Peace after Schalit?

Despite Tony Blair calling the prisoner swap a “moment of opportunity," the resurgence of Hamas does not bode well for peace.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
tony blair presidential conference 2009 (photo credit: Courtesy)
tony blair presidential conference 2009
(photo credit: Courtesy)
In the wake of Sgt. First Class Gilad Schalit’s safe return home to Mitzpe Hila, our nation is gradually returning to old routines. And one of these familiar rituals is yet another attempt to jump-start peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Quartet, the mediating body made up of representatives from the US, the UN, Russia and the EU, will be meeting in Jerusalem on Wednesday, October 26 to conduct indirect talks.
In an interview with BBC this week, the Quartet’s chief Middle East envoy Tony Blair, said that he hoped the prisoner- swap deal presented a “moment of opportunity.”
Blair added that the deal “offers us the chance of a change of atmosphere, a change of context.”
Unfortunately, it seems Blair is engaging in a bit of wishful thinking.
Putting aside Blair’s own declining influence with the Palestinians, who have accused him of being biased against them (Blair allegedly lobbied against the Palestinian statehood bid in the UN), the timing for renewed talks is hardly promising.
Even before news of the prisoner release had become known, the Quartet failed to bring Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas continued to insist on a complete construction freeze in all areas outside the 1949 armistice lines, including Jerusalem neighborhoods and large settlement blocs expected to be part of any future peace deal. The PA has also refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Even Sari Nusseibeh, a relatively moderate Palestinian intellectual, recently noted in Al Jazeera that no Palestinian leader “and indeed no responsible person – can morally recognize Israel as a ‘Jewish State.’ This, he argues, is because “in the Old Testament, God commands the Jewish state in the land of Israel to come into being through warfare and violent dispossession of original inhabitants.”
Disingenuously, Nusseibeh, and most likely many other “moderate” Palestinians would want the world to believe that it is Israel – not the Gaza Strip – that is under the control of theocratic madmen, bent on carrying out what they understand to be God’s wrathful will.
And Palestinian intransigence with regard to recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, or the construction freeze, is not expected to weaken. If anything, we will probably be seeing further radicalization in the Palestinian street in the wake of the prisoner swap.
After about four years during which Hamas’s influence in the West Bank has been on the decline, Israelis witnessed the disturbing spectacle of hundreds of Palestinians in Ramallah, Jenin and other West Bank towns waving the terrorist organization’s green flag. Undoubtedly, Hamas’s popularity, which had been falling, is now once again on the rise.
The PLO-backed UN bid for Palestinian statehood, which had strengthened the PA under Abbas, is now being eclipsed by Hamas’s success in obtaining the release of 1,027 terrorists. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that following the prisoner swap senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar challenged Abbas to set a date for elections.
Admittedly, Hamas’s popularity might be fleeting.
However, in the short term, the prisoner swap does seem to prove the effectiveness of Hamas’s terrorist methods in yielding concrete results, compared to the PA’s dubious and nebulous diplomatic gains in the UN. It is highly unlikely that Abbas will be more forthcoming and flexible than in the past at a time when Hamas has demonstrated so well to the Palestinian street the rewards of an uncompromisingly rejectionist approach to Israel.
If before the Schalit deal Blair and the Quartet were having a difficult time getting Palestinians back to the negotiating table, we can only imagine the difficulties afterwards.
One positive factor in favor of re-launching peace talks is Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s popularity.
Netanyahu now enjoys the sort of broad-based support needed to push ahead with a controversial peace agreement.
But Israel cannot make peace alone. And with all due respect and appreciation for Blair’s unflagging optimism, the resurgence of Hamas and the sorts of celebrations that took place on the streets of Gaza and on the West Bank – including calls such as “the people want a new Schalit” – do not bode well for peace.


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