Israel "negotiates with terrorists"

article in antiwar.com

A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled “yes you can negotiate with terrorists” and many of my subscribers got a bit angry saying that I am “defending Hamas”.

But as it turns out, even Israel is now “negotiating with terrorists”, which is what they should have done from the beginning. Terrorists, as per the excellent work of Dr. Robert Pappe at the University of Chicago, are driven by the occupation of what they perceive to be their homelands. In practice they are nothing more than sophisticated gangsters. There is extensive literature on how the police has negotiated with gangsters in the past with the notable goal of disarming them, bringing them into a political structure and eventually causing their collapse.

Negotiations do not mean “endorsing Hamas”, it’s rather arguing for a strategic way to break them apart, because the bombing of Gaza and the subsequent death of 10 000 civilians, of whom half are children, will only recruit more members for Hamas. Israel would be far more successful if it brings Hamas into a political structure, move towards elections and endorse an aspect of realpolitik.

There is simply no way that Hamas, even if they win the election, can survive in a democratic system. As the history of many comparable groups elsewhere have shown, revolutionary movements are far too disorganised to achieve much in government. They either collapse or move through pragmatism.

Below are a few examples of countries that defeated terrorism through negotiations.

• Britain defeated domestic terrorism in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement. The IRA’s support collapsed once ordinary people had a better voice in the political process.

• South Africa defeated terrorism through the CODESA agreements and “the terrorist” turned out to be Nelson Mandela and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu. None of them were clean when the negotiation started.

• Peru defeated “terrorisms” by handing title deeds to the peasants so they would be deterred from joining the Shining Path Movement.

• Spain “defeated terrorism” by withdrawing its troops from Iraq and since then there hasn’t been an equivalent of the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

• France and Spain defeated the Basque terrorists groups by engaging in a peace talk that led to the Abertzale commiting to the peace process.

• Canada “defeated terrorism” by recognising the French language and enacting legislation that spoke to the social conditions that made the Front Libération du Quebec appealing. It’s worth quoting the French-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau reflection at the time, because his conclusion is similar to what many critics of the Israel-Palestine conflict have said in the past.

The government has pledged that it will introduce legislation which deals not only with the symptoms but with the social causes which often underlie or serve as an excuse for crime and disorder.