According to Reports: Can Hamas Stop Being Hamas?

In his weekly Canadian Jewish News media analysis column “According to Reports,” Paul Michaels, CIC Director of Communications, explores coverage of a new poll that shows Israelis are willing to talk to Hamas – with conditions.

In “Hamas: The unlikely peacemaker” (Nov. 14) the Globe and Mail‘s Patrick Martin drew attention to a survey indicating that 57 per cent of Israelis, including a surprising 53 per cent of Likud supporters, back the idea of talks with Hamas – with conditions.

The survey, conducted by Prof. Camil Fuchs of the department of statistics at Tel Aviv University, was reported the previous day, Martin noted, in Ha’aretz by Yossi Verter. While the finding about attitudes toward Hamas grabbed the headline in that paper, Verter began by explaining the main conclusion of the survey of the Israeli political mood as follows:

“Nine months after the [Israeli] elections, the left has evaporated and the right has only grown stronger, probably stronger than ever. The Labor Party and its leadership continue to sink lower and lower, but the general public is actually exhibiting intellectual flexibility and political moderation: the majority, including most of the Likud voters, support negotiations with Hamas, if it relinquishes terrorism and recognizes Israel” (emphasis added).

Verter continued: “The survey shows the impressive rising strength of the right and a serious shrinking of the center and the left. The balance in the current Knesset stands at 65 seats for the right and 55 for the center and the left parties, but if elections were held today, the current survey suggests that the right would garner 72 seats to 48 for the center and left…Kadima is retaining its strength, but Labor is crashing and it is on its way to disappearing from the political scene.”

The survey results are also positive for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who leads Kadima opposition leader Tzipi Livni by a 16 per cent margin. “The overall level of satisfaction from Netanyahu continues to be positive,” Verter noted, adding that “[a] great majority blames [PA President] Mahmoud Abbas for the impasse in the peace process with the Palestinians.”

While Martin didn’t go into as much detail on the findings about Israeli politics, he did remark about the drain of support for Labor “and other parties of the left.”

How then to explain the apparently paradoxical finding in the survey about attitudes toward Hamas? Martin quoted from Verter’s Ha’aretz article: “The attitude of Israelis to Hamas, a terrorist organization that still holds Gilad Shalit, is quite pragmatic.”

Martin also interviewed Mark Heller of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies who placed this pragmatism in a broader historical context: ” ‘I’d say it’s consistent with a long-term trend in this country…The Israeli public prefers pro-peace policies, but doesn’t trust left-wing parties to carry them out.”

It’s within this framework that a small majority of Israelis support the view of Kadima MK and former defence minister Shaul Mofaz who, just prior to the survey, floated the idea of negotiating with Hamas on condition that, as Martin observed, it “renounces violence and recognizes Israel.”

Martin cited Mofaz’s comment that if Hamas to meet these conditions – set down years ago by the “Quartet” consisting of the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations – “from that moment, it is no longer Hamas.”

What Martin did not address, however, is the question posed by Mofaz: Can Hamas stop being Hamas? That is, can it tranform itself from a terrorist organization bent on destroying Israel and become a reasonable political organization with which Israelis would have a basis for holding negotiations?

As of now, there’s simply no evidence that such a transformation is possible let alone likely. If anything, Hamas officials both in Gaza and in Syria have recently been insisting that their religiously inspired opposition to Israel and Jewish sovereignty is as implacable as ever.

Nonetheless, by drawing attention to Verter’s report of the survey of the current Israeli politcal mindset, Martin has given Globe readers a rare insight into the complex, pragmatic, attitude that has long characterized the Jewish state’s citizens.

Possibly related posts:

• According to Reports: ‘Truce’ Shows Hamas’ True Colours
• According to Reports: CBC Report Casts Critical Eye on Hamas in Gaza
• According to Reports: Globe Story Sets Record Straight on Incident in Gaza
• According to Reports: Opinions Differ on Gaza Winners and Losers
• Stop the Presses: Blood Libel Goes Mainstream in Sweden by Barry Rubin