The Palestinians are sincere about peace, but are the Israelis?

1. Pause for Peace – by AHMED YOUSEF/NY Times

HERE in Gaza, few dream of peace. For now, most dare only to dream of a lack of war. It is for this reason that Hamas proposes a long-term truce during which the Israeli and Palestinian peoples can try to negotiate a lasting peace.

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a “hudna.” Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences. The Koran finds great merit in such efforts at promoting understanding among different people. Whereas war dehumanizes the enemy and makes it easier to kill, a hudna affords the opportunity to humanize one’s opponents and understand their position with the goal of resolving the intertribal or international dispute.

Such a concept — a period of nonwar but only partial resolution of a conflict — is foreign to the West and has been greeted with much suspicion. Many Westerners I speak to wonder how one can stop the violence without ending the conflict.

I would argue, however, that this concept is not as foreign as it might seem. After all, the Irish Republican Army agreed to halt its military struggle to free Northern Ireland from British rule without recognizing British sovereignty. Irish Republicans continue to aspire to a united Ireland free of British rule, but rely upon peaceful methods. Had the I.R.A. been forced to renounce its vision of reuniting Ireland before negotiations could occur, peace would never have prevailed. Why should more be demanded of the Palestinians, particularly when the spirit of our people will never permit it?

When Hamas gives its word to an international agreement, it does so in the name of God and will therefore keep its word. Hamas has honored its previous cease-fires, as Israelis grudgingly note with the oft-heard words, “At least with Hamas they mean what they say.”

This offer of hudna is no ruse, as some assert, to strengthen our military machine, to buy time to organize better or to consolidate our hold on the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, faith-based political movements in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey and Yemen have used hudna-like strategies to avoid expanding conflict. Hamas will conduct itself just as wisely and honorably.

We Palestinians are prepared to enter into a hudna to bring about an immediate end to the occupation and to initiate a period of peaceful coexistence during which both sides would refrain from any form of military aggression or provocation. During this period of calm and negotiation we can address the important issues like the right of return and the release of prisoners. If the negotiations fail to achieve a durable settlement, the next generation of Palestinians and Israelis will have to decide whether or not to renew the hudna and the search for a negotiated peace.

There can be no comprehensive solution of the conflict today, this week, this month, or even this year. A conflict that has festered for so long may, however, be resolved through a decade of peaceful coexistence and negotiations. This is the only sensible alternative to the current situation. A hudna will lead to an end to the occupation and create the space and the calm necessary to resolve all outstanding issues.

Few in Gaza dream. For most of the past six months it’s been difficult to even sleep. Yet hope is not dead. And when we dare to hope, this is what we see: a 10-year hudna during which, inshallah (God willing), we will learn again to dream of peace.

(Ahmed Yousef is a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya.)


2. Soros considers backing peace initiative -- by Guy Dinmore in Washington/Financial Times

Israel’s summer war with Lebanon’s Hizbollah ended after 34 days, but a fierce debate within the American Jewish community over the nature of Israel’s relationship with the US rages on, spurring efforts to create a powerful voice to lobby for peace with the Palestinians.

George Soros, the financier and philanthropist, is said by friends to be considering giving his support to a new initiative for an influential alternative that would lobby for US engagement and a negotiated two-state settlement.

Organisers deny they intend to rival the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), one of Washington’s most effective lobby groups, and say some of their number include Aipac supporters. But with sufficient funding, its outlook could be seen as a counterweight to Aipac, which strongly backed the unilateralist course set by former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

“The Lebanon conflict provided a sense of urgency to discussions,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, an organiser of the proposed new “Israel project”. The discussions represented “a new effort to promote the perspective in the Jewish community that Israel’s security depends on ending this [Palestinian] conflict peacefully”.

“We deeply care for Israel. The Lebanon conflict shows the dangers facing Israel and its need for peace as quickly as possible,” Mr Ben-Ami, vice-president of Fenton Communications, a PR firm and former adviser to Bill Clinton, told the FT.

Other prominent figures involved in the talks include David Elcott, director of Israel Policy Forum, Mort Halperin, director of US advocacy at the Open Society Institute headed by Mr Soros, Debra DeLee, president of Americans for Peace Now, and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Mr Soros, who poured money into the Democratic 2004 presidential campaign, was vocal in his criticism of Israel’s tactics against Hizbollah and has called for an “end to the vicious circle of escalating violence” by reaching a political settlement with the Palestinians.

The debate over the US’s relationship with Israel was revived last March by two political scientists – John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Harvard’s Stephen Walt. Their “Israel Lobby” paper was intended to “break the taboo” by questioning the financial, political and moral cost to the US of the alliance.

Since then the two academics have been accused of anti-Semitism, Human Rights Watch has been attacking for comments criticising Israel’s tactics in Lebanon, and a dispute has erupted over the cancellation of a speech at the Polish consulate in New York by Professor Tony Judt, a critic of Israel’s policies.

An open letter signed by more than 150 people – including prominent academics, former diplomats and officials – decries what they allege is a campaign of political vigilantism waged by American Jewish groups to set the public agenda.

“Indeed, students [in a practice reminiscent of the most sordid aspects of the McCarthy years] have been enlisted to act as informers on their teachers. Institutions deemed to be insufficiently supportive of Israel have been subjected to pressure by state legislatures or private donors,” says the letter, signed by many prominent Jews.

“They’ve constructed a Warsaw Ghetto of the mind,” Norman Birnbaum, professor emeritus at Georgetown University and one of the organisers of the letter, told the Financial Times.

The letter accuses Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, of inducing the Polish consulate to deny its premises to Prof Judt, an allegation the league rejected as “baseless”. Mr Foxman said the ADL was proud of its 93-year record of defending free speech in its fight against anti-Semitism, hatred, prejudice and bigotry.

Few serving Democrats are willing to wade into this debate, but Zbigniew Brezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, was outspoken during the Lebanon conflict, calling Israel’s response to Hizbollah’s attacks “dogged, heavy-handed, politically counter-productive and morally unjustifiable”.

“When we supply Israel with cluster bombs, that’s an act of international friendship and peace. When Iran supplies Palestinians with weapons, that means terror,” he told a dinner hosted by the New America Foundation. “Bush should say either I make policy on the Middle East or Aipac does.”