Israel Matzav

NY Times lies?

The New York Times' Ethan Bronner is claiming that Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal has accepted a 'two-state solution.'

“The whole world knows what Hamas thinks and what our principles are,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview in his Cairo hotel suite. “But we are talking now about a common national agenda. The world should deal with what we are working toward now, the national political program.”

He defined that as “a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital, without any settlements or settlers, not an inch of land swaps and respecting the right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel itself.

Asked if a deal honoring those principles would produce an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mr. Meshal said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Now of course, for Israelis, Meshaal's 'settlement' (which is non-negotiable of course) is a non-starter because even if we conceded all that land (which is most unlikely) and displaced half a million Israelis from their homes (including yours truly), there is no way that Israel is going to agree to a 'right of return' for 'Palestinian refugees' into the remaining rump state. And you will note that for all that Meshaal will not commit to an end of conflict nor to end the violence. So is he calling for a 'two-state solution' or a 'two-phase solution,' with Israel being obliterated in the second phase? Bronner (or his headline writer - reporters don't usually write their own headlines) seems to have decided it's the former, but based on past experience it's far more likely to be the latter.

Dangerously, an awful lot of people are buying into the Times' headline - which is why it's so important to call out headlines like this. One of them is Haaretz's Yossi Melman who had this to say in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

I think this reconciliation agreement deserves a chance. I think it was wrong of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reject this before even knowing the details. I think there is a good chance that maybe it will bear some fruit.

Instead of Hamas using this deal with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to enhance its position and to expand its power base from Gaza to the West Bank, as the Prime Minister fears, I believe the opposite may take place with the PLO pacifying Hamas and with part of the Palestinian coalition eventually accepting Israel.

Already, during the signing ceremony of the reconciliation agreement, the leader of Hamas said they were ready to make peace with Israel along the borders of ’67 after Israel dismantles all its Jewish settlements and Jerusalem becomes the Palestinian capital city.

It’s true they mentioned they would never give up the right of return – in other words, that the Palestinian refugees of ’48 would return to Israel, which means the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel would never accept this. But maybe he said it only as lip service to the mythology of the Palestinian movement - to the charter of Hamas, which was founded in ’87 based on that notion.

But a lot of voices – even from the security community – including the former head of Mossad are supportive of talking to Hamas. Even the outgoing head of our domestic security service hinted today there is much ado about nothing and that the Israeli rejection of the reconciliation is overdoing it.

He thinks that the reconciliation agreement will not stay in place because of the animosity between Fatah and Hamas. Whether the agreement stays in place is the crucial question.

Or, as seems more likely, they are paying lip service to the notion of a 'two-state solution' to ensure that the unified 'Palestinian Authority' doesn't lose its funding.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Khaled Meshaal, two-state solution

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:33 AM