‘Problem is not Hamas charter: Israel does not recognise Palestine’
Tariq Suleman is a PhD candidate at SOAS, London. He is researching on: How Imperial Construction and Management of Difference and Ensuing Communitarian Politics Produced the Rationale of Partition in late-colonial India and Mandate Palestine. In an interview with Viewpoint he discusses various myths about Israel-Palestine conflicts that sections of Pakistan media and certain pro-Israeli circles have peddled in recent weeks. Read on:
How true is the impression that had Hamas not fired rockets at Israel, Gaza would not have been attacked?
Israel’s assault on Gaza, was not triggered by Hamas’ rockets directed at Israel but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honouring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy.It goes right back to the announcement of a Palestinian unity government. The Netanyahu government immediately broke off all contacts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and insisted that President Abbas abandon Hamas.
The events of June 12th this year, when three Israeli boys were kidnapped in the West Bank and subsequently found dead on June 30th gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the opportunity to immediately blame Hamas for the kidnapping, which Hamas denied. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas maintained that there was no evidence that Hamas was behind the kidnapping. An Israeli police spokesperson later admitted the Hamas leader had no knowledge of the kidnappings, that they did not occur on the orders of Hamas leadership and that the crime was the action of a ‘lone cell’.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched operation ‘Brother's Keeper’ in search of the three kidnapped boys, knowing very well that all of them had been killed the day they were kidnapped. As part of the operation, Israel arrested around 422 Palestinians, including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders. Fifty-six of those arrested were the prisoners released during the Shalit deal and were sent back to prison for violating the terms of their release by returning to terrorism. Five Palestinians youth were killed during the military operation. HananAshrawi called it ‘a reign of terror directed against a captive Palestinian population’.
The IDF believed it dealt a significant blow to Hamas’ political, military and civil infrastructure in the West Bank by targeting Hamas’ ‘Dawa’ network, a social-welfare system. The IDF also confiscated around 1.2 million NIS, severely curtailing Hamas’ financial viability and its ability to operate in the West Bank.
In the meantime, tensions were constantly mounting on the Gaza front as Hamas increased the amount of rocket attacks on southern Israel. The Israeli aerial strikes in response to these rocket attacks ultimately led to war on Gaza. ‘Operation Protective Edge’, was formally launched on July 8, 2014.
One can still say that if Hamas had not kept firing rockets at Israel, which by the way caused not a single injury on the Israeli side at that point in time, the Israeli attack on Gaza, already under way, would not have escalated to the full scale war with such devastation. But again, if Israel, equipped with the Iron Dome defensive system, had kept its air strikes proportionate to the threat posed by Hamas’ rockets and had not decided to collectively punish the Gaza residents, this human catastrophe could have been avoided.
Israel began by responding to ‘Hamas rockets’ but later on shifted its war aim. Afterwards, one of its goals was/is to eliminate the tunnel network. How do you view this focus on the tunnel-network to attack Gaza, if one goes by Israeli narratives?
That is very true. There has never been a consistent war aim Israeli cabinet could present. The initial war aim was to obtain complete quiet: stop Hamas from launching rockets in Israel and to degrade Hamas’ capability to launch rockets.Then came the demilitarization of Gaza but immediately the focus shifted to complete destruction of the approximately 31 tunnels Hamas has constructed within last two or so years. Israeli intelligence says that Israel knew that Hamas dug up some tunnels but did not know the extent of its sophistication and elaborate design. This came as a shock to Israeli defence establishment.Hamas did manage to surprise Israel with its rocket technology. Since 2012, Hamas seems to have acquired rocket technology capable of reaching almost every corner of Israel with its rockets range increasing to almost 160 km.
If we take into accountall the war technologies Hamas possesses the tunnels were probably the most lethal for the IDF. In 2006, Hamas successfully kidnapped Gilad Shalit and killed two soldiers using one such tunnel. Israeli intelligence was aware of the existence of these tunnels but they were surprised by their sheer scale and sophistication. The Iron Dome is considered to be a very effective defence against the rockets launched on Israel but they do not have a remedy for the tunnels just yet. Israel is now planning to dig a separation wall deep in the ground around Gaza so that Hamas cannot dig any more tunnels into Israeli territory.
Israel struggled to locate and destroy Hamas' arsenal because Hamas concealed its weapons caches in the extensive underground network of tunnels and bunkers they built. In addition to hiding rockets, tunnels are being used to sneak militants into Israel. Approximately16 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hamas militants who entered Israel through a tunnel from Gaza. Israel shifted its main focus onto the elimination of the the tunnels used to infiltrate militants into Israel right after the ground offensive. The rockets have never been a real threat since many are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defensive system that protects populous areas.
Hamas has long used tunnels for smuggling weapons and supplies into Gaza, but the extensive use of tunnels for infiltration and storing weapons is a novel strategy devised by Hamas in its struggle against Israel. Hamas’ underground strategy is actually a response to Israel's effective surveillance and successful targeting from the air. Hamas knew that everything they were doing above ground was being tracked by the IDF. Going underground was the most logical outcome.
According to Israeli forces Hamas built approximately 31 tunnels for infiltration, or at least 31 tunnels which have now been destroyed were discovered by the IDF. ‘Everything is concealed,’ Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, IDF's spokesperson said. ‘Everything is taking place below ground. That is a challenge’.
There is a narrative gaining popularity in sections of the liberal Pakistanis that it is always Arabs attacking Israel while Israel has always reacted to aggression. How valid is this assertion?
The Israeli propaganda machine is very sophisticated. After all it has been an Israeli narrative: David against Goliath, the few against many. The Israeli state defines its domestic and foreign policy around its highly exaggerated security fear that Israel faces constant real or imagined threats to its very existence from hostile neighbouring Arabs. Today Israel is a regional military supper power and faces no threat to its existence what so ever. Hamas with its primitive technology poses no real threat to Israel’s existence, at least not militarily.
In order to understand the sense of insecurity possessed by Israel we need to understand its settler colonial character. Israel imposed its existence on top of an existing Palestinian society and not side-by-side as it was claimed. The state of Israel was established after dispossessing almost three quarters of the Palestinians who were already living there.
Israel was allocated 55% of Mandate Palestine by United Nations resolution 181 in November 1947. By the time the civil war and an invasion by the ragtag, ill-equipped and poorly trained armies of neighbouring Arab states ended, Israel was in possession of around 78% of Palestine.
Now in order to maintain the occupation of the land it occupied in 1967, Israel keeps shouting that it is under existential threat and its 1967 borders are indefensible. So far, for reasons emanating from an imagined threat posed by Arabs, Israel requires all the land west of the Jordan River to provide it with a security depth.
Arabs were not a real fighting force when they invaded the newly declared state of Israel in 1948 and since then there has not been any attacks from Arabs save 1973. But a caveat is in place here. After Anwar Sadaat came to power in Egypt, he conveyed the message to Israel that he wanted peace and was ready to go alone, but the Israelis did not respond. Sadaat had a limited war aim - to use war as a medium to sue for peace. He convinced Syria to join him in his war fought for Egyptian goals.
In 2002, at the Beirut Summit of the Arab leaders, the then Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed, a comprehensive peace initiative which was duly endorsed at the Riyadh Summit of the Arab leaders in 2007, to end the Arab Israeli conflict once and for all. It meant normalising relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories in 1967 and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee crisis based on UN Resolution 194. The initiative is still waiting for a response from the Israeli leadership. Inspite of these new opportunities, the Israeli narrative about threats coming from Arabs will continue to legitimise its occupation of West Bank.
There is an impression given by mainstream western media that Palestinians want to eliminate Israel. Hamas wants Israel wiped off the map as their charter claims. Also, Palestinians did not abide by UN resolutions. How true is this impression?
Palestinians recognised Israel’s right to exist way back in 1982 when Palestinian Liberation Organisation was fighting Israeli Defence Forces in Lebanon. But it took them a few more years before the PLO went public with its recognition of the state of Israel in 1988 and formally renounced violence as means to liberate Occupied Territories.
The PLO, which has been ruling Palestine since it was allowed to return to Occupied Territories in 1995 under the Jenin and Gaza Agreement, has shown greater flexibility as a genuine partner for peace, to reach an agreement with Israel to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Israel on the other hand has shown time and again that the peace process for Israel is a process, which legitimizes the occupation and especially the continued construction of settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.
Palestinians have realized that Israel is there to stay and they should struggle for their own state within the West Bank and Gaza of 1967 borders alongside the state of Israel. But incessant settlement activity in the Occupied Territories has made the emergence of a Palestinian state within West Bank and Gaza less viable.
This is not true either that Hamas is still hell bent on the destruction of Israel. Hamas has been a ruling party in Gaza, though it has fought at least three wars with Israel, since it came into power in 2007. It has not changed the wording on its charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction, but already has shown flexibility in its dealings with Israel on security matters and to honour all the understandings reached with Israel. Joining the unity government itself endorses the recognition of Israel and accepting all the agreements reached with Israel so far in all its implications. It also authorises President Mahmoud Abbas to conduct peace negotiations with Israel. That is why there have been so many agreements between Israel and Hamas and even now negotiations for a long- term truce are occurring. Hamas is maximalist in its demands and would not like to give a victory to Israel by changing its charter unilaterally without getting something in return.
While Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, does Israel recognize Palestine’s right to exist?
Israel has not been able to recognise the existence of Palestinian people. There is a famous saying by Golda Meyer, the Prime Minister of Israel during the1973 Yom Kippur War, that ‘Palestinian people do not exist’. Such Pakistani liberals condemning Hamas Charter should also read Likud’s manifesto. Begin understood that the people of Palestine should be allowed to rule themselves while Israel must rule the land.
The Oslo accords did exactly the same and Palestinians were given just enough authority to manage the occupation for Israel. Palestinians were to maintain law and order in the territories, especially after the first Intifada, which shocked the Israeli and Palestinian leadership alike.
The Israeli leadership gives the impression that a peace process for a two state solution means that they accept that there is a Palestinian nation who should have a state of their own.One wonders then why a state of Palestine does not emerge alongside the state of Israel. The reason is that Israel does not recognise the Palestinian right to exist in ‘Eretz Israel’ (literally the Land of Israel) which spans from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean. The so-called peace process is actually a device to manage the conflict and also manage the pressure from the international community for relinquishing control of the occupied territories.
How true is the ‘propaganda’ by Arabs that Israel is an apartheid state while we know Israel is a democracy where Arabs have perhaps more rights than any Arab country?
The argument that ‘the Arabs in Israel have more rights than any Arab country’ is not relevant to the state of Palestine in proper Israel and in Occupied Territories. The discrimination in Arab states is not based on ethnicity. It is primarily due to the under-developed state ofthe political institutions. In Israel there is a clear distinction between two different communities belonging to two different ethnicities --- one belonging to the Jewish community is privileged and the other one belonging to the Arab community is ethnically not deemed equal to the Jewish one hence is discriminated against.
In Israel political institutions are highly developed as you stated. Israel is a democracy and a functioning one, but still Arabs are discriminated because of their ethnicity. Israel has become an apartheid state for all intents and purposes. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha mellows it down by calling it an “ethnocracy”.
What would you call such a state where only one section of the society has all the rights and other section does not have the right to share these rights? Being second-class citizens is not the only problem. Arabs of Israel can’t buy houses in certain Jewish neighbourhoods. But the Arabs one can say in Israel are discriminated. The situation in Occupied Territories in fact qualifies as apartheid. Palestinians do not have any rights equal to Jewish settlers.
How true is the impression that had Hamas not fired rockets at Israel, Gaza would not have been attacked?
Israel’s assault on Gaza, was not triggered by Hamas’ rockets directed at Israel but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honouring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy.It goes right back to the announcement of a Palestinian unity government. The Netanyahu government immediately broke off all contacts with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and insisted that President Abbas abandon Hamas.
The events of June 12th this year, when three Israeli boys were kidnapped in the West Bank and subsequently found dead on June 30th gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the opportunity to immediately blame Hamas for the kidnapping, which Hamas denied. Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas maintained that there was no evidence that Hamas was behind the kidnapping. An Israeli police spokesperson later admitted the Hamas leader had no knowledge of the kidnappings, that they did not occur on the orders of Hamas leadership and that the crime was the action of a ‘lone cell’.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched operation ‘Brother's Keeper’ in search of the three kidnapped boys, knowing very well that all of them had been killed the day they were kidnapped. As part of the operation, Israel arrested around 422 Palestinians, including nearly all of Hamas' West Bank leaders. Fifty-six of those arrested were the prisoners released during the Shalit deal and were sent back to prison for violating the terms of their release by returning to terrorism. Five Palestinians youth were killed during the military operation. HananAshrawi called it ‘a reign of terror directed against a captive Palestinian population’.
The IDF believed it dealt a significant blow to Hamas’ political, military and civil infrastructure in the West Bank by targeting Hamas’ ‘Dawa’ network, a social-welfare system. The IDF also confiscated around 1.2 million NIS, severely curtailing Hamas’ financial viability and its ability to operate in the West Bank.
In the meantime, tensions were constantly mounting on the Gaza front as Hamas increased the amount of rocket attacks on southern Israel. The Israeli aerial strikes in response to these rocket attacks ultimately led to war on Gaza. ‘Operation Protective Edge’, was formally launched on July 8, 2014.
One can still say that if Hamas had not kept firing rockets at Israel, which by the way caused not a single injury on the Israeli side at that point in time, the Israeli attack on Gaza, already under way, would not have escalated to the full scale war with such devastation. But again, if Israel, equipped with the Iron Dome defensive system, had kept its air strikes proportionate to the threat posed by Hamas’ rockets and had not decided to collectively punish the Gaza residents, this human catastrophe could have been avoided.
Israel began by responding to ‘Hamas rockets’ but later on shifted its war aim. Afterwards, one of its goals was/is to eliminate the tunnel network. How do you view this focus on the tunnel-network to attack Gaza, if one goes by Israeli narratives?
That is very true. There has never been a consistent war aim Israeli cabinet could present. The initial war aim was to obtain complete quiet: stop Hamas from launching rockets in Israel and to degrade Hamas’ capability to launch rockets.Then came the demilitarization of Gaza but immediately the focus shifted to complete destruction of the approximately 31 tunnels Hamas has constructed within last two or so years. Israeli intelligence says that Israel knew that Hamas dug up some tunnels but did not know the extent of its sophistication and elaborate design. This came as a shock to Israeli defence establishment.Hamas did manage to surprise Israel with its rocket technology. Since 2012, Hamas seems to have acquired rocket technology capable of reaching almost every corner of Israel with its rockets range increasing to almost 160 km.
If we take into accountall the war technologies Hamas possesses the tunnels were probably the most lethal for the IDF. In 2006, Hamas successfully kidnapped Gilad Shalit and killed two soldiers using one such tunnel. Israeli intelligence was aware of the existence of these tunnels but they were surprised by their sheer scale and sophistication. The Iron Dome is considered to be a very effective defence against the rockets launched on Israel but they do not have a remedy for the tunnels just yet. Israel is now planning to dig a separation wall deep in the ground around Gaza so that Hamas cannot dig any more tunnels into Israeli territory.
Israel struggled to locate and destroy Hamas' arsenal because Hamas concealed its weapons caches in the extensive underground network of tunnels and bunkers they built. In addition to hiding rockets, tunnels are being used to sneak militants into Israel. Approximately16 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hamas militants who entered Israel through a tunnel from Gaza. Israel shifted its main focus onto the elimination of the the tunnels used to infiltrate militants into Israel right after the ground offensive. The rockets have never been a real threat since many are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defensive system that protects populous areas.
Hamas has long used tunnels for smuggling weapons and supplies into Gaza, but the extensive use of tunnels for infiltration and storing weapons is a novel strategy devised by Hamas in its struggle against Israel. Hamas’ underground strategy is actually a response to Israel's effective surveillance and successful targeting from the air. Hamas knew that everything they were doing above ground was being tracked by the IDF. Going underground was the most logical outcome.
According to Israeli forces Hamas built approximately 31 tunnels for infiltration, or at least 31 tunnels which have now been destroyed were discovered by the IDF. ‘Everything is concealed,’ Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, IDF's spokesperson said. ‘Everything is taking place below ground. That is a challenge’.
There is a narrative gaining popularity in sections of the liberal Pakistanis that it is always Arabs attacking Israel while Israel has always reacted to aggression. How valid is this assertion?
The Israeli propaganda machine is very sophisticated. After all it has been an Israeli narrative: David against Goliath, the few against many. The Israeli state defines its domestic and foreign policy around its highly exaggerated security fear that Israel faces constant real or imagined threats to its very existence from hostile neighbouring Arabs. Today Israel is a regional military supper power and faces no threat to its existence what so ever. Hamas with its primitive technology poses no real threat to Israel’s existence, at least not militarily.
In order to understand the sense of insecurity possessed by Israel we need to understand its settler colonial character. Israel imposed its existence on top of an existing Palestinian society and not side-by-side as it was claimed. The state of Israel was established after dispossessing almost three quarters of the Palestinians who were already living there.
Israel was allocated 55% of Mandate Palestine by United Nations resolution 181 in November 1947. By the time the civil war and an invasion by the ragtag, ill-equipped and poorly trained armies of neighbouring Arab states ended, Israel was in possession of around 78% of Palestine.
Now in order to maintain the occupation of the land it occupied in 1967, Israel keeps shouting that it is under existential threat and its 1967 borders are indefensible. So far, for reasons emanating from an imagined threat posed by Arabs, Israel requires all the land west of the Jordan River to provide it with a security depth.
Arabs were not a real fighting force when they invaded the newly declared state of Israel in 1948 and since then there has not been any attacks from Arabs save 1973. But a caveat is in place here. After Anwar Sadaat came to power in Egypt, he conveyed the message to Israel that he wanted peace and was ready to go alone, but the Israelis did not respond. Sadaat had a limited war aim - to use war as a medium to sue for peace. He convinced Syria to join him in his war fought for Egyptian goals.
In 2002, at the Beirut Summit of the Arab leaders, the then Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed, a comprehensive peace initiative which was duly endorsed at the Riyadh Summit of the Arab leaders in 2007, to end the Arab Israeli conflict once and for all. It meant normalising relations between the entire Arab region and Israel, in exchange for a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories in 1967 and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee crisis based on UN Resolution 194. The initiative is still waiting for a response from the Israeli leadership. Inspite of these new opportunities, the Israeli narrative about threats coming from Arabs will continue to legitimise its occupation of West Bank.
There is an impression given by mainstream western media that Palestinians want to eliminate Israel. Hamas wants Israel wiped off the map as their charter claims. Also, Palestinians did not abide by UN resolutions. How true is this impression?
Palestinians recognised Israel’s right to exist way back in 1982 when Palestinian Liberation Organisation was fighting Israeli Defence Forces in Lebanon. But it took them a few more years before the PLO went public with its recognition of the state of Israel in 1988 and formally renounced violence as means to liberate Occupied Territories.
The PLO, which has been ruling Palestine since it was allowed to return to Occupied Territories in 1995 under the Jenin and Gaza Agreement, has shown greater flexibility as a genuine partner for peace, to reach an agreement with Israel to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Israel on the other hand has shown time and again that the peace process for Israel is a process, which legitimizes the occupation and especially the continued construction of settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.
Palestinians have realized that Israel is there to stay and they should struggle for their own state within the West Bank and Gaza of 1967 borders alongside the state of Israel. But incessant settlement activity in the Occupied Territories has made the emergence of a Palestinian state within West Bank and Gaza less viable.
This is not true either that Hamas is still hell bent on the destruction of Israel. Hamas has been a ruling party in Gaza, though it has fought at least three wars with Israel, since it came into power in 2007. It has not changed the wording on its charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction, but already has shown flexibility in its dealings with Israel on security matters and to honour all the understandings reached with Israel. Joining the unity government itself endorses the recognition of Israel and accepting all the agreements reached with Israel so far in all its implications. It also authorises President Mahmoud Abbas to conduct peace negotiations with Israel. That is why there have been so many agreements between Israel and Hamas and even now negotiations for a long- term truce are occurring. Hamas is maximalist in its demands and would not like to give a victory to Israel by changing its charter unilaterally without getting something in return.
While Hamas does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, does Israel recognize Palestine’s right to exist?
Israel has not been able to recognise the existence of Palestinian people. There is a famous saying by Golda Meyer, the Prime Minister of Israel during the1973 Yom Kippur War, that ‘Palestinian people do not exist’. Such Pakistani liberals condemning Hamas Charter should also read Likud’s manifesto. Begin understood that the people of Palestine should be allowed to rule themselves while Israel must rule the land.
The Oslo accords did exactly the same and Palestinians were given just enough authority to manage the occupation for Israel. Palestinians were to maintain law and order in the territories, especially after the first Intifada, which shocked the Israeli and Palestinian leadership alike.
The Israeli leadership gives the impression that a peace process for a two state solution means that they accept that there is a Palestinian nation who should have a state of their own.One wonders then why a state of Palestine does not emerge alongside the state of Israel. The reason is that Israel does not recognise the Palestinian right to exist in ‘Eretz Israel’ (literally the Land of Israel) which spans from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean. The so-called peace process is actually a device to manage the conflict and also manage the pressure from the international community for relinquishing control of the occupied territories.
How true is the ‘propaganda’ by Arabs that Israel is an apartheid state while we know Israel is a democracy where Arabs have perhaps more rights than any Arab country?
The argument that ‘the Arabs in Israel have more rights than any Arab country’ is not relevant to the state of Palestine in proper Israel and in Occupied Territories. The discrimination in Arab states is not based on ethnicity. It is primarily due to the under-developed state ofthe political institutions. In Israel there is a clear distinction between two different communities belonging to two different ethnicities --- one belonging to the Jewish community is privileged and the other one belonging to the Arab community is ethnically not deemed equal to the Jewish one hence is discriminated against.
In Israel political institutions are highly developed as you stated. Israel is a democracy and a functioning one, but still Arabs are discriminated because of their ethnicity. Israel has become an apartheid state for all intents and purposes. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha mellows it down by calling it an “ethnocracy”.
What would you call such a state where only one section of the society has all the rights and other section does not have the right to share these rights? Being second-class citizens is not the only problem. Arabs of Israel can’t buy houses in certain Jewish neighbourhoods. But the Arabs one can say in Israel are discriminated. The situation in Occupied Territories in fact qualifies as apartheid. Palestinians do not have any rights equal to Jewish settlers.