Studying the Proposal
Mahmoud Abbas is desperately trying to arrange a truce between his armed Fatah militia and that of Islamist Hamas. Hamas, still enjoying its election upper-hand concedes "This mutual truce would be observed at first for one month in the Gaza Strip, then afterwards in the West Bank". If that isn't magnanimous, then what, as Hamas prepares to "study the proposal". They will continue to detest one another, but with gentlemanly restraint, setting aside their propensity to send one another off to martyrdom in the cause of "resistance".Mr. Abbas laments that Israel is striking back at the Hamas rocket launchers from the Gaza border. The continued attacks and their resulting counter-attacks have been stepped up considerably, with Qassam rockets claiming one death and many injuries among Israelis, along with yet another removal of vulnerable Sderot residents from the area. All while the Palestinian president pleads with Islamists to hold their fire so a truce with Israel can be resumed.
"We don't need these futile firings of rockets and they have to cease so that we can reach a reciprocal truce with the Israelis in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," Mr. Abbas repeated. The trouble is he is speaking a language unknown to Hamas. These are words and sentences forming a message and a hope for the future that are completely foreign to Hamas, and in fact, inimical to their own presence, let alone their future plans.
This asymmetrical position between the two isn't amenable to dialogue, to persuasion, to reasonable debate, or rational conclusions. Hamas remains staunch in its denial of Israel's legal presence as a nation, determined to remove the "Zionist entity" and in the process extinguish as many Jewish lives as Allah grants them opportunity to accomplish, in His blessed name.
Fault lies everywhere. It hasn't only been the Palestinians who have missed opportunities to solve the seemingly insolvable problems festering between Israel and the Palestinians, no thanks to the greater presence of mischief-making Arab countries surrounding them. Israel too has missed her opportunities. And now the downward spiral of Palestinians complicit in the murder of innocent Israelis, and the Israeli response of tightening the noose around civilian Palestinians has reached the abyss in human nature and response.
But while there is life, there is hope, as the optimists always chirp. So, by all means study the proposal. And after that, study another proposal. Perhaps, eventually, the deep well of hatred might be dispelled with the mutual death-dealing, devolving to an opportunity for open-minded, open-ended talks and agreements, through sheer exhaustion of the current situation.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, May 26, 2007
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