Hamas Minister Lashes Out at Canada's Government

In the midst of foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay's visit to the middle east, Palestine's foreign minister has some very sharp words for MacKay, who chose to only meet with Mahmoud Abbas while shunning Hamas government leaders.

GAZA CITY — Canada risks making itself an enemy of the Palestinian people and of the broader Islamist movement by boycotting Hamas and openly siding with Israel, Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar said Sunday after he was shunned by visiting Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.

During an hour-long interview that he said was a replacement for the meeting Mr. MacKay denied him, Mr. Zahar alternated between saying he was anxious to open a dialogue with Canada and saying he looked forward to the moment that Canadians voted the “extremist” Conservative government out of office.

Had Mr. MacKay travelled to Gaza City to meet with him, Mr. Zahar said, he would have found an open door. However, Mr. Zahar said he would have challenged the minister to explain why Canada led the world in suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won legislative elections a year ago. The United States and the European Union, which like Canada consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, also stopped giving aid, leaving the already cash-poor government bankrupt and unable to pay full salaries to its 170,000 civil servants for most of the past year.

“I would ask him very simply: What is the moral basis for these sanctions and boycott?” Mr. Zahar said, adding that the sanctions have primarily hurt ordinary Palestinians while leaving the Hamas government standing.

The reality in the occupied territories ought to be a matter of great concern for Canadians who cherish our role as humanitarians.

Via the UN:

UNRWA appeals for $246m in emergency funds to address deplorable humanitarian conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory

Amman - Living conditions amongst Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have slumped to levels unseen since 1967. Every aspect of life has been affected. The crisis that began in September 2000 has deepened dramatically during 2006, as a result of the international isolation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the conditions of siege imposed on Gaza and the ongoing fragmentation of the West Bank. The majority of Palestinians are now dependent on food and cash handouts. Violence, poverty and despair are overtaking hopes for recovery and prospects for development.

Refugees, who before 2006 endured high poverty rates and desperate socio-economic
conditions, have been particularly affected, due to their disproportionate dependence on PA salaries and concentration in Gaza.
[...]
“Unbearable economic pressure has been applied to a people under occupation. Those who have clearly paid the greatest price are the vulnerable – the poor, the sick, the elderly, the children”, said UNRWA’s Deputy Commissioner-General Filippo Grandi as the Agency launched its Emergency Appeal for 2007 in Amman on Tuesday 12 December.

Mr Zahar's concerns about the current structure of transferring funds is well-founded:

Senior Gaza Economist Mohammed El-Samhouri said that Western donors, in the effort to bypass the Hamas–led Government, were considering United Nations agencies and international non-governmental organizations as alternative channels for aid delivery. Bypassing the Government, however, would undermine the Palestinian public institutions that the donors had helped to create. He went on to say it would be difficult to ignore the Government since all aspects of the aid cycle had to go through official bureaucracy. Moreover, United Nations agencies and foreign non-governmental organizations did not have the capacity to provide services in areas traditionally covered by the Government.

Western governments like Canada's who refuse to even meet with Hamas members because they've all been labelled as the handy catch phrase 'terrorists' are doing a great disservice to the peace process and Mr Zahar asks very legitimate questions:

When told that Mr. MacKay would likely have responded to his questions by insisting that Hamas still needs to meet the three conditions of the international community — denouncing violence, recognizing Israel and respecting the agreements signed by the previous Palestinian government — the 62-year-old former surgeon turned hostile.

“What borders of Israel should we recognize? The border that includes the Golan Heights? The borders it occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem? What type of Israel should we recognize? What is the constitution of Israel? And what is our border?”

Jonathan Cook rightly describes 'The Trap of Recognizing Israel':

There is far more at stake for Israel in winning this little concession from Hamas than most observers appreciate. A statement saying that Hamas recognized Israel would do much more than meet Israel's precondition for talks; it would mean that Hamas had walked into the same trap that was set earlier for Arafat and Fatah. That trap is designed to ensure that any peaceful solution to the conflict is impossible.

It achieves this end in two ways.

First, as has already been understood, at least by those paying attention, Hamas' recognition of Israel's "right to exist" would effectively signify that the Palestinian government was publicly abandoning its own goal of struggling to create a viable Palestinian state.

That is because Israel refuses to demarcate its own future borders, leaving it an open question what it considers to be the extent of "its existence" it is demanding Hamas recognize. We do know that no one in the Israeli leadership is talking about a return to Israel's borders that existed before the 1967 war, or probably anything close to it.

Without a return to those pre-1967 borders (plus a substantial injection of goodwill from Israel in ensuring unhindered passage between Gaza and the West Bank) no possibility exists of a viable Palestinian state ever emerging.

And no goodwill, of course, will be forthcoming. Every Israeli leader has refused to recognize the Palestinians, first as a people and now as a nation. And in the West's typically hypocritical fashion when dealing with the Palestinians, no one has ever suggested that Israel commit to such recognition...

Our current government, by buying into the facile talking points of the Israeli and US governments while pandering to the Israeli lobby, is simply compounding the problem by refusing to participate in talks with all concerned. It's diplomacy by moral authority and it's the type of moral authority that is unable to see nuance and history. And worse, it's the type of diplomacy that continues to sacrifice the lives of the weakest in the name of the supposedly great Global War on Terrorism - a war that has produced endless chaos and thousands of innocent victims.

Mr Zahar may not be the most politically correct person to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people, but if we ignore his words and warning that Canada has created an enemy in Hamas, we do so not only at our own peril but at the expense of our standing in the world among Arab nations while we contribute to the violence and bloodshed.

Mr Zahar isn't the only one who sees this conservative government as 'extreme'. Their 'all or nothing' diplomatic stances are putting all of us in jeopardy.