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 Amos Oz on Hamas: ‘Termination of the Israeli Occupation Is Urgent’Posted on Feb 1, 2006By Jon Wiener This column originally appeared at www.thenation.com Amos Oz is Israel’s leading novelist, a founder and the best-known voice of Peace Now. He is a bellwether for Israeli doves, for opponents of the occupation who favor Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and a negotiated two-state solution. In a recent conversation, he assessed the political and diplomatic implications of the Hamas electoral victory. Q: A week after your book How to Cure a Fanatic was published, Hamas won a historic victory in elections for the Palestinian parliament. Do you regard Hamas as an organization of fanatics? A: Fanatics are those people of any faith, color, persuasion or political belief who maintain that the end, whatever end, justifies all the means, including the bloody means. By this criterion I am afraid Hamas is a fanatic organization par excellence. Q: Did Palestinians vote for Hamas because they are fanatics? A: Not necessarily. As I read the situation, and as I hear from my Palestinian friends and colleagues, the prime reason for the Hamas victory is the alleged corruption of the Palestinian Authority and its leading movement, Fatah. Q: In your book you argue that fanaticism is not necessarily a permanent condition. You say that as a child you were “a brainwashed little fanatic all the way.” What made you a young fanatic, and what made you change? A: I grew up in a militant atmosphere in a painfully divided Jerusalem, in times of bitter conflict and rivalry. I grew up as a very enthusiastic one-sided Zionist. Over the course of the years, and through some personal experiences, I have discovered that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, like many other conflicts, has two sides, two perspectives, perhaps two logics. The moment you discover this kind of moral and political relativity, you are no longer a fanatic. Q: Over the past decade, part of the Palestinian movement moved away from what you call fanaticism toward what you call pragmatism. A: Not only part of the Palestinian movement--I believe the majority of the Palestinian people now have a pragmatic approach and a realistic attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A majority of the Palestinians--and a majority of the Israelis--know now that, at the end of the day, there is going to be a compromise, a sharing, a two-state solution. Are they happy about it? No. Will there be dancing in the streets once this solution is implemented? Certainly not. Do they regard it as just, or secure, or safe? Probably not. But they accept this as the only possible solution, as the bottom line. This is true of the Israeli Jews, and this is true of the Palestinian Arabs. Q: Is there evidence since the election of Hamas that a majority of Palestinians still favor a two-state solution? A: Public opinion surveys in Palestine week after week after week, for over three years now, including during the worst days of the violent intifada--those surveys show that a majority of Palestinians are prepared to live, unhappily, with a two-state solution. They don’t trust the Israelis, but they will accept it. By the same token, like a mirror image, the majority of Israelis will accept this solution, but don’t trust the Palestinians to accept and respect it. Q: The question of the day is whether Hamas will become more pragmatic. What signs do you see? A: We will have to wait and see. Right now I don’t want to give Hamas credit they don’t deserve. Right now it is a fanatic, fundamentalist movement that maintains in its charter, in its covenant and in its platform that Israel should be liquidated and that the Israelis should be removed from their country. Will they change? I don’t know. If they change, they will be accessible for doing business. Q: And if Hamas doesn’t change? A: If they don’t change, I think it would be wise for Israel to take the conflict upstairs, to neighboring Arab nations, perhaps to the Arab League, and talk about a solution that will then be presented to the Palestinian people in a referendum. Q: The Hamas platform in the recent elections did not highlight their position on the elimination of Israel or the endorsement of terrorist methods--their election platform focused on ending corruption, improving the job picture and social services and infrastructure. That seems, in your terms, pragmatic. A: The platform put a heavy stress on struggling against corruption. Nevertheless, it still mentions the liberation of what they call all of Palestine as the unshakable goal of the Palestinian national movement. They have not revised their basic attitude toward Israel as a mobile exhibition that should be removed from the area, or a kind of infection. Q: The description of fanatics in your new book obviously refers to Israelis as well as Palestinians. What is your estimate of the state of fanaticism on the Israeli political scene today? A: Israeli fanaticism and fundamentalism unfortunately are alive and kicking--on the far right, and in the ultra-religious segments of Israeli society. No society is immune to fanaticism and fundamentalism--not Israeli society, not American society and not Arab society. I have never gone for this simplistic dichotomy about a struggle between civilizations: east versus west, or Islam versus the rest of the world. I think the real struggle in the world arena, and probably for the rest of the twenty-first century, is the struggle between the fanatics and the rest of us. Q: Has the electoral victory of Hamas strengthened the fanatics inside Israel? A: Fanatics always play into each other’s hands. They always kindle the enthusiasm and zeal of their counterparts on the other side. Q: Let’s talk specifically about the Israeli political landscape. Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu has compared the electoral victory of Hamas to the electoral rise of Hitler. But opinion polls in Israel show no significant shift toward Likud since the Hamas victory. What should we make of that? A: Opinion polls today [January 30] show a very slight shift toward Likud and other far-right segments, but all in all there does not seem to be a landslide--yet. It is too early to say how Israeli public opinion really will digest and respond to the change in Palestine. Q: You criticized Ariel Sharon’s policy of unilateral disengagement from Gaza, arguing it would have been better to have a negotiated transfer of power that might have been the first step toward the end of the occupation. Many Jews in Israel and the United States are now saying the Hamas victory shows how prescient Sharon had been. Do you agree? A: A negotiated arrangement for Gaza would have been preferable to a unilateral withdrawal, but a unilateral withdrawal I regard as better than the previous status quo, the Israeli occupation of Gaza. I think Sharon would have been wiser to try to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority: Gaza first, in a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course, we will never know if this would have worked, if this would have prevented Hamas from winning the elections. All of this now belongs to the realm of what-ifs and of historical hypotheses. Q: It was argued in Ha’aretz recently that only Hamas can truly stop terror and only Hamas has the legitimacy to negotiate a settlement with the Israelis--that Hamas’s success in preserving a “lull” in terrorist attacks since November 2004 shows that it has power and legitimacy of a kind that the Fatah leadership lacked. I wonder if you agree that the legitimacy of Hamas gives it the capacity to negotiate peace? A: This may be the case--but what good does it do us as long as Hamas doesn’t change its basic positions? This is more or less like stating that Al Qaeda is the only group that can stop Al Qaeda terrorism. Of course Al Qaeda can stop Al Qaeda terrorism. But does it have the motivation to do so? Is it inclined to do so? Is it going to do so? Yes, Hamas may have the authority and capacity. But do they have the intention? We will have to put every possible pressure on Hamas to change its intention--Israeli pressure, American pressure, Arab pressure. Then the capacity and authority of Hamas will become very important. Q: Israel can make life a lot worse for the Palestinians under a Hamas government. Israel can also use its power to encourage the more pragmatic tendencies in Hamas. What kinds of Israeli occupation policies do you favor at this point? A: Personally, I don’t favor the occupation. Period. I think Israel would be advised to terminate the occupation through an agreement or a settlement that, if it can’t be made with the Palestinians at this moment, should be made with the member states of the Arab League. I believe termination of the Israeli occupation is urgent, and is in Israel’s best interests and can be implemented as a part of an Israel-Arab comprehensive agreement. Q: What role should the United States play in this process? A: The US should encourage moderation wherever it can, and in a nondogmatic way. Sometimes encouraging moderation may mean encouraging nondemocratic regimes. Sometimes encouraging moderation may mean encouraging regimes that are not rosy and wonderful. Encouraging moderation is not the same as installing democracy at gunpoint. Encouraging moderation means helping create and stabilize civil society, because there can be no real democracy where there is no civil society, and there can be no civil society in a place of extremism, fundamentalism, poverty and despair. Q: The title of your book, How to Cure a Fanatic, holds out the possibility of “curing” fanaticism--among both the Palestinians and the Israelis. A: The title should be taken with a grain of salt. I argue that fanaticism is a bad gene in the human DNA, and that no one among us is immune to a certain fanaticism. In the Israeli-Palestinian arena, I think we can contain fanaticism. We cannot cure it, but we can contain it--by strengthening the middle class, strengthening civil society, strengthening the secular, moderate and pragmatic segments of both the Palestinian and the Israeli societies.
Jon Wiener - Wiener@uci.edu - www.JonWiener.com SHARE THIS TRUTHDIG ARTICLE:
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Jump to Comments
By Sepharad, August 14, 2007 at 10:03 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
As one who in the past has agreed with almost everything Amos Oz says, the several comments responding to his pragmatic and just approach unfortunately prove that pragmatism and justice is definitely not on the Arab Palestinian agenda. The moderate Palestinians who want a two-state solution to the twice-promised land are going to have to openly reject and bring down their own fanatics—just as so many Israelis are fighting our own fanatics—if there is ever to be not just a two-state solution but an economically cooperating two-state solution. We can’t protect the Palestinians from each other; the ball is in their court. Shalom.
Report thisBy Tony N, February 5, 2006 at 1:03 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Shalom Salam, since you say you are a “peace activist”, perhaps you should read the two articles below, take a look at the Hamas flags flying next to Israel’s flags (links in next section), take a look at the Gush Shalom site, read that Israeli Uri Avnery spent 45 days huddled with Hamas activists in 1994, and then consider reviewing the validity of your beliefs.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0130-04.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0307-11.htm
As well, consider the fact that although Hamas harbored for 25 years the desire to “destroy” Israel, your country’s Zionist Jews have, for over 100 years, desired to destroy/prevent a Palestinian state and dissapear the Palestinian people through ethnic cleansing and other measures, since the late 19th century. One of the original Zionist slogans was “A Land Without People for A People Without Land” even though there were about half a million Palestinian Arabs living in Palestine at the end of the 19th century! Another difference between Hamas and ISrael is that the Israelis have taken far greater and more violent measures to implement their agenda of destruction than Hamas has. For example, since September 2000, while Hamas may have killed 400 Israelis (including soldiers and ilegal settler colonists), Israel has killed 700 to 800 Palestinian children alone.
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HAMAS FLAGS NEXT TO ISRAELI FLAGS IN PALESTINE
http://gush-shalom.org/pics/bilin-20-1-06/
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
________________
Amos Ozs Peace Now was the largest peace group in Israel. However, it is too tied to Israels Labor Party and its agenda.
Two other Israeli peace groups are:
- Gush Shalom, led by Uri Avnery, a journalist and founder of Gush Shalom, and who was a former Israel Knesset member and, before that, an Irgun terrorist
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
- The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, led by American Israeli Prof. Jeff Halper
http://www.icahd.org/eng/
According to Uri Avnery, founder of Gush shalom: The Israeli “peace camp” consists of two parts.
One, centered around “Peace Now,” is connected with the Labor party, which was a pillar of the government. The party chief served as Minister of Defense and was, therefore, responsible for all the iniquities committed in the Palestinian territories.
The other part of the peace camp consists of many radical groups, each active in its chosen sector. “Gush Shalom” is a political and ideological center. “Taayush,” an Arab-Jewish Israeli group, is aiding the besieged Palestinian population. “B’Tselem” collects and publishes data, as does the “Alternative Information Center.” “Physicians for Human Rights” does a wonderful job in the medical field, while the Women’s Coalition for Peace and Bat-Shalom combine human rights activities with a feminist agenda. “The Committee against House Demolition” initiates the rebuilding of homes destroyed by the army, and “Rabbis for Human Rights” is acting on behalf of the (unfortunately, tiny) religious community that does not follow the fanatical nationalist banner. “Machsom Watch” reports and tries to prevent abuses at the checkpoints. “Yesh Gvul” helps soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories. “New Profile” is active in the same area. The list is long. Activists of different groups frequently cooperate, and many belong to more than one.
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery1105.html
__________
Uri Avnery recalls: The experience was almost surrealistic: I was in a hall in the centre of Gaza, facing some 500 people, all of them bearded men, nearly all of them Hamas militants.
The Hamas movement officially opposes the very existence of the State of Israel, and here I stand on the podium speaking in Hebrew about peace between Israel and the future State of Palestine.
Did they protest? On the contrary, they applauded, and after the event I was invited to lunch with the respected sheikhs.
That was in 1994, and perhaps the background requires some explanation: a year before, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided to expel from the country 415 Islamic activists. The Chief-of-Staff, Ehud Barak, testified in court that this measure was absolutely essential for the security of the state. The Supreme Court confirmed the expulsion.
The (Palestinian Islamic) activists were taken by bus to the northern border, but the Beirut government did not allow them to be deported into Lebanon. For a whole year, the expellees vegetated in tents in an open field between the two armies, exposed to the rain and the cold in winter and to the burning sun in summer, until they were finally allowed to return.
I considered the expulsion a grievous violation of human rights, as well as politically foolish. So I proposed, in a “Peace Now” meeting, the setting up of a protest tent in front of the Prime Minister’s office. The leaders of Peace Now did not agree with protesting against an act of the Labor Party leader. But some other peace activists combined to set up the tent, together with leaders of the Arab community in Israel, both religious and secular.
We spent 45 days and nights together. Some days, snow was falling and the cold was bitter. Bedouins from the Negev and activists from Arab villages brought us food and coal-burners, women-activists from Jerusalem brought us a large kettle of warm soup every evening. Owing to our profound disappointment with Peace Now we decided there and then to found a new peace movement. That’s how Gush Shalom came into being.
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery06202005.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery11122003.html
_____________
Apparently the major Israeli peace groups and the Israeli Left are not ideological far from the political agenda of the Sharon camp in some respects. According to Gilad Atzmon: Israeli people tend to believe that they enjoy a politically diverse society with a real left¬right debate. Traditionally, left-wing thinking is identified with a struggle towards social and legal equality while right-wing politics is classed as the endeavors of the strong.
Funnily enough, when it comes to Israel such a distinction is not applicable. Zionism is all about being strong and Jewish. Palestinians (and cheap foreign labor) are somehow out of the game. The Israeli left doesn’t try to make them equal players and right-wing Zionists don’t even allow them in the pit. In practice, both the Israeli right and left have adopted Jabotinsky’s right-wing ‘Iron Wall’ philosophy which aims to build a power that ‘the native population cannot break through’ (Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘The Iron Wall ‘, 1923).
I assume the reason that Israelis fail to see that their society lacks any real debate between right and left is because they fail to differentiate between an ideological debate and a political one. While in practice there is no ideological difference between the Likud party and Israeli Labor, Israeli people still regard their political clash as an ideological debate. In the UK, by contrast, most people now understand that Tony Blair is a Tory leader in Labor disguise. British people are far more advanced than the Israelis in realizing the ideological context of their own political game. In Israel, only very few people grasp that differences between Peres and Sharon are nothing but marginal.
If this were not enough, even the left-wing Israeli organizations such as Peace Now, Women in Black and Gush Shalom, who fight courageously for Palestinian rights, support the unacceptable ‘two states solution’. Thinking about those ‘Israeli left’ movements in categorical terms reveals the devastating fact that their political agenda is not at all ideologically far from Sharon’s. As sad as it is to admit, there is no such thing as an ‘Israeli left’.
Report thishttp://www.counterpunch.org/atzmon08282003.html
By Shalom Salam, February 2, 2006 at 12:48 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
As an Israeli peace activist I see the major problem not in Hamas, but in the fact that the Palestinian people overwhelmingly elected a party that puts on its agenda the destruction of Israel. I always believed that the group that wants Israel’s destruction was a small minority. The Palestinian people proved me wrong. When Israel goes to peace, they elect to destroy it.
I lost interest in their suffering and trying to help them get a state of their own.
Report thisBy Fadel Abdallah, February 1, 2006 at 6:58 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What is not reported in the American media about the evils of the Bush Adminstration is that they tried to buy the Palestinian votes in favor of Fatah against Hamas in the latest Palestinian election. Five million dollars were given for that purpose, and Fatah members were offering two hundred dollars for each vote. Two hundred dollars for suffering Palestinians is a lot of money, yet in their integrity and national pride, Palestinians defeated evil anti-democratic schemes to buy their votes. Thus, the Palestinians, who are new commers to democracy, passed the democratic test with flying colors, while democracy braging Bush and gang have failed the test of democracy. Is there worse evil than this? And who is the real terrorist?Wake up America!
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