Alastair Crooke: Talking with the 'Terrorists'
In August 2004 - in an attempt to provide an opening to political Islam - a delegation including the writers of this article [Mark Perry and Alastair Crooke - co-directors of Conflicts Forum ]traveled to Beirut for discussions with the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah.
HOW TO LOSE THE WAR ON TERROR
PART 1: Talking with the 'terrorists' [Excerpt below] [Read in full]
Hamas: A warning to the West
The meetings with Hamas evinced even greater interest among our delegates than those with Hezbollah, in large part because - as the Hamas leaders with whom we met readily admitted - US and European officials had shunned any contacts with the movement after the start of the second intifada. The Hamas leaders with whom we spoke claimed not to have met an American "since the late 1990s", while another said that his last meeting with an American had been in 1996.
Our primary contact viewed our meetings as "a chance to clear up misconceptions about who we are and what we want". As in the case of our meeting with Hezbollah, the exchanges were blunt and focused on areas of strong disagreement over the conduct of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Hamas leadership present for our first meeting in Beirut, which included Sami Khater, Musa Abu Marzouk and Usamah Hamdan, began the exchange with a straightforward statement on Hamas' political beliefs and goals. "We will continue the struggle to provide national unity, to stop Israeli aggression, we will participate in Palestinian elections, we will establish the framework for rebuilding the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] to represent all Palestinians, we will offer a truce with Israel, and we will continue our work to make certain that Israel abandons the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. We do not endorse murder, but we do support resistance."
Hamas' long period of targeting Israeli civilians in a series of bloody bombings of cafes and buses during the second intifada engendered the most detailed exchange during our first engagement in March 2005. Initially, Hamas leaders defended their actions by citing their right to lawful resistance and the religious foundation for their decision to target civilians. But as the discussion progressed, the Hamas leaders propounded an increasingly assertive defense of their tactics, noting at one point that their decision was not made lightly or without reflection and that it was only undertaken after it became clear that Israel refused to reciprocate a Hamas offer to end the targeting of civilians.
"We are against targeting civilians," Mousa Abu Marzouk said. "And we did not do so until 1994 - after the Hebron Mosque massacre [of settler Baruch Goldstein]. And they built a shrine to him in Hebron. And at that point, since we were never attacked in that way before, we determined that Israelis kill civilians. But no one asks about Palestinian civilians. In the last five years, 347 Palestinian civilians have been killed. The numbers you see are exactly reversed for Israeli and Palestinian deaths. What about the targeting of civilians who are Palestinian? And the homes and the farms of Palestinians that are destroyed? The Israelis have rejected our offer, and we have made the offer, that both sides should stop killing civilians. But they rejected that offer."
When pressed on their targeting of civilians, Hamas leaders seemed to contradict their earlier statements by expressing their conviction that there is no distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers. "Every Israeli is a solder," one of them said. "Settlers are armed."
When asked whether, in their view, terrorism "worked", they answered that it served to unite their people and to gain support for their political program. This claim was not a surprise: Hamas began their bombing campaign not simply as a means of fighting what they viewed as Israeli aggression, but to seize the political initiative from Fatah. (In fact, Hamas' radicalism in the first days and months of the second intifada forced Fatah leaders to follow the Hamas example, and adopt suicide bombing as a tactic.) "Their description of terrorism," one of the delegates noted, "convinced me that we are not dealing with genetically encoded monsters, but hard-headed - albeit brutal - political actors who carefully choose their tactics and attempt to manage the effects of their actions."
At the time of our first exchange with Hamas, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel since August 2004. Hamas leaders signaled that this unofficial calm would be maintained, so long as the calm was reciprocated by Israel. Even so, Hamas leaders said that they retained the right to respond to "Israeli aggression" just as (as they pointed out) Israel said that it had the right to continue targeting Palestinians it viewed as ticking bombs.
"It wasn't so easy losing our founders, our people, our leaders, and our friends," one of their leaders said. "When all channels are closed to us, we use violence. We don't have jets, we don't have tanks. So we made the decision. It is one of the ways we resist, it is not the only way."
In July, with the unofficial period of calm nearing the one-year mark, Hamas officials reiterated their commitment to "maintaining a hudna [truce] with Israel, even though Israel does not respond and continues to target out leaders".
In both meetings, Hamas officials stridently objected to US proscriptions against any contact between American and Hamas officials, arguing that "we didn't wage war on the US, even verbally. We have never expressed a link with Osama bin Laden and we don't support him."
Usamah Hamdan was outspoken in his criticism of the US decision to add Hamas to the State Department's list of proscribed organizations: "We knew it was going to happen and in 1996 we tried to communicate with [then secretary of state] Madeleine Albright to find a way to object - to talk with her about the decision," he remembered. "We were told that she was unavailable to talk with us and that we should call back. We were then put on the list and we made our second call, and we were told, 'We're sorry, but secretary Albright doesn't talk to terrorists.'"
Hamas leaders were also particularly intent on promoting their decision to participate in the Palestinian Authority's scheduled parliamentary elections - even after they were postponed from last July until this March. At times, their leaders even seemed prescient, focusing on their organizational skills, their ability to appeal to a broad base of Palestinians, and their continuing commitment to provide constituent services, all of which they cited as evidence for their belief that they would likely win a majority in the Palestinian parliament. [7]
"The Palestinians decide their leaders and the international community must accept that," one of them noted in March 2005. "And when we win those elections it will be a great problems for the Americans, I am sure. Is the international community going to ignore the results of the elections?"
Hamas' leaders also denied that they would impose strict Islamic forms on Palestinian social life, using the Koran as an example of "respecting diversity" among peoples, a claim they have repeated in the wake of their recent parliamentary victory.
"Islam is comprehensive and we understand that, but the Palestinian people are diverse," one of their leaders said last March. "The people will decide who will lead them and what kind of government they will have and we must respect those difference and will respect those differences."
Usamah Hamdan gave a more detailed answer during our July meetings, acknowledging Western fears about what impact the election of an Islamist party would have on an otherwise secular society: "There is a fear that is based on historical baggage," he said, "that Hamas will be the next Taliban. We are not. We have always insisted that our people should be allowed to make choices - not just on who to vote for, but on how to live. We do not recruiting forcibly, but by persuasion. For us, Islam is the answer, but that is not true for everyone. We believe that there should be the launch of a democratic process in the whole region."
Once again (as was the case with Hezbollah), Hamas leaders were outspoken in their condemnation of America's "inability to differentiate" between Islamist movements, of the United States' and Europe's willingness to list Hamas as a "terrorist" organization - alongside al-Qaeda.
One Hamas leader was explicit in setting out the differences and in explaining how the West's lack of sophistication and political nuance could be fatal for America's standing in the region. "We have been warned by the Salafists that what we are doing in accepting democracy is playing into our enemy's hands," this leader said.
"The message was a warning. One of them, I remember, said to me: 'Listen, my brother, we wish you well in your elections. But you should know that whether you win or lose, the Americans will never, ever accept you are equal partners. And you will learn this. And when you do, you will come back to us, and together we will make a beginning. And together we will finish them here. Together we will burn it. That is the only solution. Burn it. And we will begin in Mecca and Medina."
HOW TO LOSE THE WAR ON TERROR
PART 1: Talking with the 'terrorists' [Excerpt below] [Read in full]
Hamas: A warning to the West
The meetings with Hamas evinced even greater interest among our delegates than those with Hezbollah, in large part because - as the Hamas leaders with whom we met readily admitted - US and European officials had shunned any contacts with the movement after the start of the second intifada. The Hamas leaders with whom we spoke claimed not to have met an American "since the late 1990s", while another said that his last meeting with an American had been in 1996.
Our primary contact viewed our meetings as "a chance to clear up misconceptions about who we are and what we want". As in the case of our meeting with Hezbollah, the exchanges were blunt and focused on areas of strong disagreement over the conduct of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Hamas leadership present for our first meeting in Beirut, which included Sami Khater, Musa Abu Marzouk and Usamah Hamdan, began the exchange with a straightforward statement on Hamas' political beliefs and goals. "We will continue the struggle to provide national unity, to stop Israeli aggression, we will participate in Palestinian elections, we will establish the framework for rebuilding the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] to represent all Palestinians, we will offer a truce with Israel, and we will continue our work to make certain that Israel abandons the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. We do not endorse murder, but we do support resistance."
Hamas' long period of targeting Israeli civilians in a series of bloody bombings of cafes and buses during the second intifada engendered the most detailed exchange during our first engagement in March 2005. Initially, Hamas leaders defended their actions by citing their right to lawful resistance and the religious foundation for their decision to target civilians. But as the discussion progressed, the Hamas leaders propounded an increasingly assertive defense of their tactics, noting at one point that their decision was not made lightly or without reflection and that it was only undertaken after it became clear that Israel refused to reciprocate a Hamas offer to end the targeting of civilians.
"We are against targeting civilians," Mousa Abu Marzouk said. "And we did not do so until 1994 - after the Hebron Mosque massacre [of settler Baruch Goldstein]
When pressed on their targeting of civilians, Hamas leaders seemed to contradict their earlier statements by expressing their conviction that there is no distinction between Israeli civilians and soldiers. "Every Israeli is a solder," one of them said. "Settlers are armed."
When asked whether, in their view, terrorism "worked", they answered that it served to unite their people and to gain support for their political program. This claim was not a surprise: Hamas began their bombing campaign not simply as a means of fighting what they viewed as Israeli aggression, but to seize the political initiative from Fatah. (In fact, Hamas' radicalism in the first days and months of the second intifada forced Fatah leaders to follow the Hamas example, and adopt suicide bombing as a tactic.) "Their description of terrorism," one of the delegates noted, "convinced me that we are not dealing with genetically encoded monsters, but hard-headed - albeit brutal - political actors who carefully choose their tactics and attempt to manage the effects of their actions."
At the time of our first exchange with Hamas, there had been no suicide bombings in Israel since August 2004. Hamas leaders signaled that this unofficial calm would be maintained, so long as the calm was reciprocated by Israel. Even so, Hamas leaders said that they retained the right to respond to "Israeli aggression" just as (as they pointed out) Israel said that it had the right to continue targeting Palestinians it viewed as ticking bombs.
"It wasn't so easy losing our founders, our people, our leaders, and our friends," one of their leaders said. "When all channels are closed to us, we use violence. We don't have jets, we don't have tanks. So we made the decision. It is one of the ways we resist, it is not the only way."
In July, with the unofficial period of calm nearing the one-year mark, Hamas officials reiterated their commitment to "maintaining a hudna [truce] with Israel, even though Israel does not respond and continues to target out leaders".
In both meetings, Hamas officials stridently objected to US proscriptions against any contact between American and Hamas officials, arguing that "we didn't wage war on the US, even verbally. We have never expressed a link with Osama bin Laden and we don't support him."
Usamah Hamdan was outspoken in his criticism of the US decision to add Hamas to the State Department's list of proscribed organizations: "We knew it was going to happen and in 1996 we tried to communicate with [then secretary of state] Madeleine Albright to find a way to object - to talk with her about the decision," he remembered. "We were told that she was unavailable to talk with us and that we should call back. We were then put on the list and we made our second call, and we were told, 'We're sorry, but secretary Albright doesn't talk to terrorists.'"
Hamas leaders were also particularly intent on promoting their decision to participate in the Palestinian Authority's scheduled parliamentary elections - even after they were postponed from last July until this March. At times, their leaders even seemed prescient, focusing on their organizational skills, their ability to appeal to a broad base of Palestinians, and their continuing commitment to provide constituent services, all of which they cited as evidence for their belief that they would likely win a majority in the Palestinian parliament. [7]
"The Palestinians decide their leaders and the international community must accept that," one of them noted in March 2005. "And when we win those elections it will be a great problems for the Americans, I am sure. Is the international community going to ignore the results of the elections?"
Hamas' leaders also denied that they would impose strict Islamic forms on Palestinian social life, using the Koran as an example of "respecting diversity" among peoples, a claim they have repeated in the wake of their recent parliamentary victory.
"Islam is comprehensive and we understand that, but the Palestinian people are diverse," one of their leaders said last March. "The people will decide who will lead them and what kind of government they will have and we must respect those difference and will respect those differences."
Usamah Hamdan gave a more detailed answer during our July meetings, acknowledging Western fears about what impact the election of an Islamist party would have on an otherwise secular society: "There is a fear that is based on historical baggage," he said, "that Hamas will be the next Taliban. We are not. We have always insisted that our people should be allowed to make choices - not just on who to vote for, but on how to live. We do not recruiting forcibly, but by persuasion. For us, Islam is the answer, but that is not true for everyone. We believe that there should be the launch of a democratic process in the whole region."
Once again (as was the case with Hezbollah), Hamas leaders were outspoken in their condemnation of America's "inability to differentiate" between Islamist movements, of the United States' and Europe's willingness to list Hamas as a "terrorist" organization - alongside al-Qaeda.
One Hamas leader was explicit in setting out the differences and in explaining how the West's lack of sophistication and political nuance could be fatal for America's standing in the region. "We have been warned by the Salafists that what we are doing in accepting democracy is playing into our enemy's hands," this leader said.
"The message was a warning. One of them, I remember, said to me: 'Listen, my brother, we wish you well in your elections. But you should know that whether you win or lose, the Americans will never, ever accept you are equal partners. And you will learn this. And when you do, you will come back to us, and together we will make a beginning. And together we will finish them here. Together we will burn it. That is the only solution. Burn it. And we will begin in Mecca and Medina."
posted by exoplanet at 7:10 PM
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