HAMAS IS NO PEACE PARTNER

Is Hamas viable 'partner for peace'? No. Hateful covenant makes cooperation an impossibility By GEOFFREY A. BERG
Hamas has been clear that it wants no part of any peace process because it does not want peace with Israel. Their goal is to destroy it. To Hamas, genocide against Israeli Jews is a non-negotiable religious duty.

Israel, on the other hand, long ago accepted the inevitability of a Palestinian state. Having internalized this fact, it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and parts of the West Bank last summer. Instead of seeing this unprecedented act for what it was — an Israeli abandonment of territory the Palestinians had demanded as part of their hoped-for state — Zahar and Hamas believe that such withdrawal is further evidence of Israeli expansion. ....

Negotiation presupposes that both parties will act rationally based on available facts. People who hold Hamas' views can be counted on to do the opposite.

Nonetheless, some suggest that the United States and Israel should deal with Hamas because it won an election, runs hospitals and because the last Palestinian government was corrupt. The United States insists on the spread of democracy and Hamas was democratically elected; it would therefore be hypocritical not to talk to the victor, they say. Nonsense.

Honoring democracy means respecting the rule of law. Hamas is a fascist organization committed to, among other things, genocide against Israel and oppression of minorities. (Gays, for example, can expect to be put to death during a Hamas administration.)

Victory at the polls does not transform a violent movement into a debating society. Hitler was democratically elected and ran social services, and his predecessor was also corrupt; few believe Hitler could or should have been reasoned with.

A party committed to mass murder, which deals in a paranoid reality of its own making, cannot be expected to negotiate in good faith. Until it renounces violence, accepts Israel's right to exist, disarms and amends its hateful covenant, Hamas must be isolated, its funding withdrawn and, when necessary, confronted.