Today is the first day of Passover and the seventh anniversary of a Hamas suicide bombing in Netanya, on the Mediterranean coast, where thirty Israeli civilians, many of them senior citizens, were killed while celebrating a Passover seder. It was the worst Hamas suicide attack against Israel ever.
Why am I mentioning this now? I had a comment on one of my previous diaries that I had, in defining the word "terrorism" as the killing of innocent civilians to advance a political agenda, tagged Hamas as terrorist and not the Israeli government. The commenter, thinking himself or herself cheeky, I suppose, made his/her remark dropping the word "innocent." Quite the omission. Then when I countered with the Netanya bombing, I was attacked for dredging up something seven years old when the Gaza war was only months ago.
I'll repeat here what I said elsewhere: Hamas is responsible for both Netanya and Gaza, the latter because by using human shields (something to which Hamas has repeatedly admitted) by upped the civilian casualties in Gaza enormous. This doesn't mean Israel reacted indiscriminately, and I've written other diaries on this topic and how I think Israel should respond.
The other issue that this commenter raised, at least for me, was this: Is Israel just supposed to forget that Hamas has taken, in suicide bombings, hundreds of Israeli lives? That Hamas has continued to target Israeli civilians with missile attacks? Yes, Hamas won the legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006, but this does not automatically bestow legitimacy on the organization any more than, from the pro-Hamas side of the conflict, does the U.N. Resolution creating the State of Israel in November 1947 legitimize Israel's own existence.
I won't deny that bad Palestinian leadership has been the traditional excuse among Israeli doves not to negotiate a final settlement with them. And before the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist within its 1949 borders, the Israeli left did refuse to negotiate with them. Does this mean that Israel will negotiate with Hamas if Hamas recognizes Israel's right to exist?
Well, it's kind of a long shot given Israel's current government. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has not made his dislike for Arabs in general and Hamas in particular a secret. But at the same time, while stating that Israel is not bound by the timetable set up by the previous Israeli government along with Fatah head and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at Annapolis, he has affirmed that Israel is bound by the "road map" that President Bush proposed five years ago or so.
The sticking point, obviously, is that the road map specifies that Israel has no obligations until Palestinian violence ends. And Hamas has no serious ambitions at ending violence against Israel. I think that if Israel were to keep up its end of the truces that have been proposed and launched between Hamas and Israel, an end to Palestinian violence might be a more realistic end.
But the bottom line is this: As long as Hamas fundamentally refuses violently to recognize the long-term presence of Israel in the region, there is nobody to negotiate with. That doesn't give Israel a free pass to do whatever its government likes in the Palestinian Territories, but it also does not obligate Israel to do anything but provide the means of living to the people in the Territories.
And, yes, Israel should be doing this and is not.
But until Hamas changes its tune, allowing the flow of food, water, and medical aid into Gaza is the limit of Israel's responsibility. Don't like that? Take the issue up with Hamas.