Transcript

Host: This is “On the Line,” and I'm Eric Felten. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has formed a new emergency government, one without members of the political party and terrorist group Hamas. The move came after Hamas gunmen took over the Gaza section of the Palestinian territories. Hamas militias made a bloody purge of loyalists to Mr. Abbas’ Fatah party, executing dozens of men in the streets. Some of those wounded in the fighting were later killed in their hospital beds. Hamas now controls Gaza, which has fallen into a frenzy of widespread looting.

President George W. Bush announced that the United States would lift an embargo on aid to the Palestinian Authority now that Hamas is no longer part of the government:

President Bush: "Our hope is that President Abbas and the prime minister, Fayyad, who's a good fellow, will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction, with a different hope."

Host: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that it is up to Palestinians to reject the radicalism and violence of Hamas:

Secretary Rice: "A fundamental choice confronts the Palestinians and all people in the Middle East more clearly now than ever. It is a choice between violent extremism on the one hand and tolerance and responsibility on the other. Hamas has made its choice. It has sought to attempt to extinguish democratic debate with violence and to impose its extremist agenda on the Palestinian people in Gaza. Now responsible Palestinians are making their choice, and it is the duty of the international community to support those Palestinians who wish to build a better life and a future of peace."

Host: What next in the Palestinian territories? I'll ask my guests: Amitai Etzioni, a University Professor at George Washington University and author of the book, “Security First: For a Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy,” Jonathan Snow, manager of research for The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington and author of a forthcoming book on Hamas. And joining us by phone from Washington: Salameh Nematt, a Middle East analyst and former Washington bureau chief of Al-Hayat International newspaper. Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

I'd actually like to go first to Salameh Nematt. Are you there by phone?

Nematt: Yes, I am.

Host: What's your sense at this point? With Hamas controlling Gaza, is there going to be a de facto, permanent division of the Palestinian territories?

Nematt: Well, the West Bank, to begin with, is isolated from the Gaza Strip in a sense, even geographically. And in a sense, there has always been a division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The West Bank, between 1950 and '67, was under Jordanian control. Most West Bankers carry Jordanian passports, and they're under a better -- relatively better economic situation compared to the Gaza Strip, which used to be under Egyptian control before the '67 war. So you already have that division. Now, of course, that division is deepening politically, and we have what you could describe -- what one described as a 2 1/2-state solution now, meaning a state of the West Bank, with a division of the Bush administration, and then you have a statelet, or half a state, of Gaza -- Hamastan, as some would call it.

Host: Amitai Etzioni, what's your sense of the likelihood that the Palestinian territories could be sort of reunited at this point?

Etzioni: Well, at this moment -- and I should underline about “moment” -- it could be all kind of swept away by some optimism that somehow out of this storm there will be a silver lining, and Israel and the Palestinians on the West Bank will form a peaceful two-state solution, and then to somehow worry about this remaining problem in Gaza, which I don't see that they are going to readily merge with the West Bank. But I think -- I want to caution us against these rosy lenses, or glasses, we're so quick to put on and this enormous oversimplification of the situation by the media which suddenly makes the West Bank look unified, all-of-one-kind, and Gaza, the other. There are Hamas elements on the West Bank. There are splinter groups of Fatah. There are many very difficult conditions here. So the question is, are we best served by this positive thinking, or are we best served by calling things in a very realistic way so we won't raise our expectations to untenable levels? Just to give one quick example. One of the next steps, I'm sure, is going to be the United States is going to encourage or lean on Israel to remove some of the restrictions on travel on the West Bank -- I think an idea which every decent human being would support. And then one of the more extreme groups on the West Bank is going to blow up some Israeli bus, and we're going to be back to duress. So I was very heartened when Secretary Rice talked about a choice between peace and tolerance. The word “democracy” was not mentioned. We need, first of all, the basic thing -- stop the killing. Stop this in each camp and across the camps. Then we can start talking about the other stuff.

Host: Jonathan Snow, is it going to be possible to stop the killing at this point? Is there an opportunity for that?

Snow: There's an opportunity to stop the killing within certain bounds, but I don't think it's going to stop in the long term. I think what the previous guests have said is correct. There is a real cultural difference between the West Bank and Gaza, and Hamas' power base has always been in Gaza. That's where it grew up, that's where it came from, and that's where its military is in the most control, whereas the West Bank is more under Fatah control. Now, that's an oversimplification. There are elements of both groups active in both the West Bank and Gaza, and they're important elements of both. So what we see now is nice in that it's an improvement over what we had previously -- at least in recent memory. Abbas has always been a weak leader. He's never shown a real willingness to lead and make difficult decisions. But in the last couple of weeks, we've seen something else. We've seen him making difficult stances, outlawing the Hamas armed wing, and a few other things. So if he follows through in that sort of regard, then you see an improvement. Now, at the same time, there's a question -- How much can he actually control the security in the West Bank itself? And that's a real question. He has a huge security force both within the West Bank and in Jordan being trained somewhat through American dollars and Western aid, but it's a force that hasn't really been tested. And when they were tested in Gaza, did not perform very well even though they're significantly better than Hamas -- bigger than Hamas.

Host: Salameh Nematt, let me ask. Dennis Ross, who had been in the Clinton administration, the chief negotiator for the Middle East conflict, he says that at this point, there's a competition going on for Palestinian identity and a question over whether the Palestinian identity will be a secular one or a radically religious one. What do you make of that?

Nematt: Well, this has been going on for years, if not decades, this competition between the seculars and the religious, and I think that it's a competition over who can better lead the Palestinian people. Now, with the Palestinian moderates, if you like, negotiating with Israel a peace agreement, or seeking a peace agreement with Israel, they've been pursuing this since 1991, since the Madrid peace conference. And having failed to deliver -- in a sense, deliver an independent Palestinian state free from Israeli occupation -- although we must say that the Oslo process originally in 1993 produced the Palestinian Authority on the ground and gave the Palestinians hope of eventually having an independent Palestinian state. Now, the failure of the peace process since the Oslo agreement, since the collapse of the Oslo agreement, and since the collapse of the whole peace process with the Second Palestinian Intifada, the Palestinians have grown more desperate, and they gravitated towards Hamas, which was using the other option, which is using force, which is a disastrous option in my view, and has brought more misery upon the Palestinians. Now, the question is whether -- It is true that Abbas has been weak, but one of the reasons -- main reasons why he's weak is because his -- the Palestinian Authority's security establishment has been systematically destroyed over the years, especially under the Sharon government, making it easier for Hamas, which is gaining weapons and training from Iran, to overrun Fatah in Gaza. This is one thing. The second thing is if we're going to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, Israel would need to give him political concessions. It's not enough to release the funds -- let's say the tax funds -- that Israel holds, but it's also important to give Mahmoud Abbas something he can promise his own people. Perhaps the Israelis would agree to freeze settlements that are being built in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem so that the Palestinians can believe that a peace process could lead to an exchange of land for peace with Israel. All these factors have to be including other factors to enable the moderates, if you like, to gain the upper hand in the West Bank.

Host: Let's listen to what Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel had to say when he was in Washington, meeting with President Bush this week, about what Israel plans to do to bring -- to support President Mahmoud Abbas:

Olmert: "I want to strengthen the moderates and to cooperate with President Abu Mazen, who is president of all Palestinians -- perhaps the only person who was widely elected in a democratic manner by all of the Palestinian people -- and I am going to make every possible effort to cooperate with him and to move forward, to see how things can be worked jointly, in order to provide the Palestinians with a real, genuine chance for a state of their own."

Host: Amitai Etzioni, how much room does Israel have at this point to affect the choices that Palestinians make about who's going to run their affairs?

Etzioni: I'm really happy you asked that question, because there's a tendency, especially among Palestinians, to hang it all on Israel -- the tensions are there because of Israel, Israel should make concessions. Every time Israel makes a concession, including the famous offer made by Ehud Barak, it's not accepted, it's not sufficient, and there's always room to ask for more. Now, I'm all in favor of Israel helping, but it has to -- The Palestinians have to be told openly that it has to be a reciprocal process. It's just no way Israel can make concession after concession if that will lead to a revival of terrorism. So if you approach it -- and I don't mind if Israel made the first, second, or third gestures -- but we have to emphasize it has to be a reciprocal process. And just one more sentence about this secular/religious business. We very often do that, all of us, divide -- The secular are the good guys, and the religious are the bad guys. Very unsatisfactory way to draw the line. There are many, many -- I just did a very careful study of this. The majority of Muslims and Palestinians are neither. They're moderate, religious people. And so the notion that you either have to be secular, and then you're going to be a Liberal Democrat, or you have an Islamist, kind of jihadist, into violence, just disregards that a very large proportion in all Muslim countries -- especially in Bangladesh and Indonesia -- are very moderate Muslims. So we should collaborate with the secular and the moderates and isolate the jihadists rather than pushing at them all, all those who are not liberal secularists, into the extremist camp.

Host: Jonathan Snow, on this point, many people have asked in the last few days if supporting more vigorously Fatah is really the answer, given that Fatah is the party that comes out of the PLO and Yasir Arafat's movement, that this is really where sort of terrorists, suicide bombing, violence was organized in the first place, and whether supporting Fatah at this point really makes that big of a difference.

Snow: I think what's interesting, the difference between Hamas and Fatah, there's positive and there's negative aspects. With Hamas, you always know what you're getting. It's a single, unified movement. It's got its political leadership, it's got its military leadership, but they all answer to the same people, and they're all working in concert. The problem with Fatah -- and the strength of Fatah -- is that it's a wide-ranging movement. It's got many different elements to it. It's got certainly extremist elements that -- like the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade -- that want to continue suicide attacks against Israel. It's also got more moderate elements. So the question is, Can you work with the moderate elements of Fatah, and will that bring about peace, or is that encouraging the other elements of the Fatah movement to continue with their attacks? With Hamas, there's no way to work with them. You've got no one to work with. With Fatah, that's not the case. And so there is a positive avenue possibly available. The question is, can Abbas control his people? Can he control everyone? And when he cannot control everyone, because there's no way he can control everyone within the West Bank, there will be a continuation of suicide attacks, even if Abbas tries to stop it. How does Israel respond, and how much can Israel take before it has to say, "You know what? Even if you want to do the right thing, you're not offering us enough."

Host: Salameh Nematt, we've talked a lot about Israel and also U.S. policy. What are the issues for the Arab neighbors in the region? Is Egypt happy to see Hamas in charge of Gaza on its border?

Nematt: Well, Egypt made its position clear, which is it decided to boycott Hamas and to support Fatah and support the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as the legitimate president of all Palestinians, including Gazans. And as such, Egypt intends to work with the legitimate leadership of Abbas and the government that he's established under Salam Fayyad. Now, the question is really the key element that's going to decide whether Abbas fails or succeeds and whether the moderates prevail within his camp or not is whether the Israelis actually put on the table something that's acceptable to the Palestinians. It's all very well to talk about concessions, but the fact is that Israel is obliged legally and morally to end its occupation and subjugation of another people. The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is the last occupation I know of in the world and, in that sense, the longest occupation that I know of in the world. And I think that if Israel wants to just fix the situation while maintaining its occupation, we're not going to get anywhere, and the moderates will continue to be pushed towards extremism.

Host: Mr. Nematt, let me ask -- What's the expectation of what happens to the Israeli calculation about leaving West Bank territories given the outcome in Gaza when Israel left from those areas?

Nematt: Well, Israel left Gaza basically while continuing to weaken the moderates by not showing the Palestinians a light at the end of the tunnel. This is the problem. People don't become extremists out of the blue. They become extremists when they're pushed to the wall, when they find they become desperate, and when they see the moderate track is leading them nowhere, which has been the case with the moderate Palestinians for quite a while now. Ultimately the Israelis need to end their occupation of the Palestinians. And, of course, they do have their security concerns, and these security concerns need to be addressed. This is why when Israel built that separation wall, you know, people on the Palestinian side, of course, opposed it because that wall is swallowing big chunks of their own land. Nobody would have objected had the Israelis built that wall along the lines of the borders -- supposed borders -- decided by international law. We're talking about U.N. Security Council resolution 242, which the U.S. backs. The problem is that the Israelis want peace, but they also want to keep parts of the lands of the Palestinians under their control.

Host: Well, let me ask Amitai Etzioni, then, how does what's happened in Gaza affect politics within Israel and how much room Israeli politicians have to make concessions or make negotiations?

Etzioni: I find myself in an odd position here. I don't want to sound like one of us is making the case against Israel, and I'm making the case for Israel, because that's not my job. I'm a professor of international relations. But the fact -- The mortar attacks and the rocket attacks from Gaza and the clear effort to make them stronger and longer-ranging really makes it very difficult for Israel to look at a Palestinian state which would be truly, fully independent and therefore fully armed by Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria. In fact, I just published two days ago -- oddly enough, I was invited for lunch with somebody who I cannot name but I can describe -- a representative of Syria -- in Washington, in his home, together with five other people. And he was the first to point out that Syria and Israel may now go into peace negotiations, but the problem is, how can we ensure Israel that the whole West Bank would not look like Gaza, with rockets being fired all the way down that line? So I agree with what was said a moment ago. We need to provide security for Israel before Israel will by -- see how it can be secure once we retreat to the 1967 borders.

Host: Jonathan Snow, on this question of Syria and what Syria is interested in and also, as Salameh Nematt has mentioned before, so much of Hamas' funding coming from Iran, how do the agendas of these players who are funding the players in the Palestinian territories -- How do their agendas affect what's going to happen?

Snow: Let me just step back for a minute to talk really quickly about this working with the moderates and where we were in 2000, because I think it's unfair to say that Israel has pushed aside the moderates and that they've never offered anything, and that's why the violence came to be. I think if you see the outbreak of the Second Intifada, it really came when Israel was offering just about everything that the Palestinians wanted. They were offering 97% of Gaza and the West Bank, shared control over East Jerusalem, and a realistic solution to the refugee problem.

Host: We have about 30 seconds left.

Snow: So let me just say very quickly, on the Syria and Iran issue, you're absolutely correct. They're in there. They're the puppet masters. They're putting their money in. But they're not in complete control. Hamas will take the money from both of those because they need it, and they'll take whatever they can get, and they'll use it as a way to provoke the Israelis. But it's not -- They're not going to make their final decisions based on what Iran and Syria want, but it will certainly play a large role in it.

Host: Salameh Nematt, we have about 10 seconds left. What's your sense on the Iran question?

Nematt: Well, I think Iran has a hand in every conflict in the region, or a very negative role, from Iraq to Palestine and to Lebanon, and I'm afraid somebody has got to stop Iran before it gains the upper hand.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word for today. We're out of time, but I'd like to thank my guests -- Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University, Jonathan Snow of The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and joining us by phone, Salameh Nematt of Al-Hayat international Arab daily newspaper. Before we go, I'd like to invite you to send us your questions or comments. You can reach us through our Web site at www.voanews.com/ontheline. For "On the Line," I'm Eric Felten.