Is President Obama breaking a promise? He’d long vowed he’d continue to back Israel’s steadfast refusal to negotiate with Hamas — but no longer.
And so Jerusalem and Washington are back in crisis mode, clashing this time over a Palestinian “unity” government that the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, officially introduced Monday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant: He won’t negotiate with Abbas’ new government — which was hastily forged after the Palestinian chief turned his back on US-led peace talks with Israel.
Instead, Abbas chose to partner with another longtime enemy, Hamas.
Yes, that Hamas. The one that has viciously killed Abbas’ own allies and chased them out of Gaza. The one that Israel, America and the European Union define as a terrorist organization.
Surely, Washington would discourage anyone from negotiating with terrorists, right? Sorry, not quite.
On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Abbas has formed an “interim, technocratic government” and that, pending further review, “we intend to work with this government.”
That seems to contradict what Obama had said during his 2008 presidential run, when doubts over his commitment to the US-Israeli alliance first emerged.
Since Hamas is a “terrorist organization,” he said back then, “we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and abide by previous agreements.”
Israeli officials say that Obama has personally assured Netanyahu several times since then that Hamas would be excluded from US-backed peace talks.
Yet now America is willing to “work” with “technocrats” who happen to represent a terrorist organization. Why? Well, as Psaki said, none of the ministers in Abbas’s new Cabinet are officially members of Hamas.
And Abbas says that this government will stick with the three principles mentioned by Obama, including the recognition of Israel (though, per Abbas, not as a Jewish state).
But remember why Abbas reshuffled his government in Ramallah to start with: He needed to reflect the new realities after signing a “unity” pact with Hamas’ leader, Ismail Haniyeh, last month.
Technocrats or not, Haniyeh approved each Hamas member of the new government, and he can dismiss anyone who strays too far from Hamas’ positions.
It is fair to note that Palestinian “unity” remains quite elusive.
Hamas is still in full control of Gaza, while Abbas’ Fatah is the top power in the West Bank. Hamas calls for an Islamist state, while Fatah is rooted in secular revolutionary traditions.
Each party maintains its own justice, education and even religious systems. Most crucially, each has its own police and military.
That said, it remains that, for all that Abbas may declare his commitment to the principles Obama mentioned, which have guided the peace process ever since its inception in the early 1990s, his government partners reject them all.
As Haniyeh put it in an Al Jazeera interview back in April: “As far as we’re concerned, the issue of recognition of Israel has been settled” in “our political literature, in our Islamic thought and in our Jihadist culture, on which we base our moves: Recognition of Israel is out of the question.”
Not to worry. Abbas says Israel can negotiate with (and make concession to) him, not Hamas.
But then what?
Abbas is aging. His party, Fatah, is deeply divided, with several would-be successors viciously fighting for leadership. And Hamas is well-organized, ready to pocket all Palestinian gains from a peace process that it refuses to recognize as legitimate.
That’s what happened when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005: Hamas took over — first by election, then by killing and torturing all its Fatah rivals. Israel got, rather than the fruits of peace, regular waves of rockets.
But America isn’t worried. Nah. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are rushing back to the promise of peace talks yet again.
And after they made clear that Washington would “work” with the Fatah-Hamas government, European countries, Russia and everyone else rushed to bless Israel’s newest “peace partner.”
Not so Netanyahu, who on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he’s “deeply troubled” by the US blessing. Other Jerusalem officials vowed to mobilize Israel’s allies on Capitol Hill to change the administration’s mind.
So here we go again: The never-ending Bam-Bibi crisis rears its head once more, this time over an American rush to legitimize a fascist, decisively anti-American, fanatic terrorist group through a “technocratic” back door.
And once again, Obama and Kerry bet on Abbas, leaving Netanyahu screaming. Looks like America is ready to blindly stamp Hamas as kosher.