HAMAS SERÁ VENCIDO!

It is usually foolhardy to express a clear opinion about anything in the Middle East. Certainty is almost certainly mere fool's gold. Too many analysts or politicians have made critical assessments regarding the necessary conditions for peace in the Middle East, but have also been compelled to watch them be trampled by events on the ground. Fearing not where fools have tread before, Nicholas Kristoff, in an op-ed piece appearing in Thursday's edition of the New York Times (19 June 2008), plunged headlong into this snake pit.

Ostensibly, Kristoff's purpose was to chide both the Bush Administration and the Olmert Government in Israel for their colossally foolish approach to Hamas after the withdrawal of Israel from settlements in the Gaza Strip and the collapse of the PLO presence in Gaza. Rather than deal with Hamas, Israel chose - perhaps under pressure from the Bush Administration - to clamp down on the Gaza Strip. With the exception of providing needed fuel, electricity, medical aid and food, all contact with the Palestinian authority in Gaza was broken. Shunned by the international community, a broken Hamas would eventually come to its senses and abandon its rejection of Israel, accept the presence of Israel in newly negotiated borders and halt the periodic shelling of Southern Israel by Kassam rockets.

Of course, sometimes not even fuel, electricity, medicine and food was allowed to cross into Gaza. These brief events constituted retaliation for Hamas's refusal to halt rocket attacks, prevent attacks on Israeli checkpoints, or the persistent smuggling of weapons, weapons components and other goods into Gaza from Egypt.

None of this has apparently broken Hamas' will to resist. Yet, both Hamas and Israel have agreed indirectly through Egyptian brokered talks to stop the insanity, if only temporarily. It remains to be seen how long this informal hudna will last. Certainly, the ferocity of attacks just before its imposition cast doubt on the chances of success.

Nevertheless, Kristoff wished to know, why did it take nearly two years to reach this point? In his interviews with selected Gazans, Kristoff demonstrates that Israeli actions did not lessen Hamas in the eyes of Gazans, but merely heightened the blame already directed at Israel and the United States. Though one might question the logic behind the assigning of blame - after all, Hamas has made a mess of Gaza ever since the Israelis withdrew - it does seem to be pervasive among Gazans and perhaps West Bank Palestinians as well.

Still, Kristoff never ponders the contrary point of view. Suppose Israel had accepted Hamas and not followed the path of international isolation. Suppose Israel had ignored persistent rocket attacks in the hope that they would eventually fade away. Would we be closer to peace in the Middle East?

Miracles happen. But, for peace to break out in the Middle East, a miracle of all miracles might be required. As long as Palestinians cling to the hope that Israel might one day disappear just as the Crusaders disappeared from the Middle East after the Kurdish leader Saladin, who as military leader of the Ottoman Turks put paid to Christian attempts to reconquer the Holy Land, no true peace is possible. As long as Israelis tolerate the persistent attempts of settlers to create facts on the ground, no peace is possible. Yes, there are true sticking points. Israel cannot have a unified Jerusalem and extend the Jewish presence into East Jerusalem and share this with a Palestinian state whose capital might be East Jerusalem. Some circles just cannot be squared!

However, leadership can and might play a useful role in paving the way at least towards a return to normalcy. Under Sharon, the Israeli government came to its senses and realized that maintaining settlers in Gaza was neither feasible nor wise. Had the PLO - and not Hamas - been in charge of Gaza at the time of the Israeli withdrawal, maybe Gaza could have taken advantage of the situation. An airport might have been opened. The vegetable greenhouses left behind by Israel and supplied with European money might have point Gaza towards a future where it could feed itself and earn export income. Sadly, none of that came to pass. Worse: it is hard to imagine Israel allowing any Palestinians to take charge of the entire West Bank without the presence of Israeli security.

Israel can change and has changed. By and large, the Israeli public has come to understand the futility of complete Israeli occupation of the West Bank. It may have been God's calling, as Menachem Begin reassured the world, but the Palestinians weren't listening. Nor, in retrospect, should they have. Yet, change the Palestinians must as well. For too long, the average Palestinian has been misled, bamboozled, and hoodwinked by a Palestinian leadership that became obsessed with terror in the 70s, allied itself with Iraq in the first Gulf War. For all the money, Europeans, Arabs and Americans have poured into Palestine, there seems only one clear result: individual members of the PLO got very, very rich. How understandable it was to see the emergence of a new leadership - Hamas - that disavowed the corrupt practices of the PLO. They (Hamas) may be bad and naive with respect to the future of Palestine, but they surely are an improvement on the corrupt PLO gang that played the international community for every cent they could.

Surely, the Bush Administration and the Olmert Government share some of the blame for the ongoing quagmire in the Middle East, but they are not the only ones. Even if an Israeli government and an American administration bent over backwards to mollify Palestinians, it remains an entirely possible that peace in the Middle East might not advance one centimeter. I can still recall the euphoria that surrounded the emergence of a Palestinian "peace process" under the aegis of Rabin and Arafat. I can also recall how fervently commentators clung to this so-called peace process long after it was clear that Arafat was a conniving chameleon and Rabin had been murdered by a zealot. Even if Rabin had lived, it is not clear that an agreement would ever have been reached. Maybe, a Rabin led government would not have sought to impose the cookie-cutter cutout West Bank proposal that was presented to Arafat during negotiations in the final year of the Clinton presidency. And, maybe Arafat might have convinced the Palestinians to accept a quarter of a loaf - sliced and diced as it was - in the hope that after the building of trust, a more reasonable and geographically contiguous Palestine might have emerged. Alas, the Second Intifada put paid to that.

So, where does the Middle East go from here? I haven't a clue. It's a lot easier pointing out the barriers to an agreement or doubting the longevity of temporary truces. It's even tempting - in a Dr. Strangelove way - to imagine Israel driving the Gazans into the sea. But, dealing with the reality on the ground - and the emotions that have been shaped, squeezed, or betrayed by events on the ground - seems a mighty cross to bear. The blame game, however ill-focused, is child's play by comparison.