Alastair Crooke: Talking to Hamas

"Hamas is a central element in Palestinian society - it is well organized and highly motivated, and has put in motion an effective machine of education, health, and social welfare. The strength of Hamas's popularity within Palestinian society is even greater than the percentages indicate, and no resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can come about without Hamas being part of the solution. This is not the official view in Israel." - Efraim Halevy [EH served as head of the Mossad from 1998 to 2002 and head of Israel's National Security Council from 2002 to 2003].

Alastair Crooke: Talking to Hamas

Almost no one believes that putting Palestinians on a "diet" will make them more moderate or help to restart a political process with Israel. The diet - a term coined by Ariel Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weisglass - refers to the US and EU policy of trying to cut off the Hamas government politically and financially so that it cannot pay the salaries of civil servants or function as a government.

The pressure is designed to give the new government no option but to accede to three US and EU demands: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and acceptance of all earlier agreements dating back to the Oslo accords signed by the late Yasser Arafat, leader of Hamas's rival Fatah movement.

Privately, most EU officials doubt the policy will work. But they feel trapped into adopting a position from which they lack the leadership or energy to escape, and the paralysis caused by the European divisions over Iraq still haunts Brussels in any area that risks a breach with the US.

Some very senior US officials, however, are more than ready to make plain that the US is not interested so much in Hamas's transformation to non-violence as in the failure and collapse of the Hamas-led government. US diplomats have told their European counterparts that "the Palestinians must suffer for their choice" (in electing Hamas). They would like to see Fatah return to power, albeit led by someone like the westernised Salaam Fayad, a former Palestinian finance minister and World Bank official.

To this end, the US is seeking to build a militia of 3,500 men around the office of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to enlarge the presidency staff and to channel as much of the expenditure and work of the government as possible through the presidency. The US aims to create a shadow government centred around the president and his Fatah party as a counterpoint to a financially starved Hamas-led government - which will, US officials hope, prove ineffective and wither. Officials associated with Vice-President Cheney's office talk openly with Fatah visitors about the desirability of mounting a "soft coup" that will restore the more pliant Fatah to power on the back of a humanitarian crisis.

In Beirut in early May, I spoke to Osama Hamdan, Hamas's chief representative in Lebanon and a senior member of the Hamas political committee, about the situation facing the organisation: "Before the US or Europe had time to judge us by our actions, US pressure for building a siege had begun.." he said. Read more