More recently there has been the suggestion that Hamas has moderated and would be prepared to make a temporary truce (a Hudna) with Israel in return for certain concessions. The problem is that the concessions Hamas demands are inevitably aimed at allowing it to rearm more effectively. The truces offered are never about moving toward a sustainable coexistence, but rather about allowing Hamas to live on to fight another day, and to fight all the more fiercely once the truce is ended.
This was where many Western leaders went wrong during previous cease-fire negotiations. The emphasis was always on which of Hamas's demands Israel should be persuaded to grant so as to end the fighting as quickly as possible. Interestingly, Egyptian mediators on the other hand understood that Hamas must be granted no rewards for initiating violence, and so last summer Cairo didn't appear to be in any hurry to broker an agreement.
Making concessions to Hamas not only greatly undermines Palestinian moderates, it also incentivizes Hamas to provoke further conflict in the future. Those incentives have now been heard loudly and clearly in Gaza, where Hamas is hard at work assembling the means to fight a fourth war against Israel. To avoid that happening, and for the sake of civilians on all sides, the international community must put in place a comprehensive plan for disarming Hamas. Instead, most world leaders appear to be looking the other way.
(AP photo)
