Asser, Arabs and Auntie

The leader of Hamas, which recently horrified the international community by winning an election without the aid of Diebold, has laid down conditions for a truce with Israel.

In what the BBC is pleased to call an "analysis", Martin Asser mentions a statement made in 2002 by Hamas leader Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, to the effect that "We can't recognise Israel, but we can accept a truce with them and we can live side by side and refer the issue to coming generations". Asser notes al-Rantissi's assassination, but decorously omits to mention the Israeli helicopter gunship that carried it out.

In any case, Asser says, it has been suggested that Hamas "is ready to offer Israel a formal truce for a number of years, during which a peace deal can be negotiated ending in a two-state solution". Hamas' charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel, could be re-written at the end of this process.

Now comes the wry twist.

There is also, Asser says, "a vastly different possible scenario - that Hamas dropped references to destroying Israel in the hope of securing diplomatic recognition and its chance to rebuild Palestinian society." This is not, of course, as innocent as it sounds. "Hamas could still be sticking to a long-term policy of non-recognition with the aim of ultimately overwhelming Israel through demography rather than military means." Arabs breed faster than Jews, you see.

To achieve its fiendish aim, "Hamas needs to avoid the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the 1967 territories" until about the year 2020, when "most predictions say the Palestinians will significantly outnumber Jews living in what is now Israel and the occupied territories." So the reason Hamas wants the 1967 territories is so that they can avoid establishing a sovereign Palestinian state there. The cunning dogs.

Asser continues: "Therefore, the Hamas argument goes, the existence of a democratic Jewish state is put at risk and the achievement of an Arab majority state becomes possible - a "one-state solution" to the Palestinian problem."

Asser quickly dispenses with the need for evidence that "the Hamas argument" is being argued by anyone but Martin Asser: "If the one-state solution remains Hamas' master plan, one can be fairly certain its leaders will not be saying so in precise terms." That settles that, then. The "existence of a democratic Jewish state" presents a few difficulties, though. If "Jewish" refers to the Jewish religion, then a Jewish state would be a theocracy, and therefore not democratic. If "Jewish" refers to the Jewish ethnicity, then a Jewish state would be racist, and therefore not democratic. Also, if the state is Jewish and therefore ruled, administered, policed and defended exclusively by Jews, a demographic majority of Arabs might not necessarily mean an Arab state. In apartheid South Africa, black people were in a large majority, but still encountered considerable difficulty in effecting a "one-state solution" to the Afrikaner problem.

"When Israel says that it ... will withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and grant the right of return, stop settlements and recognise the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, only then Hamas will be ready to take a serious step," Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told the BBC today. In other words, Hamas will be ready to negotiate when Israel complies with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 (withdrawal from the occupied territories), General Assembly Resolution 194 (right of return) and Security Council Resolution 446 (stopping the settlements).

The BBC notes, with regard to East Jerusalem: "Under international law the area is considered to be occupied territory", but otherwise refrains from wasting the reader's time and attention on petty legalisms.