President Bush came, he saw, and he went. Barely had he gone when 25 Palestinians were killed and an intensive barrage of rockets were launched from Gaza. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has gone from a violent, intractable, clear-cut duel to a violent, intractable, three-way chess match. Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas each fear that the other two will reach a deal at its expense. And each is determined to prevent that outcome.
For Hamas, a rapprochement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel represents a threat. The closer Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, move to a negotiated settlement, the more difficult it will be for the Islamists to maintain and expand their support. An effort by Israel to suffocate Gaza, which Hamas controls, together with attempts by the Palestinian Authority to further squeeze Hamas s infrastructure in the West Bank and round up its militants, would also expose the Islamist movement.
Israel worries that Abbas – pressed by Palestinian public opinion, Arab countries, and his party s fear of a Palestinian civil war – will reconcile with Hamas. Not a day passes without unofficial contact between Abbas s Fatah party and its Islamist counterpart. Beyond that, Palestinian unity comports far more with any Palestinian leader s inclinations than discord. A renewed national compact would upset Israel s strategy of perpetuating Palestinian geographic and political division. It would also thwart the expectation that Palestinian security forces might go after the Islamist movement and do to Hamas what Israel, with all its might, has been unable to.
Abbas and his colleagues fear an understanding between Israel and Hamas that would bolster the Islamist movement at Fatah s expense. They are worried the two may find common ground, striking a deal involving a ceasefire, an easing of Gaza s blockade and a prisoner exchange. This concern is not unfounded. Despite the deaths in Gaza, reports of indirect dealings repeatedly surface. When Israeli hawks such as Ephraim Halevy (a former head of Mossad), Giora Eiland (who served as national security adviser to Ariel Sharon) and Shaul Mofaz (a former defence minister) openly advocate some form of engagement with Hamas, Abbas and his Fatah cohorts can t help but notice.
An arrangement between Israel and Hamas could advance both sides interests. Israel has been unable to quell incessant rocket fire from Gaza, and the release of a soldier captured in the summer of 2006, Corporal Gilad Shalit, remains a key objective. For its part, Hamas seeks to strengthen its grip on Gaza, re-establish law and order, and demonstrate that it can govern. A deal with Israel would go a long way towards accomplishing all three. It would boost Hamas s legitimacy, show that the movement can deliver, and undermine the notion that it can be defeated through military action and economic strangulation.
Nervous about being left out, all three parties are labouring mightily to avert an understanding between the other two. Hamas threatens the nascent Israeli-Palestinian political process, challenging its legitimacy and intimating that it could resort to more violence. Israel warns that renewed Palestinian unity will bring that process to an abrupt halt. Abbas actively discourages any third-party contact with Hamas. The end result is collective checkmate, a political standstill that hurts all and serves none.
The truth is, none of these two-way deals is likely to succeed. In tandem, no two parties are capable enough to deliver. Any one party is potent enough to be a spoiler. There can be neither Israeli-Palestinian stability nor a peace accord without Hamas s acquiescence.
Intra-Palestinian reconciliation will not last without Israel s unspoken assent and willingness to lift its siege. Any agreement between Hamas and Israel over Abbas s strong objection is hard to imagine.
For any of these dances to go forward, all will have to go forward. Synchronicity is the key. Fatah and Hamas will need to reach a new political arrangement, this time not one vigorously opposed by Israel. Hamas and Israel will need to achieve a ceasefire and prisoner exchange, albeit mediated by Abbas. And Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, will need to negotiate a political deal with Abbas, who will have to receive a mandate to do so from Hamas.
The current mindset, in which each side considers dealmaking by the other two as a mortal threat, could be replaced by one in which all three couplings are viewed as mutually reinforcing. For that, the parties friends and allies ought to cast aside their dysfunctional, destructive, ideologically driven policies. Instead, they should encourage a choreography that minimises violence and promotes a serious diplomatic process. Otherwise, no matter how many times George Bush travels to the region, there is no reason to believe that 2008 will offer anything other than the macabre pattern of years past.
Hussein Aghais a senior associate member of St Antony s College, Oxford. Robert Malley is Middle East programme director at the International Crisis Group and was a special adviser to President Clinton. A version of this article appeared in the Washington Post. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service, and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.
