US diplomacy mimicking failed colonial approaches

https://arab.news/yvnhq In general, if one is committed to reaching a deal, there is no logic in avoiding meeting with the key parties to a conflict. Therefore, it is natural and acceptable that US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner this week met in Cairo with Khalil Hayya, the newly elected leader of Hamas. But such meetings should not come at the expense of meetings with the legitimate representatives of the same people. Kushner followed that meeting in Cairo with a series of meetings in Israel, including with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, who holds a symbolic role. But what is truly troubling is when the meeting with the Hamas leader turns out to be the only meeting held with a Palestinian. Ramallah, the headquarters of the internationally recognized Palestinian leadership, is just 12 miles from the location where Kushner met with the Israeli prime minister. By avoiding a meeting with the legitimate Palestinian leadership while meeting with Hamas, Kushner is following the same playbook used by Netanyahu and other Israeli officials over the last five decades, repeatedly applying the colonial strategy of divide and rule. In the early years of the occupation, Israel engaged with Palestinian tribal leaders rather than Palestinian nationalists. Later, instead of talking to the Palestine Liberation Organization, it encouraged the rise of Islamists in Gaza. Israel allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to operate through charities and to carry out political work, while imprisoning PLO sympathizers and assassinating PLO leaders in Lebanon, Greece, Belgium, France and elsewhere — often without claiming responsibility and sometimes through third parties. Among the targets were PLO figures who expressed moderate views or argued for engaging with like-minded Israelis. What is truly troubling is when the meeting with Hamas turns out to be the only meeting held with a Palestinian Daoud Kuttab Israel's pattern did not stop. It continued searching for ways to encourage collaborators. At one time, it supported what were known as the Village Leagues. But Israel's preference for Islamist ideologues over moderate nationalists was most clearly demonstrated by its approval and financial backing of Hamas at the same time it was shunning the internationally recognized PLO leadership in Ramallah. Israeli media reports have documented and analyzed this effort: attempting to prop up Islamist radicals rather than engage with PLO moderates. At all times, Israeli policy was consistent: whether dealing with monarchists, tribalists, ideological radicals or quislings, it sought above all to avoid negotiating with the legitimate nationalist Palestinian representatives. Yitzhak Rabin was an exception at a later stage in his career. At the height of the Rabin-Yasser Arafat process, various groups tried to torpedo the peace efforts. Rabin and Shimon Peres responded by siding with Palestinian moderates while both sides fought the radicals in their own communities. Until he was killed by a Jewish extremist, Rabin insisted that peace talks — hated by the radicals — must continue at all costs for the betterment of both societies. Contrast that approach with the position of Netanyahu and his right-wing cohorts. They use even the smallest act of violence as justification to claim they are no longer bound by any peace commitments, allowing radicals on both sides to dictate the terms of the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. Kushner's talks in Cairo with Hamas would make sense if they were being carried out while he and the Trump administration were also engaging with the most peaceful Palestinian counterpart Israel has ever seen: President Mahmoud Abbas. He has opposed and fought Hamas and other radicals, including some within his own nationalist movement. He has consistently encouraged moderation in practice and in public life, including through regular meetings with Israelis. He condemned the Oct. 7 actions by Hamas and has repeatedly refused to unify with Hamas until the latter changes its position genuinely, fully and in line with the peace process and the PLO's commitments made through Oslo. Under pressure, and possibly in agreement with Israel, US officials have bought made-up Israeli claims against Abbas and fallen for repeated incitement against the UN and international institutions, even as the previous Biden administration had supported the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Americans not only shunned the Ramallah leadership without a logical reason; they even permitted Israel to persuade Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ban the Palestinian president and his team from reaching last year's UN General Assembly. This was a shameful action no other American leader had taken, with the exception of a ban on Arafat by the Reagan administration in 1988. That move backfired, as the UN General Assembly voted 154-2 (with only Israel and the US opposing) to move its debate on Palestine to Geneva, where Arafat addressed the UN. Unconfirmed reports say that Trump will again veto President Abbas's visit to the UN in New York. If that happens, the international community should repeat what they did in 1988. Abbas has opposed and fought Hamas and other radicals, including some within his own nationalist movement Daoud Kuttab Divide and rule is not the only failed policy Kushner appears to have adopted, whether knowingly or not. Instead of addressing Palestinian national rights, he is borrowing from the old colonial powers. He is applying the old phrase 'might makes right.' This is an ancient concept often associated with authoritarian rulers and early philosophers, such as Plato's character Thrasymachus, who argued that justice is simply the advantage of the stronger. After Hamas agreed to the 15-point plan that the Board of Peace offered to both it and Israel — and which Trump approved — Kushner, after a four-hour meeting with Netanyahu, agreed to move the goalposts. The agreement called for incremental verified compromises, with Hamas decommissioning its weapons in return for Israel gradually withdrawing from 60 percent of the Gaza Strip. The weapons were to be placed in locked warehouses whose keys would be in the hands of the 15-member Palestinian committee already approved by the US and Israel. Instead, Netanyahu now wants all the Hamas weapons handed to the US for destruction before Israel withdraws from a single inch of territory. Kushner agreed to the Israeli counterproposal without even going back to the Palestinian side. Kushner may claim to be trying his best to salvage the Board of Peace plan by talking to Hamas and Netanyahu. But meeting Hamas makes little sense when Kushner and the Trump administration have simultaneously avoided engaging with the legitimate and moderate Palestinian leadership; banned 80 Palestinian diplomats from attending the UNGA; cut off humanitarian aid to Palestinians; and hosted Netanyahu, a wanted war criminal, in the White House eight times during the first two years of Trump's second presidency. In addition to all the above, the White House appeared to give a green light to the Israeli PM to continue the killing machine in Gaza, even though the Israelis had agreed to a ceasefire that had been codified in a binding UN Security Council resolution. In the two days following that green light, Israel killed six Palestinians in a cafe at the Gaza port and nine unarmed municipality police officers at their headquarters. No one expected much from the Kushner visit. Netanyahu and his team were unlikely to approach Kushner, or even Trump, until after the Oct. 27 Israeli elections. But to come to the region playing the might makes right 'game' while also agreeing to Israeli violations of a ceasefire is totally unacceptable. • Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. He is the author of 'State of Palestine Now: Practical and Logical Arguments for the Best Way to Bring Peace to the Middle East.' X: @daoudkuttab