Foreign Policy published a piece by two academics – one Palestinian, Osama Abu-Irshaid, and one an American Jew with strong ties to Israel, Paul Scham – suggesting that in order to reach any kind of peace agreement with Hamas, negotiating partners (i.e. Israel and the United States) need to accept that they will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, per se, but will offer certain phraseology that permits indefinite peaceful coexistence.
Naturally, the approximately 800 word article devotes a paragraph to discussing the unlikely pairing of the two authors. Imagine a Palestinian and a Jew working together to advocate on behalf of peace. While I certainly don’t mean to diminish the importance of communication and collaboration between these groups – it’s certainly better than prejudice and violence – it’s hardly rare. There are no shortage of collaboration initiatives between Palestinians and Israelis and American Jews. (One also has to wonder how American Jews became such a central part of this collaboration effort … but this is a digression).
They use this collaboration element – as well as the references to sharia – to novelize an argument that is made not infrequently by critics of Israel’s/the United States’ negotiating strategies. Hamas’ “refusal to recognize Israel” does not have quite the grave implications often attributed to it. Scham and Abu-Irshaid take up these issues in greater depth in a report for the USIP published last month. Sometimes, though, an idea with any merit at all needs constant repetition to draw attention.
I will say I think it’s possible that Hamas’ commitment to the letter of Islamic law can be exaggerated. Suicide, for example, has precarious status under Islamic law (Noah Feldman unpacked this issue for the NYT magazine in 2006 … I heard it called Islamophobic, but it is a decently lengthy discussion of this issue, and even Feldman’s detractors would have a hard time labeling him extremist). Hamas ceased to use suicide attacks as a tactic only recently, and when they did so they certainly didn’t justify it in the name of Islam. One can imagine the cries denouncing the hypocrisy. There’s two sides to dealing with a reliance on Islamic rhetoric: on the one hand, it constitutes a recognition of the terms according to which one party is operating. On the other, the more Islamic we expect Hamas to be and treat them as they must be, the more they will feel pressure to live up to those standards. Moreover, coming to the negotiating table ready to speak in Islamic terms brings a whole new host of issues on which there can be disagreement. I say, do your homework on sharia, but proceed with caution.
