Lebanon

[Mark Giebels]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

On 7/17/06, Bart Meerdink <bm_web at kpnplanet.nl> wrote:
> Mijn oog viel ook op: "Norman Finkelstein & Former Israeli Foreign
> Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami Debate"

Prima debat. En dat Israels oud-minister van buitenlandse zaken - die
zelf overigens aan het eind van het debat zegt dat het lot van de
Palestijnen hem niet interesseert, hij zijn reet afveegt met het
internationaal recht, en hij martelen door Israel gedoogt  - dit zegt
over Hamas, toont wel aan hoe ver de EU de plank hebben misgeslagen de
afgelopen tijd:

"SHLOMO BEN-AMI: Yes, Hamas. I think that in my view there is almost
sort of poetic justice with this victory of Hamas. After all, what is
the reason for this nostalgia for Arafat and for the P.L.O.? Did they
run the affairs of the Palestinians in a clean way? You mentioned the
corruption, the inefficiency. Of course, Israel has contributed a lot
to the disintegration of the Palestinian system, no doubt about it,
but their leaders failed them. Their leaders betrayed them, and the
victory of Hamas is justice being made in many ways. So we cannot
preach democracy and then say that those who won are not accepted by
us. Either there is democracy or there is no democracy.

And with these people, I think they are much more pragmatic than is
normally perceived. In the 1990s, they invented the concept of a
temporary settlement with Israel. 1990s was the first time that Hamas
spoke about a temporary settlement with Israel. In 2003, they declared
unilaterally a truce, and the reason they declared the truce is this,
that with Arafat, whose the system of government was one of divide and
rule, they were discarded from the political system. Mahmoud Abbas has
integrated them into the political system, and this is what brought
them to the truce. They are interested in politicizing themselves, in
becoming a politic entity. And we need to try and see ways where we
can work with them.

Now, everybody says they need first to recognize the state of Israel
and end terrorism. Believe me, I would like them to do so today, but
they are not going to do that. They are eventually going to do that in
the future, but only as part of a quid pro quo, just as the P.L.O. did
it. The P.L.O., when Rabin came to negotiate with them, also didn't
recognize the state of Israel, and they engaged in all kind of nasty
practices. And therefore, we need to be much more realistic and
abandon worn-out cliches and see whether we can reach something with
these people. I believe that a long-term interim agreement between
Israel and Hamas, even if it is not directly negotiated between the
parties, but through a third party, is feasible and possible. "

Groeten,
Mark Giebels

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