It was a political tsunami that swept away the last illusions about the Middle East.
Jewish groups in the United States — right, left and center — woke up last week to a radically altered Mideast political landscape, as well. Here’s a rundown of how the political upheaval is playing out among American Jewish factions.
• The right: It’s hard to find Jews who are happy about the Hamas victory, but in private, some Jewish right-wingers come pretty close.
The rise of Hamas, they believe, will remove all ambiguity about the intentions of the Palestinians, whom the right contends have never drifted far from the goal of destroying Israel entirely.
The Palestinian Authority and the long rule of Yasser Arafat, who combined negotiations and terrorism, masked that reality for some, the right believes. The triumph of Hamas and the rise of a government led by a group sworn to destroy Israel will lift that veil.
The result, the right hopes, will be a much tougher U.S. stance toward the Palestinians, declining support among the Europeans and greater latitude for Israeli forces responding to terrorism.
The fact of a Hamas government will almost certainly preclude new land-for-peace negotiations; the right also hopes it will reduce U.S. pressure on Israel to remove settlements from the West Bank.
• The left: The same factors make the Hamas victory the worst possible news for Jewish peace groups.
An unrepentant Hamas government will effectively bring bilateral peace efforts to an end and put the languishing “road map” for Palestinian statehood, the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s policy in the region, out of its misery. How do you negotiate with people who say they are implacably sworn to your destruction?
Unilateralism will be the name of the game in Jerusalem.
Groups like Americans for Peace Now reluctantly supported last summer’s Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, hoping unilateral action would trigger new negotiations leading to a final
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status agreement with the Palestinians.
Prospects for such negotiations dimmed to the point of invisibility with the election of Hamas; the vote may have been a huge boost to new unilateral Israeli actions, but with Hamas in the driver’s seat, any new Israeli pullouts may be less sweeping than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon envisioned before his devastating stroke.
And some on the left are wondering: Did the unilateral Gaza pullout boost Hamas by contributing to the impression it was terrorism that drove Israel out?
There are faint glimmers of hope for the peace groups. Contrary to some predictions, the Hamas victory seems to have only reinforced Sharon’s new, centrist Kadima Party. So a middle-of-the-road constituency for some kind of peace remains strong in Israel, despite the electoral victory of the Palestinian terror group.
And there is this hope: if Hamas does come around to the view that negotiations with Israel are the only hope for Palestinian statehood, at least the new government may be better able to deliver its people than the corrupt Fatah leadership.
• Major pro-Israel groups: The pro-Israel lobby could face some shocks as officials in Washington and Jerusalem probe for diplomatic openings with the new Hamas-led government.
While Jewish groups here are busy churning out press statements demanding no contact with Hamas and no aid to any government it controls, the Israeli government has made it clear it will take a more nuanced view.
Israel’s leaders want to hold out for at least the possibility Hamas could change, now that it is responsible for the welfare of the Palestinian people. They’re not counting on change, but they also don’t want to foreclose the possibility.
That means a delicate dance — saying no peace negotiations until Hamas renounces terrorism and gives up its demand for Israel’s extinction, but also quietly probing to find areas where contact with Hamas could prove beneficial to Israel’s interests.
The administration, for all its absolutism on terrorism, is likely to follow Israel’s lead.
Of course, nobody here wants to give U.S. aid to terrorists. Already, members of Congress are grandstanding on the issue and Jewish groups are applauding them.
But in the end Washington, worried about the impact of growing instability in Gaza and the West Bank on allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and anxious not to drive the Palestinian Authority deeper into the embrace of Iran, will probably continue indirect humanitarian aid and seek quiet diplomatic openings with a view to testing Hamas.
American Jewish groups, reacting to years of pro-Israel rhetoric, see a black-and-white equation: You don’t talk to terrorists, period. That perspective is almost certain to clash with U.S. and Israeli leaders who, for all their tough talk this week, will try to find some way they can work with Hamas to transform it into something other than what it has always been: an anti-Israel, anti-U.S. terror group.
James Besser is a Washington correspondent for Jewish newspapers across the country.