MIDEAST: Hamas Waits for a Russian Hug

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Fawzia Sheikh

JERUSALEM, Feb 20 2006 (IPS) - Israel has said that Russia’s plans next month to meet leaders of the new militant Palestinian government Hamas may legitimise its political status in the eyes of the international community but not diminish its terrorist nature.

Israel has said that Russia’s plans next month to meet leaders of the new militant Palestinian government Hamas may legitimise its political status in the eyes of the international community but not diminish its terrorist nature.

Hamas was elected in January to rule the Palestinian Authority. It is considered by many foreign governments to be a terrorist organisation for carrying out suicide bomb attacks against Israelis and for not recognising Israel’s existence or the formal peace process. Israel last weekend officially cut ties with Hamas.

Russia’s actions may contravene the views of the Middle East Quartet, of which it is a member along with the United Nations, the United States and the European Union (EU). Following Hamas’s election the Quartet of peacemakers urged the party to abolish its radical stance or face foreign aid cuts.

“We hold that in order to achieve a settlement in the Middle East, it is necessary to see a full picture,” Russia’s minister for foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov had said following Quartet talks in January.

“Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, reflects the real situation in settlement with all its minuses, long histories and so on,” Lavrov said.

Russia unlike the United States and the EU never considered Hamas a terrorist organisation, although it believes Hamas must disarm and follow in the footsteps of its more conciliatory predecessor, Fatah.

Turkey, which has good relations with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is willing to act as a mediator while France also seems to be leaning towards an open dialogue with Hamas.

The Ariel Centre for Policy Research, however, believes Russia’s moves contradict the roadmap to peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and embark on a path dangerous to Israel and the West.

“By encouraging Hamas you discourage peace,” Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, board member of the Tel Aviv-based think tank told IPS.

The worst-case scenario resulting from this crack in the Quartet’s resolve may be similar to the 1939 Munich Agreement in which the West unwittingly allowed Germany to take parts of the former Czechoslovakia that it said was originally German land, and precipitated the Second World War, said Tsiddon-Chatto..

In capitulating to Hamas now, he argued, it would be as though the world declared: “‘Let’s sacrifice Israel for the sake of coming to terms with Islam’.”

Although Russia may aim to forge an honest role as peace broker between the two sides, Israeli analysts describe its gesture to Hamas also as attempts to end American political dominance in the region and to promote exports.

“They want that old influence. This kind of a synchronized unit – Russia plus the Middle East – can dictate….conditions (for oil exports) that are not less damaging than a war,” Tsiddon-Chatto said. He raised the issue of the 1973 Arab oil boycott against the West and Israel, in which world oil prices skyrocketed and industrialised economies were hard hit.

Already, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed arms deals with Syria and sold new technology to Iran. Putin also reportedly is willing to sell military hardware to the Palestinian Authority if Israel agrees.

Tsiddon-Chatto said Russian success in persuading France to hold discussions with Hamas would translate to a troubling shift in the political position of half of the Quartet. He said it was unlikely that the rest of the coalition would follow suit.

The view could not be more different in Gaza, where Ghazi Hamed edits Hamas’s Al-Risala newspaper.

“We want to talk to all people….even the U.S,” Hamed told IPS. “They should deal with Hamas. Hamas was elected through democratic elections and is now a government.”

Hamed said Hamas wants to clarify to the world its image and goals. He said he hopes Russia, which he described as previously “ignored during the peace process” and wishing to boost its reputation in the Middle East, will hold sway with countries in Asia and the Middle East.

Saleh Abdeljawad, professor of political science at Birzeit University in Ramallah, believes isolating Hamas is a risky venture in the long term because it may breed greater militancy.

“The faster Hamas enters the international order, they will be more eager to give more and more concessions,” he said.

Abdeljawad compares Hamas with the Palestine Liberation Organisation of two decades ago. Led by the late Yasser Arafat, the PLO was prone to “raising the flag of militaristic struggle.” It eventually toned down its violent rhetoric about Israel and was accepted as the voice of Palestinians by the international community.

Abdeljawad said Russia is merely trying to convince Hamas to adopt a moderate position towards Israel.

He cannot understand the criticism of Russia, he said. “It’s a little strange, weird and suspicious.”