Khaled Mashal's Response Speech
INSS Insight No. 117, July 1, 2009
www.inss.org.il:80/publications.php?cat=21&incat=&read=3065

Brom, Shlomo

Adopting the current fashion inaugurated by President Obama with his June 4
Cairo address, Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mashal joined the list of
political leaders delivering major policy speeches in the Middle East. On
June 25, Mashal delivered a response to the speeches of Obama and Prime
Minister Netanyahu. His address presents Hamas' comprehensive, updated
political approach, thus also deciding the internal debate within Hamas
between the so-called moderates and the so-called radicals - in favor of the
moderates.

On the face of it, the political principles presented by Mashal are not
highly different from the formal PLO stances presented in negotiations with
Israel since the start of the Oslo process. According to these principles,
Hamas is prepared to accept a political solution that mandates a Palestinian
state in the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and with the right
of return for Palestinian refugees.

At the same time, there are some major differences between the PLO's stances
that have developed over the course of the negotiations and this approach.
First, the PLO agrees that a political solution would represent the end of
the conflict, whereas Hamas does not. Based on statements by Hamas
representatives on other occasions, Hamas is apparently leaving the end of
the conflict to coming generations. Second, during negotiations the
Palestinians demonstrated some flexibility regarding the way certain
principles would be implemented. Thus, for example, the Palestinians were
prepared to accept a situation in which the border between Israel and the
Palestinian state would be drawn on the basis of the 1967 lines with some
limited and mutually accepted emendations. The significance is that
settlement blocs near the 1967 borders would be annexed to Israel, and in
return the Palestinians would receive the identical amount of Israeli
territory as part of a land swap. The argument was primarily over the size
of the settlement blocs, with the Palestinians urging that they be as small
as possible. With regard to the refugee question, despite the fact that the
negotiators never formally ceded the right of return, they were prepared to
examine practical solutions that assumed that the vast majority of
Palestinians would not return to Israel. This apparently is what lies behind
the expression "an agreed upon solution to the refuge problem" in the Arab
peace initiative. For his part, Mashal refused to accept any bending of this
Palestinian condition. He also expressed opposition to a demilitarized
Palestinian state, presented by Netanyahu as one of Israel's main demands;
the PLO negotiators were prepared to accept limitation on the arming of the
future Palestinian state. On another point emphasized by Netanyahu, Mashal
embraced the general Palestinian opposition to recognition of Israel as a
Jewish state, and characterized the demand as racist. Furthermore, Mashal
did not concede the violent struggle as a legitimate means of attaining the
objectives of the Palestinian people.

In recent years, since Hamas became an active player in the internal
Palestinian political arena, these guidelines have been uttered many times
by different Hamas leaders presenting the idea of a hudna, a long term
ceasefire, but they were understood as belonging to Hamas' moderate wing,
which is engaged in a dispute with the more radical one. It was also always
commonly assumed that the more moderate stance was for external consumption
only, and that therefore it emerged in meetings with foreigners and in
interviews with Western media. Yet now, for the first time, Mashal presented
this position as Hamas' official stance, and did so in Arabic for the Arab
public. It is hard to imagine that he did this without authorization from
the Shura, Hamas' highest authority. Mashal's speech also reveals that the
supposed split between Damascus-based radicals and Gaza Strip-based
moderates is a false distinction. There are apparently moderates and
radicals in both places, and Mashal himself is not necessarily aligned with
the radicals. More important, Hamas has an orderly process of decision
making, even if it is slow and based on consensus building. The consensus
that has formed in Hamas in recent years centers on the positions presented
by Mashal in his speech.

Most significantly, Hamas is willing to accept a process of negotiations
with Israel, as it was when it endorsed the Palestinian prisoners' document
(officially the National Reconciliation Document) and the understandings
that prompted the establishment of a national unity government in early
2007. Of course, it is difficult to renew negotiations for a permanent
settlement while ignoring all that has happened since they started. On the
other hand, Hamas' positions allow a certain amount of flexibility to
discuss partial agreements that would not obligate Hamas to accept the end
of the conflict, and would also allow Israel side to postpone decisions
about sensitive issues.

Mashal's speech was intended to help Hamas in its internal rivalry with the
Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, and also to
take advantage of Obama's speech to gain international legitimacy for Hamas
and launch a dialogue with the United States and other Western nations. In
the internal arena, the speech presents Hamas to the Palestinian people as
an entity willing to engage in the political process but loyal to the
national stances of the PLO, while Abbas and his associates have betrayed
them. The speech, which included the usual attacks on the PA and its
denunciation as an Israeli collaborator, also attacked the PA's joint work
with General Dayton's security team. Apparently the success in building the
Palestinian security forces on the West Bank, assisted by Dayton's
delegation, is of great concern to Hamas. With regard to Western nations,
the purpose of the speech was to convince the West that Hamas is a partner
for dialogue. The speech will make it easier for elements in Western Europe
and within Obama's administration that support dialogue with Hamas to
advance their position.

At the same time, under Egypt's aegis and with its mediation, there are
negotiations underway between Hamas and the PA over an arrangement for
reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The three parties involved have for now
abandoned the notion of a comprehensive "national reconciliation" between
Hamas and the PLO/Fatah, and are discussing the possibility of establishing
a joint committee to administer the Gaza Strip and allow regional and
internal institutions to deliver the promised assistance for rebuilding the
area. Such an arrangement would also allow agreement with Israel over
opening the crossings to the Gaza Strip, and would possibly also help in
attaining an agreement on the release of prisoners that would return Gilad
Shalit. The target date set by Egypt for reaching an agreement is July 7,
but at this point the sides are far from success. If the two sides do arrive
at an agreement, it would greatly affect the approach of the international
community on dialogue with Hamas, and would weaken the demand that Hamas
meet the three preconditions set down by the Quartet: recognizing Israel,
abandoning the use of violence, and accepting existing agreements.

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