Helena Cobban alerts us to this significant article by Babak Dehghanpisheh in this week's Newsweek A Place for Mr. Meshaal, which reinforces what we all know, the need for Hamas at the table. The article includes some startling revelations that generally go unspoken in our mainstream media. Reflecting on the recent Newsweek interview with Meshaal, Dehghanpisheh asserts "Meshaal desperately wants a place at the table" and continues: (my bold)
“Even to suggest an opening to Hamas would blow every fuse in the Israeli political establishment,” says an administration official who asked not to be named discussing the politics of a U.S. ally. For that matter, Obama himself is facing enough domestic opposition without talking to terrorists.
“The blowback here would be extreme,” says Robert Malley, a former member of President Clinton’s Mideast peace team now at the International Crisis Group. Still, Meshaal sounds more moderate these days than he once did. Although he still calls for bigger concessions than Israel is likely to grant, they’re at least within the realm of rational discussion.
I reject the idea it is in anyone's best interest to isolate Hamas, certainly not the Palestinians. By far the strengthening of Palestinians into one unified voice will do more to move the process along than any one feature at this juncture in my opinion.
Nevertheless, Abbas is under heavy pressure from U.S. and Israeli officials to keep Hamas isolated. The Fatah leader is disinclined to argue with Washington: America has contributed more than $74 million to the Palestinian Authority this year alone—more than all Arab countries combined. But keeping Hamas isolated gives Meshaal’s group every reason to play the spoiler. Fatah on its own could never stop the violence. “It’s quite clear that no agreement regarding this conflict can be implemented without the participation of the main Palestinian forces,” says Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
I urge everyone to read the interview and Dehghanpisheh's article.
It’s not just that Abbas is under pressure, Abbas would annihilate Hamas himself, if he could. This is a personal feud with him.
A decent article with the usual obligatory one-sided statements and half-truths. This, for instance–
” The U.S. government lists Meshaal as a “specially designated global terrorist,” and his group’s rocket attacks against Israeli civilians in 2008 provoked an invasion that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. ”
Nothing about the blockade or the violence from the Israelis. It’s pathetic that an article which merely states the obvious but is still slanted in Israel’s favor in some ways is so much better than the norm. It doesn’t mention the fact that the US helped instigate the civil war between Hamas and the PA. It does contain criticism of Hama’s repression inside Gaza, which is fine. In mentioning the “war” which Hamas “provoked”, there is no moral blame laid on the Israelis for what they did.
This is as honest as the MSM ever gets and that’s not setting the bar very high.
perhaps you missed my meaning donald. i never meant to imply the article did not include rehashed propaganda. wrt/some startling revelations that generally go unspoken referenced the segments in bold.
as another of helena’s posts reminds us, ‘U.S. supports Taliban talks; Still opposing Hamas??’ it is not because we have some moral compunction against communicating w/ terrorists. it is because “Even to suggest an opening to Hamas would blow every fuse in the Israeli political establishment”. you know that, i know that we all know that, but i don’t recall that being said in the msm. the implication being we are pandering to israel’s bad temper.
“The blowback here would be extreme,”
which begs the question ‘what kind blowback?’ what’s israel gonna do if we talk to hamas? fire us? refuse our money? same goes for blowing the lid off the concept the lack of unification between palestinian factions is not a nurtured US/IS agenda which includes financial threats.
that’s all i meant. but i’m game, if you can point me to newsweek or time mag or even nyt indicating we’re not taking a stronger position against israel because there would be extreme blowback…. because they would freak out..by all means link to it.
I didn’t miss your meaning annie and I wasn’t accusing you of missing anything either–I’m sure you saw the weaknesses in the article just as quickly as I did. I’m in agreement that the article is significant while also being disgusted that it has to continue the tradition of telling half-truths about the conflict. It’s one reason it’s nearly impossible to have a serious discussion about the I/P conflict when even the best articles in the MSM (like this one) contain many of the standard misleading statements and reinforce misconceptions that people have. It’s one step forward and one step backwards at best when it comes to the MSM.
i get your meaning now donald. yes, of course there is always the obligatory terrorist narrative. i just appreciated those rare nuggets of plainspeak thrown in. as helena points out
Its an irony.
The same theme of “Israel is becoming isolated and irrelevant” applies to Hamas.
For dissent the theme of “Israel is becoming isolated” is reason for celebration.
For Israel, Washington, Ramallah, the theme of “Hamas is becoming isolated” is reason for celebration.
The hope is that as a result of pressure, the Israeli right (likud and Israel beitanhu) will moderate, and is occurring. And, the hope is that as a result of pressure, the Palestinian right (Hamas and Islamic Jihad) will moderate, and is occurring.
Still, none of them are yet moderate, but strategic, and hopefully they will experience some fundamental change, rather than incidental.
The same theme of “Israel is becoming ….. irrelevant”, we must be plugged into different channels. i don’t recall encountering this alleged ‘theme’. enough said.
The single state theme.
The theme that the effort to persuade Israelis to change attitudes is a waste of time.
That only external dissent and solidarity, “knows”.
Hamas has been walled in, isolated and treated by the most powerful national governments as irrelevant for a long time. This fact has caused much celebration. A few tiny cracks appear in the immense wall supporting Israel’s
super importance to the world, especially to the Western countries, and most especially to England, Canada, USA, and Australia, and Richard Witty thinks the themes are the same, smells irony. Talking to Witty on anything concerning Israel is like talking to a creationist wanting equal treatment in a class involving the science of evolution.
The article described pressures for Hamas to moderate, due largely to its failing credibility, as its militancy has failed to result in any improvement in Palestinian lives from really any criteria.
What I find amusing is that the only government that is conducting serious negotiations with Hamas is the Israeli government itself.
It is equally amusing to note that Hamas is the *only* Palestinian group with which the Israeli government is seriously negotiating.
You negotiate with your opponents not with your puppets, I suppose. At what level is Israel in negotiating contact with Hamas?
Fatah and Hamas were supposed to meet tomorrow in Damascus to sign (or negotiate) their reconciliation agreement. For reasons unclear (an Abbas-Assad feud is one suggested reason) Fatah asked Hamas to change the location of the meeting from Damascus to Beirut. Hamas refused. I don’t know who is to blame, but the reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah is still not near. This split certainly marks the difficulties that lie behind Israel’s inability to trust Abbas, but certainly the Netanyahu government is not anxious to have a real interlocutor with whom to negotiate.
Tariq Alhomayed reports:
“The reason behind Fatah’s request that the location of this meeting be changed from Damascus to somewhere else was what was revealed by Asharq Al-Awsat a few days ago, namely that a heated argument took place between the Palestinian and Syrian delegations, at the highest levels at the Arab Summit in Sirte. As a result of this, Fatah has decided not to continue inter-Palestinian dialogue in Damascus, and called for its meeting with Hamas to take place in Beirut instead”.
AFP reports that the heated argument was between the leaders themselves:
“Arabic press reports said that the Fatah request followed a row between Abbas and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at an Arab summit in Libya earlier this month over policy towards peace talks with Israel(..)”.
Very interesting – in itself suggesting that Abbas’ return to the pseud-negotations is only a matter of a short time.
suggesting that Abbas’ return to the pseud-negotations is only a matter of a short time
how did you come to this determination?
Did anybody see this?
link to cbsnews.com
Oops, you did. Sorry. ::blush::
Yes! There were a couple of good article on the 60 Minutes piece afew days ago.
First this:
‘‘60 Minutes’ marks the end of the two-state solution’
link to mondoweiss.net
Then this:
‘Lesley Stahl and the 7 pillars of conventional wisdom’
link to mondoweiss.net
And on a side note I just worked out Leslie Stahl, who did the current interview, is the same journalist that famously asked Madeline Albright if she thought the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s from US-led sanctions was worth it:
link to youtube.com