The false hope of embracing Hamas

In 1975, the Ford administration defined conditions that Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization would have to meet in order to merit dialogue with the U.S. government, including renouncing terrorism and recognizing Israel's right to exist. Despite pleas from around the world to soften these terms, successive presidents -- including Carter -- held fast. After 13 years, the strategy worked; Arafat uttered the magic formula and the Reagan administration, in its waning days, opened a dialogue with the PLO. Carter's trip strengthens those who are urging Washington to ease its conditions for dialogue after just two years of effort.

The difference between the internal PLO debate two decades ago and the debate inside Hamas today is critical. For the PLO, the historic divide was between advocates of a phased plan to destroy Israel and those willing to accept an independent Palestine next to Israel. The idea of talking peace only ever made sense with the latter.

Hamas, by contrast, has no advocates of peace with Israel. The divide is between those who call for a tahdiya (a brief lull in the fighting) and those who favor a hudna (a longer-term armistice). Neither approximates peace with Israel.

Against this backdrop, it would be folly for the U.S. government to demand less of Hamas today than it asked of the PLO 20 years ago. Engaging Hamas also would knock the wind out of Abbas' administration, essentially throwing the Palestinians to the wolves of Hamas. Those who advocate this approach must somehow believe that Hamas is willing to be complicit in its own demise.

Unsatisfying as it may be, the right course for U.S. policymakers is to persist in the strategy adopted after Hamas' Gaza putsch last summer: Invest in economic and political success in the West Bank and further isolate Hamas in Gaza. The goal is to give Palestinians a clear choice: a chance for peace and prosperity, or a certainty of penury and bloodshed. So far, the strategy has not borne results -- but it hasn't been given the time and attention it needs to work.

The Bush administration's last-ditch effort to promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is, at best, a great gamble and, at worst, a costly distraction. Instead of fulfilling promises to build the Palestinian economy, civic institutions and a functional security structure, President Bush changed gears and is now pushing for a breakthrough by the end of his term. This dilution of U.S. effort will likely mean that nothing is achieved -- neither diplomatic success nor progress on the ground.

The irony is that Carter and Bush, who are different in so many ways, seem to have forgotten the most important lesson of 35 years of U.S.-led peacemaking in the Middle East: The road to a secure peace has no shortcuts.