“Now and then,
the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look
for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question…The Islamic Resistance
Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realizing the
demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These
conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the
Moslems as arbitrators. When did the infidels do justice to the
believers?”
Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement
(Article 13), Aug. 18,
1988
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
For
all their differences, Israeli, Palestinians and Americans agree that the
Islamic Resistance Movement is an obstacle to a negotiated peace. If this
group seems unfamiliar, its name in Arabic is Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,
nicknamed Hamas (“zeal”).
Unlike the secular Palestinian Authority, which is trying to negotiate an
independent Palestinian state, the religion-based Hamas wants to liberate
all of Palestine, not just the Occupied Territories. It considers
Palestine to be a waqf (holy inheritance) and the presence of
Zionists therein is an affront to Allah (God).
“The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles:
the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle and the Islamic circle. Each of
these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism” (Art. 14).
To wage the struggle, Hamas encourages individual Muslims to join the
jihad (struggle). Tactics include sacrifice bombings against Zionists
and opposition to moderate Palestinians, like those of Yasser Arafat’s al-Fatah
group, who want to negotiate a separate peace (piece?) with Israel.
Hamas’ sanctification of violence and absolute hostility toward Israel
have caused virtually all media to depict it—along with the al-Aqsa
Martyrs’ Brigade and Islamic Jihad—as terrorist. Although this caricature
is understandable, it is not accurate because it begs the questions of who
is a terrorist and whether negotiations serve the Palestinian interest.
Despite scores of conferences, summits, resolutions and official
statements, Israel still occupies Palestine, and Palestinians must endure
humiliations and privations that beg allusion to the Nazis’ treatment of
Jews.
An examination of the
documentary record will shows that Hamas is a legitimate resistance
movement, and a more honourable champion of Palestinian rights than the
Palestinian Authority.
Right of return and
compensation
Background
•
Nov. 29, 1947, to May 15, 1948--Zionist forces under the authority of the
Jewish Agency dispossess more than 300,000 Palestinians so that incoming
Jews can have their land.
•
By December 1948, 418 Arab villages have been destroyed, and the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency registers 726,000 Palestinian refugees.
Walter Eytan, Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, accepts this
figure as “meticulous,” and even suggests that the number was closer to
800,000.
•
Dec. 11, 1948, the UN General Assembly passes
Resolution 194, Creation of a Conciliation Commission for
Palestine, which states in part:
“[The General Assembly] resolves that the refugees wishing to return to
their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to
do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be
paid or the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or
damage to property which, under principles of international law or in
equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities
responsible…” (Para. 11)
•
On May 11, 1949, Israel joins the UN under
UNGA Res. 273, which states:
“Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 [UNGA
Res. 181 “The Partition Plan”] and 11 December 1948 [UNGA Res.194]
and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the
representatives of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc
Political Committee in respect of the implementation of the said
resolutions, The General Assembly… decides to admit Israel to
membership in the United Nations” (emphasis added).
Hamas vs.
international community
Ordinarily, General
Assembly resolutions need Security Council approval to become binding on
the parties involved, but Res. 194 is unique. Because it was embedded in
Res. 273, which Israel formally acknowledged, it became compulsory. Thus,
the question of Palestinian compensation and right of return was resolved
54 years ago.
Within six weeks of being admitted to the UN, Israel's delegation to the
Conciliation Commission refused to accept the boundaries set out in 181,
illegal as they were.
As
ben Gurion said in 1953: “The acceptance of
partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand
from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the
boundaries fixed today—but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the
concerns of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit
them.”
By
rights, Israel should be expelled from the UN because it failed its terms
of membership, but the myth of Israeli legitimacy and the cult of Jewish
victimhood have been ingrained in our collective consciousness.
When Nahum Goldman
stepped down as president of the World Jewish Congress in 1977, he
lamented: “In 30 years, Israel has never presented the Arabs with a single
peace plan. She has rejected every settlement plan devised by her friends
and by her enemies. She has seemingly no other object than to preserve the
status quo while adding territory piece by piece.”
Article 32 of the
Covenant expresses the same sentiment: “Today it is Palestine;
tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless.
After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the
Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they
will aspire to further expansion, and so on.”
Hamas is absolutely
correct to assert that conferences and other forms of polite palaver are
incapable of rendering justice to the Palestinians. As such, Hamas is also
correct to condemn the Palestinian Authority for negotiating with Israel
while these issues were outstanding. If Israel can so cavalierly thumb its
nose at the world, the authority should know that Israel cannot be trusted
to honour any agreement.
The Occupied
Territories
Background
After the June 1967 war,
Israel found itself in possession of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and Golan Heights. On Nov. 22, 1967, the Security Council passed the
binding
Res. 242, which emphasizes the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, and demands that
Israeli armed forces withdraw from these territories.
(Zionist casuists and
dissemblers argue that absence of “all” before “occupied territories”
gives Israel the right to some of this land, but this is a lie.
Great Britain’s UN ambassador Hugh Foot, achieved unanimous council
support, 15–0, for Res. 242, and affirmed its comprehensive intent.
Moreover, the Zionist interpretation would make the resolution
self-contradictory, and a contempt of the UN Charter.)
Unfortunately for
Palestinians, the U.S. government is an obedient tool of the domestic
Zionist lobby, and as such has vetoed more than 35 Security Council
resolutions that would have held Israel accountable to international law,
including Res. 242.
Because of the U.S.,
Israel has been allowed to compound its criminality. Since 1968, it began
establishing Jewish colonies in the territories. Euphemistically called
“settlements,” these enclaves are designed to “Judaize” Palestine and make
life so miserable for Arabs that they either die or are forced to leave.
On this score, Hamas is dead right about Zionist aims:
“Our enemy relies on the methods of collective punishment. He has deprived
people of their homeland and properties, pursued them in their places of
exile and gathering, breaking bones, shooting at women, children and old
people, with or without a reason. The enemy has opened detention camps
where thousands and thousands of people are thrown and kept under
sub-human conditions. Added to this, are the demolition of houses,
rendering children orphans, meting cruel sentences against thousands of
young people, and causing them to spend the best years of their lives in
the dungeons of prisons.
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or
children. Their policy of striking fear in the heart is meant for all.
They attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their
money and threatening their honour. They deal with people as if they were
the worst war criminals. Deportation from the homeland is a kind of
murder.” (Covenant, Art. 20)
Resolution 242 addresses
only the effects of the 1967 war, and as such presents an ethical dilemma.
By mandating that Israel withdraw forces from the Occupied Territories,
the resolution tacitly acknowledges Israel’s borders, which, as we saw,
are illegal and deliberately undefined.
Hamas vs. the
Palestinian Authority
For Hamas, Res. 242 is
irrelevant because it does not speak to the crimes of 1947-48 or to the
presence of infidels in Palestine. However, for the PA, Res. 242 is
important. On Nov. 15, 1988, four months after Jordan gave up its claim to
the West Bank, the Palestine National Council abandoned open hostility
toward Israel in favour of accommodation. It declared a Palestinian state
in the Occupied Territories, and agreed to abide by Res. 242.
It is no coincidence
that the Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement was issued
between these two events. In fact, the history of Hamas overlaps the
entire history of the Oslo peace agreement.
On Sept. 13, 1993,
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the
Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-government, which Arafat
called “the beginning of the end of a chapter
of pain and suffering that has lasted throughout this century.”
Doubtless one reason for his optimism was Rabin’s promise to put a freeze
on new Israeli colonies to prevent any change to the status quo in the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the negotiations.
But if Yasser Arafat
really wanted to establish a Palestinian state according to Res. 242,
he had no business signing this deal. Annex II at the end of the
Declaration reads: “It is understood that,
subsequent to the Israeli withdrawal, Israel will continue to be
responsible for external security, and for internal security and public
order of settlements and Israelis. Israeli military forces and civilians
may continue to use roads freely within the Gaza Strip and the
Jericho area.”
Moreover,
the number of
colonists over this period gradually doubled to more than 200,000, which
not only violated Israel’s promise of a settlement freeze, but also
Article 49 of the
Fourth Geneva Convention
concerning the protection of civilians in time
of war:
“Individual or mass
forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from
occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of
any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their
motive… The Occupying Power shall not deport or
transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies.”
In the end, Arafat had
the good sense to reject the deal. He was expected to agree to a total of
four Bantustan-like enclaves, and cede to Israel control over all water,
roads, borders and security, as well as East Jerusalem. Official
propaganda, however, still contends that he rejected a
“generous offer” of 90 percent of the Occupied Territories, and
was therefore uniquely responsible for the failure of the talks, but this
is easily refuted.
But the sad fact is,
this farce should never have happened. It raised unrealistic expectations
and proved the impotence of the Palestinian leadership. Hamas is correct
to say: “These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the
land of the Moslems as arbitrators.”
Even now, Israel is
demanding that the PA negotiate away the right of return in exchange for
an independent Palestinian state. Not only is this demand absurd for
reasons already mentioned, but the right of return and the right of
compensation are individual rights under the Fourth Geneva
Convention and cannot be bargained away by any contracting party.
Hamas and the second Intifada
The
farce of Oslo ended when Ariel Sharon became prime minister in February
2000. On Sept. 28, he made a provocative visit
to the Temple Mount under armed guard. The result was the start of the
second Intifada. Sacrifice bombings,
which were virtually non-existent since 1996, because of the
faux optimism the Oslo process engendered, began again in November
2000. The targets were not only the Zionists,
but also the feeble PA leadership.
Occupiers need collaborators among the occupied to ensure control. That’s
why the Nazis got along so well with the Zionists—they betrayed and
sabotaged the Jewish resistance.
Similarly, Israel wants the PA to betray and sabotage Hamas activities.
Mahmoud Abbas, head PA negotiator at the Aqaba Summit, has agreed to
disarm Hamas, which refuses to be a party to this farce.
Israel, though, isn’t waiting. It has declared open season on any
Palestinian remotely suspected of being affiliated with Hamas. The very
day the summit opened, Sharon sent troops into Tulkarem to kill two
“suspected” Hamas activists.
Israel is committing willful murder, yet few if any in the media seem to
care. Hamas is Islamic, advocates bombings, and opposes the state of
Israel. Therefore, it is deemed to be an enemy to peace and must be
eliminated. But who is the real enemy—Hamas, the passionate defender of
the Palestinians, or the PA leadership, who is following the same
capitulationist path that led from Oslo?
It is not necessary to accept every word of the Covenant, or even
Hamas’ Islamic program, to recognize that it has something the Palestinian
negotiators over the last 15 years haven’t had—moral consistency and a
clear sense of history, especially about Israel.
Hamas’ fundamental opposition is morally and legally justified. Popular
myth notwithstanding, Israel could not have been created by the UN,
because the Partition Plan never received Security Council approval. In
fact, the U.S. was preparing to withdraw its support.
In
mid-March 1948, American UN ambassador
Warren Austin observed that Res. 181 could not be enacted peacefully,
and, on orders from
President Harry Truman, recommended that it be suspended for two
months, pending a meeting of the General Assembly. In place of the plan,
the U.S. advocated a temporary UN trusteeship to prevent further
bloodshed.
The
pre-emptive declaration of Israeli statehood on May 14, 1948, amounted to
theft. To this day, Israel has neither moral nor de jure political
legitimacy, despite what we’re meant to believe. How can it be wrong for
Hamas to attack a usurper?
We
did not condemn World War II French and Dutch resistance fighters because
they conducted sabotage and guerrilla attacks against Nazi occupation.
Therefore, the media should not condemn Palestinian resistance fighters
who are fighting against Zionist occupation.
The essentially criminal, acquisitive nature of Israel should provide
ample proof that a two-state solution is a dangerous illusion. The only
possibility for peace is a single democratic state in a de-Zionized
Palestine. So long as the Zionist Reich exists, Hamas, and groups like it,
will be the real champions of Palestinian justice.
Mr. Greg
Felton is a Canadian writer on the Middle East, and the author of an
upcoming book on Osama bin Laden. His “Mind over Media” column appears
every month in the Greater Vancouver Arabic/English newspaper al
Shorouq. He can be reached at
gfelton@mediamonitors.org
Source:
by courtesy & © 2003 Greg Felton
by the same author:
