They'll be worse off if an independent Palestine follows the old Arab paradigm instead the new Israeli one. Here's hoping that as Fatah and Hamas grow closer, the Palestinian movement doesn't lose its taste for democracy and gender equity.

Being viewed with distaste by its neighbors and relegated to the global doghouse for dragging its feet on Palestine doesn't make Israel in particular or democratic values in general less worthy models. On the contrary, it's a helpful lesson for democrats in training. We may feel that Benyamin Netanyahu's hardline policies are wrong and that the wisest step for Israel in the wake of the Arab spring would be to set up a Palestinian state as quickly as possible. That Israel's elected government doesn't agree is a reminder that while despots, to whom we hope Arab nations are saying goodbye forever, don't have to listen to their people, elected leaders do.

Hamas On The Horizon

Even if Israel refuses to deal with Hamas, the U.S. should be open to the possibility, Paul Pillar writes at "The National Interest":

As the United States confronts any Israeli foolishness, whether long-term or short-term, it needs to overcome not only the business about Hamas recognizing Israel but also understandable queasiness about dealing with a group that has the blood of innocents on its hands. Two observations are pertinent to this. One is that we have been through this all before, not only in other conflicts such as Northern Ireland but also in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself, with the acceptance of the PLO as a legitimate interlocutor at the start of the Oslo process. The other observation is that if one is to follow the “once a terrorist, always a terrorist” posture that is so often taken toward Hamas, then the United States ought not to have any dealings with Likud, some of whose earlier leaders—notably Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir—had also been heavily involved in the killing of innocents through terrorism.

With Influence Comes Responsibility

David D. Kirkpatrick, writing in the New York Times about Egypt's assertive regional moves: Bringing Fatah and Hamas together, promising to end the Gaza blockade, and improving relations with Iran:

Egyptian officials, emboldened by the revolution and with an eye on coming elections, say that they are moving toward policies that more accurately reflect public opinion. In the process they are seeking to reclaim the influence over the region that waned as their country became a predictable ally of Washington and the Israelis in the years since the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

"Say Goodbye To Palestine"

Martin Peretz says the upheavals in the Arab world and the pact between Fatah and Hamas have doomed the peace process:

There are no subtleties to the political and religious aims of the people who now govern Gaza. It is a febrile Islamist movement, allied with Iran and with Syria. It has murdered many more Arabs than it has killed Israelis—but not for wont of trying. A Fatah spokesman has assured the Palestinian masses that Salam Fayyad will not be a member of the interim government that should emerge from this pact. If you are hopeful about peace you are crazy. Barack Obama has thus far said nothing. It is very hard to comment when, day after day, one illusion after another, one delusion after another crumbles in the sands.

Say goodbye to Palestine. At least for the foreseeable future. And even if the General Assembly recognizes the fable for a fact.

Peace Amid Chaos?

As the "Economist" sees it, the Arab revolution of 2011 has increased the chances of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. First, it redeemed Hamas, since Egypt's new leaders no longer oppose it because of its links to the now-respectable Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt just brokered the deal between Hamas and Fatah. Now the speculation: Hamas may join Fatah in endorsing the two-state solution, increasing pressure on Israel to make peace. Still hanging fire: Israel's security in a more volatile and perhaps hostile region.

Salam Dunked

Twinned with the stunning announcement of a Fatah-Hamas unity pact is the troubling news that the able Palestinian prime minister who put the West Bank on the road to statehood is no longer welcome in office:

The deal brings with it the risk of alienating the Western support that the Palestinian Authority has enjoyed. Azzam al-Ahmad, the Fatah negotiator, said that Salam Fayyad, the prime minister in the West Bank who is despised by Hamas, would not be part of the interim government. It is partly because of Mr. Fayyad, and the trust he inspires in Washington, that hundreds of millions of dollars are provided annually to the Palestinian Authority by Congress. Without that aid, the Palestinian Authority would face great difficulties.

The announcement was sure to fuel a debate on whether Mr. Netanyahu had done enough in his two years in power to forge a deal with the Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas and Mr. Fayyad, widely considered the most moderate leaders the Palestinians have ever had.

It's Sleazy Being Green

Did Hamas bomb Jerusalem to distract attention from its own thuggery against fellow Palestinians?

Phobias In Yorba Linda

Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj is a former member of the Nation of Islam who later became a Sunni Muslim. In 1991, he was the first Muslim to offer an opening prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives. A U.S. attorney identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, though he denies any involvement. Amir Abdel Malik Ali (shown below) is an Oakland imam who also cut his teeth in the Nation of Islam and appears regularly on college campuses to denounce Israel and profess his admiration for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Not guys you'd expect to find giving speeches at an event in Richard Nixon's birthplace town. Yet both were guests this evening at the Yorba Linda Community Center at a meeting organized by the Islamic Circle of of North America (more information here). The $25 per person event was advertised as a fundraiser for ICNA's charitable work, but several hundred protesters who came to Yorba Linda from around southern California weren't buying. A conservative activist interviewed on the local ABC affiliate said that while she thought a few guests might have been under the impression that the event had innocent purposes, she didn't think it was a coincidence that the Muslims had come "to conservative Yorba Linda on a quiet Sunday night to make trouble." Said another protester, "It's not right for terrorism to come to Yorba Linda."

Five years ago, protesters would've been looking back to Sept. 11. But there's something more going on. Trolling various web sites, you get the impression that a significant number of people have come to believe that Islam is waging a secret war to establish Sharia in the United States. If it were, then Wahhaji and especially Malik Ali, with his noxious views, wouldn't be doing the conspiracy much good. Nor is the puny rate of population growth among American Muslims. Anyone who promotes violence deserves to be spurned and scorned. But it seems to me that imagining, fearing, and actually devoting energy to preventing a Muslim takeover of the U.S. are historic wastes of time -- or worse, if they result in policies, legislation, and messages that target or scapegoat Muslims.

Egyptian-American journalist and filmmaker Jehan Harney has a good blog on Islamophobia in the media and politics. On Feb. 10, the ICNA issued a press release saying its Yorba Linda event was being targeted by Islamophobes, which brings the name-calling full circle, since Malik Ali is accused of antisemitism thanks to his bloodcurdling criticisms of Israel. The Middle East is enough of a muddle without the dimension of angry stateside pontification from either side of the equation. Yet the ICNA charge of Islamophobia in Yorba Linda would seem to have some merit based on signs I saw at the demonstration along Imperial Highway, though they went unmentioned by both ABC and this Orange County Register report: "Jesus Is The Only Way To Salvation" and "Send Islam To Hell." These messages were aimed not at two radicals but the heart of a whole faith.

"Fifteen Years, Hamas"

The other day outside Jerusalem's Old City, an Arab man (not one of these guys) came up to one of our St. John's pilgrims and said in a voice that was neither friendly nor threatening, "Fifteen years, Hamas."

I've added the comma, of course. What do you think it means?

Hamas was founded in 1987, so he could've been jumping the gun on "Happy Birthday." Or he could've been announcing how long he'd been a member of the radical Islamist movement that now controls Gaza, but why would my fellow pilgrim care?

Perhaps it's evidence that the man in the east Jerusalem street is as mindful of demographic trends as western observers. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, by 2025 its population will be only 70% Jewish, compared with 78% in 2000. Looking a little further ahead, another study predicts that by 2040, 78% of Israeli schoolchildren will be either offspring of ultra-Orthodox Jews (most of whom don't believe that Israel should have statehood before the messiah comes) or Arabs (many of whom are and may remain ambivalent about a Jewish state). Whether or not Hamas comes to dominate a future Palestine, as some predict, one could easily see how Israel could be squeezed in a massive population pincer movement.

Our earnest prognosticator may simply have been saying that Hamas will supplant the more moderate Fatah as rulers of a united Palestine. Or my friend may have been hearing a prediction that as early as 2026, by virtue of peaceful diplomacy and implacable demographics, Israel will be swallowed by an Islamist Palestine.

Rickety Center Stage

Amid clashes in Jerusalem as the expiration date nears of Israel's partial moratorium on new West Bank settlements, Israel makes a deft point about the Palestinians' threat to pull out of the talks unless the moratorium is extended:

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded that such talk is evidence of Palestinian insincerity. It has said that the moratorium was a gesture aimed at making it easier for the Palestinians to enter direct talks. Since they waited nine months before taking advantage of it, walking out on the talks now would prove that they were not serious about peace.

The PNA could (and, I'm sure, does) respond that continuing to build homes for Israelis on land that everyone agrees will be part of Palestine is evidence that that Israel isn't serious about peace.

And yet the seriousness and good will of these leaders don't really seem to be the issue. Their political survival is. Netanyahu has to recommence some construction to mollify his right-wing coalition partners, while President Abbas has to make some progress on stopping construction if he is to hold Hamas at bay. Has the responsible center ever been more lonely or vital?

Hamassed On The High Ground

If there's ample reason to be pessimistic about Middle East peace, Yossi Klein Halevi reports in the LA Times, there's also the unifying effect of having common enemies:

The most acute danger facing both Israel and the Palestinian Authority is radical Islam. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rightly regards a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to the Jewish state. And if Israel launches a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities — a real possibility should international sanctions against Tehran fail — it will need the support of its friends. Progress on the Palestinian front could ease Israeli diplomatic and military isolation.

As for [PNA President] Abbas, he is engaged in a life-and-death power struggle with Iran's ally, Hamas. That is why he approved an unprecedented level of cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.