Why Hamas-US negotiations are inevitable and positive
Some initial thoughts that I will flesh out in an oped tomorrow, stressing why Hamas is the party to engage for movement towards a permanent peace agreement that treats all parties equally.
1. Situations like Vietnam, Afghanistan and others saw western military powers ultimately negotiate with the weaker "terrorists" they were fighting. The same will happen in Palestine.
2 .These talks ideally will be linked to and launch a gradual process of Israel-American-Palestinian diplomacy that seeks a negotiated and permanent resolution of the conflict.
3. The US is now a key player in this arena but Trump and his officials send contradictory or unclear signals about their position and aims. The US' fast changes in Ukraine suggest how it could also quickly change Is-Pal interactions.
4. Hamas is the critical actor the US and Israel must engage to move towards a permanent peace that treats all actors equally. This is because Hamas is the major Palestinian and Arab party that continues to resist Israel politically, militarily, and in other ways, and has pursued a consistent strategy for decades. It will not make unilateral concessions under pressure, as Fateh and Arafat did many times to no avail. Simultaneously it has repeatedly expressed its willingness to negotiate to resolve the conflict with Israel peacefully. It will make tough decisions like coexisting with Israel only if Israel reciprocates and accepts to live with a Palestinian state.
5. Hamas best represents the Palestinian national consensus on war/peace with Israel because it has always stressed the centrality of Palestinian positions on the issues that matter to all. These are: ending the occupation of 1967; freeing Palestinian prisoners; implementing Palestinian self-determination; creating a Palestinian state in WB-Gaza-east Jerusalem; and resolving Palestinian refugeehood. These are tough issues for Israel to accept, but they are the price for a permanent peace and Israel's acceptance in the region as a Jewish-majority state, which the Arab states just reiterated at their Cairo summit on reconstructing Gaza.
6 . Hamas resists but also negotiates pragmatically when needed, as we've seen in recent months. The recent ceasefire talks revealed its willingness to make concessions only if Israel does the same. It understands and accepts the price of resistance and sticking to its core national goals and rights, aware that multiple unilateral concessions only negate any chances of a just peace that treats all parties equally.
7. We should prod a US-Hamas dialogue on hostages towards addressing the harder underlying issues that created the conflict in the first place, going back a century in many cases. Israeli desired security can only be guaranteed by Palestinian rights being implemented, and Hamas now is the only actor that can lead the Palestinians into such a trajectory.
For more factual analysis on Hamas’ evolution and positions, see the book Helena Cobban and I recently published, comprising in-depth interviews with five respected scholars and experts on Hamas. https://orbooks.com/catalog/understanding-hamas/