Fresh debate in Israel

The West and Israel have reacted coolly to the Mecca Agreement under which the Palestinian warring factions, Hamas and Fatah, agreed to cease fighting and establish a government of national unity. The message out of Washington and Jerusalem is that nothing has changed and Hamas must accede to the three conditions of recognising Israel, renouncing violence and accepting past peace agreements.

But in taking this stand have the Bush Administration and the Government of Ehud Olmert missed the significance of the deal thrashed out in Islam’s holiest city? The Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, believes so.

“By signing up to the agreement Hamas, for the first time, expressed its readiness to accept all previous agreements signed by Israel, in particular the Oslo Agreement and the road map [to peace],” he said. “This is a dramatic political development and a radical change within Hamas.”

Speaking at a meeting of the Canberra branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Mr Abdulhadi said Hamas has taken a huge risk by going this far, potentially alienating itself from radical Islamists who consider Palestine a religious entity which cannot be bargained away either in whole or in part.

“Western Countries will be committing a fatal mistake if they do not recognise the enormity of this and support the emerging Palestinian Unity Government,” he said.

“The continued confrontation with Hamas will not lead to any constructive outcome … progress in this area will increase support for moderate regimes and moderate political positions in the Arab world, strengthening the moderate allies of the United States against the Iranian influence.”

The Mecca Agreement comes at a momentous time for both sides in the Middle East conflict. Last year’s excursion into Lebanon has convinced even the most obdurate on the Israeli right that this is no longer 1967 and Jewish armies cannot sweep all before them in the Middle East. If nothing else it proved that victory in the court of world opinion is at least as important as success on the battlefield.

In fact Hezbollah, using classic guerilla tactics learnt over decades and with sophisticated weaponry supplied by its Iranian sponsors, was able to avoid outright defeat which, of course, it then claimed as a crushing victory.

At the same time Palestinians used the brief interlude when the main attention of the Israelis was elsewhere to re-think their own attitudes. Hamas will never be as strong as Hezbollah, it has less territory to play with, and while it has the capacity to irritate and enrage its powerful neighbour indefinitely, it will do so only at the cost of continuing misery for the Palestinian people as a whole.

The Mecca Agreement is the first result of this new mode of thinking. At first sight it does not offer anything new or that has been acceptable to past Israeli governments - establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967, with its capital in East Jerusalem - yet this is a fundamental step for Hamas, which previously has insisted the Israeli state has no right to exist.

This is undoubtedly a victory for the pragmatists within Hamas and a determined attempt to ensure the Palestinian people speak with one voice. If Israel can take some small steps in return, as straightforward as releasing Palestinian tax money it has been withholding since Hamas came to power, and freeing up border traffic, it will be the start of a positive momentum which will isolate the extremists on both sides and allow the governments to move on to the bigger issues which confront them.

Already there are voices being raised within Israel urging this course. Writing in the Jerusalem Post newspaper Daoud Kuttab says the attitude of American diplomats to the Mecca Agreement has been “shameful”.

“The Mecca Agreement strongly supports [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas in his mission to deal with the Israelis. The Hamas-Fatah agreement clearly identifies the Palestinian Liberation Organisation as the party entrusted to continue negotiations,” he writes.

With the vast majority of Palestinians, Arab countries, the US and the international community all in agreement on a two-state solution “what is missing now is for the Israelis to agree to begin talks on how to accomplish this goal.”

Brookings Institution Research Fellow Stacie Pettyjohn is more cautious. “The weakness of both Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes it unlikely that final-status negotiations will begin, let along succeed, in the near future,” she says.

“Nevertheless, a Palestinian government founded on the principles of the Mecca Agreement will be more willing and better able to resume meaningful negotiations with Israel. This would lead to interim accords, such as a ceasefire and prisoner exchanges, which would lay the foundation for further diplomacy and help begin a process of rebuilding trust between the parties.”

Mr Abdulhadi agrees. He believes the Palestinian people will not wait another 100 years for a settlement, but may well be prepared to wait another 10 if they see progress being made. From the Palestinian side the three major issues are the 1967 boundaries, the status of Jerusalem and the rights of refugees driven from their land when the Israeli state was set up in 1948.

He optimistically believes that all three sticking points are solvable. In a peaceful two-state solution the 1967 boundaries would be secure for Israel. “Israeli settlers could remain on the West Bank providing they accept Palestinian citizenship,” he says. “Palestinians have lived all over the world, they are happy with the concept of a multicultural society.”

Jerusalem could be the capital for both countries, perhaps under some kind of “international city” status where access to holy sites was guaranteed for all religions.

As for the refugees, most of the originals are dead and their descendants are well established elsewhere - “the economy of Jordan would collapse without them”. He believes that as long as Israel recognises the “concept” of a return, Palestinians will not insist on it in practice.

This is an overly simplistic view of a multi-faceted and engrained problem which has stubbornly refused solution for 60 years, at the same time costing hundreds of thousands of lives and bringing misery and uncertainty to millions more.

It is for this very reason that developments such as the Mecca Agreement should be given careful consideration and not dismissed, in the words of one US diplomat, as “a complication”. The time is ripe for a fresh debate and a little flexible thinking in Israel and around Western capitals.