Middle East Inside Line (30 August): Israel-Gaza Tension Rising, Sweden and Israel Still Fighting

Israel Tension with Hamas Rising: The tension between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Gaza has been increasing since Monday. Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket into the Western Negev. A 20-year-old Palestinian was shot dead when he approached a security fence separating Israel and the northern Gaza Strip; the Israeli military claimed that gunmen were placing a bomb near the security fence and opened fire. After the Palestinian's death, mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip injured an Israeli soldier; the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility.

On Tuesday, two Israeli jets dropped bombs on smuggling tunnels in the southern town of Rafah. The IDF said that the airstrike, which killed three Palestinian brothers and wounded seven others, was in response to Monday's mortar shell fire at Israel on Monday.

Israel-Sweden Fight Continues:

After recent tension over Palestine and the "stolen organs" controversy, diplomatic storm clouds are still over Stockholm and Tel Aviv. On Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit gave a clear yet a provocative statement in Sweden:

East Jerusalem must be included in a freeze of settlement activity before Middle East peace talks can restart....Jerusalem is Arab and it will continue to be so.

Meanwhile, Washington has denied reports that the Obama Administration dropped the demand for the freezing of settlements in East Jerusalem in exchange for the Israeli concession of a 9 to 12-month settlement freeze in the West Bank.

Israel-Palestine: Fayyad Puts Invitation to Israel within a "Palestinian State"

Israel and Mitchell-Netanyahu: No Agreement Yet "Good"

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After Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that there would be no Palestinian state in the next 16 years, Palestinian (West Bank) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad talked to the Times on Tuesday and declared that the Palestinian Authority intends to establish a de-facto state within two years:

We have decided to be proactive, to expedite the end of the occupation by working very hard to build positive facts on the ground, consistent with having our state emerge as a fact that cannot be ignored. This is our agenda, and we want to pursue it doggedly.

Fayyad added that if a functioning de facto state existed — with or without Israeli co-operation — including competent security forces, functioning public services and a thriving economy, it would force Israel to put its cards on the table as to whether it was serious about ending the 42-year occupation of the West Bank.

Yet this is far from a declaration of resistance to the current Israeli line. Fayyad's reference to "security forces" indicates he is ready for a de-militarized West Bank, and “a thriving economy” implies a blank cheque for Israeli investment and a welcome for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic improvement plan.

Fayyad also said that the days of mutual recriminations were over and that both sides must commit to the 2003 “road map” whereby Israel would implement a comprehensive settlement freeze and the Palestinians would curb the activities of militant groups. In effect, this was a guarantee that there will be no terrorist action by Fatah.

The touchstone issue of division is Israel's continuing construction of 2,500 housing units in the West Bank, which Fayyad said it was vital to stop. Given the Palestinian Prime Minister's willingness to give ground in other areas, will Tel Aviv finally give a concession on settlements so talks can resume?

Gaza: "Moderate" Hamas Does a Balancing "War on Terror" Act

World, may we introduce you to the "moderate" Hamas?

During last Friday's prayers in Rafah, the leader of Junut Ansar Allah (Soldiers of Allah's Supporters), Abd al-Latif Musa, declared "the birth of an Islamic emirate in Gaza". There were his last words of him. Hamas attacked the mosque, killing 24 --- including six unarmed civilians –-- and injuring 125.

Now this may seem a curious way to become "moderate". However, with the Rafah mosque attack, Hamas was not only acting against a perceived insurgent threat. In the past, it has often been alleged that al-Qaeda militants are training and receiving support from Hamas. The Gazan leadership has always denied this but, with last Friday's operation, it offered a war against anti-American Islamist “terrorism”, distancing itself from “radicalism” and sending “positive” signals to Washington and Brussels.

Doing so, the Gazan organisation is striking a delicate balance. On the one hand, it is maintaining a low-profile vigilance against any anti-Western rhetoric that might give its opponents (read "Israel") ammunition for a public-relations assault. On the other, it is maintaining relations with Islamic groups, including some backed by Iran, to prevent any opening of space for challengers in Gaza.

Khaled Meshal, the political director of Hamas, said last week in an interview with Qatari newspaper al-Watan that the post-election turmoil in Iran would not endanger Tehran’s support for Hamas: "No doubt what is happening in Iran concerns and worries us, but we consider it to be an internal affair… But we are definitely not worried about the relationship with Iran or the support that Iran offers us.” Meshal's words took on new signficance after the provocative speech of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on Friday: "Hezbollah is able to hit every city in Israel, and I repeat: if they hit Beirut, we will attack Tel Aviv.”

For, while Hezbollah might want to shake a fist at Israel right now, Hamas does not. So Meshal’s “worry” indicates a thin red line between Hamas and Tehran. Iran, for both domestic and regional reasons, is anxious to keep the heat on Tel Aviv, and it may be sending a message to Hamas to be less forthcoming towards an Israel-Palestine settlement. On the other hand, Meshal in particular has been attentive to sending signals to Washington that Hamas welcomes the US brokering of an agreement.

So Hamas finds itself manoeuvring both vis-a-vis external powers and against internal challenges. Flexibility becomes the keyword for strategy. But if that means Iran cannot be put to one side, it also means that "radicalism" is no longer an attractive label for Gaza's political leaders.

Welcome then to the new, moderate (if War-on-Terror-fighting) Hamas. But how will the world (read "United States") react?

Israel and Palestine: The Latest Manoeuvres of Hamas and Fatah

After Saudi Arabia rejected the US plan for Arab gestures towards Israel to establish diplomatic ties, Saudi King Abdullah warned that the rift among Palestinians was more damaging to their cause of an independent state than the Israeli "enemy".

In a letter to Palestinians gathering at Fatah’s sixth General Assembly, the King said:

"The arrogant and criminal enemy was not able, during years of continued aggression, to hurt the Palestinian cause as much as the Palestinians hurt their cause themselves in the past few months... I can honestly tell you, brothers, that even if the whole world joins to found a Palestinian independent state, and if we have full support for that, this state would not be established as long as the Palestinians are divided."

Abdullah's message comes as Hamas sends stronger signals that it wishes to sign an agreement with Fatah on August 24 in Cairo. On Wednesday, Hamas’s leader in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, stated that Hamas had informed the Egyptian leadership that it wants a unity deal by the 25th.

It is too simple, however, to see this as a one-way Hamas drive for unity. Instead, it appears that the organisation is also looking to pin any blame for failure on Fatah.

Hamas is still guarding against any appearance of weakness and of a Fatah freed to strike a unilateral deal with Israel. So it did not let Fatah delegates leave the Gaza Strip for the West Bank.

Yet Hamas' fears of Fatah "giving in" to Tel Aviv may be overstated. Although some observers expected a significant shift in strategy, the Fatah leadership is not ruling out the option of struggle through arms, although delegates may agree on replacing a statement of 'armed struggle' to 'resistance'. Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas said, "While we stress that we have endorsed the path of peace and negotiations on the basis of international legitimacy, we also reserve our authentic right to legitimate resistance as guaranteed by international law."

So Fatah is aiming at distancing itself further from a “terrorist” Hamas but, at the same time, it is not permitting any political vacuum that Hamas to fill. And that in turn means that Abbas will reiterate Fatah's positions on the right of Palestinian return and the rejection of Jewish settlement construction both in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

If Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, which it leads, can get tangible concessions from Israel and if the Obama Administration can get close to a settlement, then Hamas will be stuck inside the Gaza Strip. However, if the process is drawn out, then Fatah will suffer and, conversely, Hamas will strengthen.

Israel-Palestine: Hamas Says (Again) Ready to Negotiate

This analysis is based on a piece by Amjad Atallah in The Washington Note (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/)

The Wall Street Journal, which is no friend of the cause of Hamas, carried an interview last Friday in which the organisation's political director, Khaled Meshaal, said, "We along with other Palestinian factions in consensus agreed upon accepting a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines. This is the national program. This is our program. This is a position we stand by and respect." Meshaal added that Hamas would commit to an immediate reciprocal cease-fire with Israel and a prisoner exchange.

Meshaal put acceptance of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders within "a broader peace agreement with Israel", including the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and a capital for the Palestinian state in East Jerusalem.

This, however, is also the official position of Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority,
although Palestinian leaders have privately admitted to Israelis that they might give up the right of return in exchange for the 1967 borders.

And Meshaal's interview, which restates the position he set out to The New York Times earlier this summer, is another indication that Hamas supports President Obama's efforts to broker a settlement: "Hamas and other Palestinian groups are ready to cooperate with any American, international or regional effort to find a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to end the Israeli occupation and to grant the Palestinian people their right of self-determination."