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<font size=3 color="#191919">Unite to negotiate a real truce <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9672.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9672.shtml<br><br>
<br>
</a>Dr. Eyad al-Sarraj, <i>The Electronic Intifada,</i> 4 July 2008
<br><br>
<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/080704-al-sarraj-gaza.jpg" width=483 height=326 alt="[]">
<br>
Palestinians hold out their passports as they wait to cross to Egypt at
the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip, 1 July 2008.
(Wissam Nassar/<a href="http://www.maanimages.com/">MaanImages</a>)
<br><br>
After nearly one year of a suffocating siege imposed on Gaza by the
Israeli military establishment, a truce agreement was reached between
Hamas and Israel. This followed months of dedicated Egyptian good
offices. Rockets launched from Gaza against Israeli settlements were to
stop in return for gradually lifting the blockade. A ceasefire sustained
for six months would then roll over to the West Bank. A hostage Israeli
soldier would be released in a separate deal involving exchange of
Palestinian prisoners. Future negotiations would set the terms for
opening the borders between Egypt and Gaza.<br><br>
Hamas vowed to respect the agreement as did other Palestinian factions.
In addition to Hamas, only Islamic Jihad is to be taken seriously. Fatah,
the faction linked to President Abbas, has long and vehemently criticized
rocket firing from Gaza.<br><br>
Five days into the long awaited ceasefire, Israel allowed the entry of
tissues and sanitary napkins into Gaza as a form of "good
will." Simultaneously, it carried out an early morning raid against
a student hostel in Nablus, killing two Palestinians in their
beds.<br><br>
Seeking to justify what seemed to many an obvious provocation, Israeli
spin-doctors once again invoked the "ticking time bomb"
rationale. It was claimed that the men, both in their early 20s, were
plotting a terrorist attack that had been prevented only at the last
moment. Israel was instantly rewarded with the response it expected.
Rockets landed in Sderot, the first two fired by Islamic Jihad and the
third by the al-Aqsa brigades of Fatah, who denounced the truce with
Israel as a form of treason, taunting Hamas for being more concerned with
the survival of its cadre in Gaza than with the fate of fellow
Palestinians in the West Bank.<br><br>
Hamas is in a tight corner. Denied international recognition, embargoed
and short of funds, its leaders feel responsible for meeting the needs of
a throttled population as well as challenged by the daunting task of
running a government with no experience behind them.<br><br>
Perhaps the most painful dilemma faced by Hamas is how to govern well and
consolidate their power while at the same time keeping faith with their
bedrock commitment to champion the armed struggle against the Israeli
occupation.<br><br>
Some of its leaders believe that entering the legislative elections in
2006 was a form of entrapment -- even though Hamas won a decisive triumph
at the polls. Echoes of this doctrinal purity can now be heard in charges
from al-Aqsa brigade fighters against Hamas for abandoning the noble
mission of resistance in favor of squalid political compromise.<br><br>
It is widely believed that firing rockets hurts Palestinians and impedes
their quest for justice, and that competing militias -- the al-Aqsa
brigades in particular -- are out to embarrass Hamas by turning the
ideological tables.<br><br>
But Hamas leaders now insisting on self-restraint and denouncing those
who breach the ceasefire as traitors must contend with the irony of time.
Not so long ago, they used the same polarizing language to indict
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a collaborator when he
demanded a halt to what he called "futile" rocket
attacks.<br><br>
On the Israeli front, it is increasingly and tragically clear that
continued violence represents the default mode of the Israeli military
establishment. However often peace may be rhetorically invoked, in
practice it remains anathema, since it inevitably means the surrender of
occupied land to the Palestinians.<br><br>
Israel is a master at disguising aggressive intransigence as
self-defense. The assassinations carried out last week in Nablus aimed to
incite retaliatory Palestinian violence. It did so. And this in turn
served to confirm the master narrative, so familiar in media coverage of
the conflict, which casts Israelis as perennial victims and Palestinians
as treacherous and untrustworthy.<br><br>
Such an Israeli strategy is not new. The current intifada, which was
provoked by former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon's
visit to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque and quickly militarized, has
witnessed a veracious Israeli appetite for Palestinian land in the West
Bank. And as settlements expand and grow more entrenched, Israel has
succeeded in making the Palestinians play the scripted role as violent
spoilers who "never miss an opportunity to miss an
opportunity."<br><br>
In my dialogue with some of Hamas leaders I have tried consistently to
alert them to Israeli colonial designs, and the need to change course in
order to outflank and out think our force-addicted opponents. I always
found listening ears.<br><br>
Caught in a pincer move between a siege of medieval barbarism imposed by
the Israeli military, and a vicious, internecine Palestinian feud, Gaza
has been brought to the breaking point. But residents have displayed
amazing steadfastness, finding the strength to persevere from religious
faith, traditions of familial solidarity, and an abiding belief in the
justice of the Palestinian cause. Resilience, however, has its
limits.<br><br>
The siege must be completely and permanently lifted so that the 1.5
million people who have endured a kind of collective water-boarding get
the chance to come up for air. For this to happen, political leaders in
Ramallah and Gaza must concentrate less on settling scores and more on
meeting the needs of the citizens they represent, communicating a set of
core messages to European and American audiences, and crafting an agile,
principled and tough-minded strategy to negotiate with Israel.<br><br>
<i>Dr. Eyad al-Sarraj is the founder and director of the
<a href="http://www.gcmhp.net">Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
(GCMHP)</a>.</i> <br><br>
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