Little choice for a defiant Israel

Amin Saikal (Age, 14 July) writes: "Now that the Palestinians have turned to Hamas for salvation because the PLO proved to be ineffectual, Israel is punishing all Palestinians for exercising their democratic rights."

If the Australian people had elected Pauline Hanson's One Nation to power in 2001 and Australia's Asian neighbours imposed a boycott in response, would it have made sense to see the boycott as the refusal to accept Australia's "exercise of democratic rights" - or the response to the choice of abhorrent policies?

The Hamas movement, democratically elected in January 2006 in Gaza and the West Bank, is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. Its charter states without ambiguity that the "land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (trust) consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours. So-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement."

In an election advertisement on Palestinian television in January of this year Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said: "We do not recognise the Israeli enemy, nor his right to be our neighbour, nor to stay (on the land), nor his ownership of any inch of land. Our principles are clear: Palestine is a land of Waqf, which cannot be given up."

This is the orthodoxy within radical Islam. As said by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "Israel must be wiped off the map." For Hezbollah, responsible for opening war in the north, the border with Israel has no legitimacy, it is merely the demarcation of "occupied Palestine". The movement's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has said: "There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel."

Radical Islamist movements may accept a period of truce, a hudna. But key elements within Hamas, and within the wider Islamic world, continually work against normalisation, as evidenced by the actions of the Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

In such a context, what are the options facing the Israeli Government in response to the taking of hostages, first in Gaza, then in the north, and the continuous firing of rockets into Israel, not just during the past weeks but over many months?

One is to negotiate on the terms demanded by the kidnappers - that is, the release of prisoners. The problem with such a solution is that it increases the likelihood that further hostages will be taken tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after.

Another is to ignore the rocket attacks from Gaza for the present, given that they have been largely ineffective, and wait till they become capable of reaching further targets and inflicting a greater toll.

The Israelis could withdraw the barriers around Gaza to allow free trade, but this would enable the entry of weaponry with greater range, accuracy and force, as has happened in southern Lebanon.

Whatever exchange of prisoners may take place at a later time, it was clear that the immediate Israeli response to the taking of hostages would be military. This was known and accepted. If the Israelis now enter negotiations for withdrawal from occupied territory, which is widely accepted as the only way to a resolution, the question is: negotiate with whom? With Hamas, which renounces the idea of peace and is committed to the liberation of Palestine, from the Jordan to the sea?

Israel's options are severely limited. The tactics of radical Islamist groups rely on redressing the power of the Israeli military by using the cover offered by densely populated areas. Israel can withdraw, attack infrastructure or civilian areas. The price paid by those caught in the conflict is the price for the radicals' eventual victory. It seems that from their viewpoint, the more the situation deteriorates the better - which is not to say that heightened human suffering is welcomed, but rather that the cause is paramount.

Israel faces a movement that believes that the key ingredient, time, is on its side. One indicator, the demographic shift to a Palestinian majority, bears out the analysis. It is furthered by interpretations of Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and Gaza and past negotiations over prisoner exchanges. Ten years of additional conflict, 20 years even, they are accepted. They argue that it took more than a century to free Palestine from the Crusaders, and it might again take a century in the battle against Israel and the US, but victory is assured. Defeat can come through one means only - the normalisation of relations with Israel. The purpose of the present stage of the conflict is to render unviable the Israeli policy of unilateral disengagement.

Andrew Markus is professor of Jewish civilisation at Monash University.