My political boggle for today...

[pyrephox]

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she found it "hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is in fact the impediment to peace."

Um. Y'know. Well. Just /possibly/, that whole 'talking' thing, it might, y'know, have an effect on them being an impediment to peace. I mean, hey, crazy idea when you've got nukes, I know, but give it a shot.

Comments

[patpandahat.livejournal.com]

A representative of Hamas was contacted in response, and said that he found it "hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Condoleezza Rice about peace when the U.S. government has in fact been an impediment to peace."

But hey, I'm not the one working as a shill for warmongering bastards, what do I know.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

In State's defense, Hamas has not shown itself to be a good faith negotiating partner and it does not seem that there's much room FOR negotiation when they start with "Israel's an illegal occupier and should be driven into the sea."

Unfortunately, Israel's trying to have their cake and eat it. If they're an occupying power, they ought to damn well act like it; and if they're not, and they're ceding the territories, then they ought to do that as well; then they can promptly treat the next round of rocket attacks as an act of war, and simply level the Gaza Strip to a small flat pile of rubble.

[patpandahat.livejournal.com]

As opposed to the small pile of rubble it is now?

[cpip.livejournal.com]

It has buildings and a government which purports to (a) be elected and (b) represent the will of its people.

Those things could quite easily be changed.

[patpandahat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm sure Israel invading another Arab 'nation' would be greeted with the same cheer and well-wishing their invasion of Lebanon brought them.

Remind me again, who called for those Palestinian elections? Who then refused to acknowledge the winners of those elections because they weren't the people we were supposed to like?

Who has refused to negotiate with Hamas and then threw out "have not proven to be a good faith negotiating partner" when they didn't take the first bad faith offer given?

If you're going to at least come to States' defense, quit making State look like an asshole.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

I suspect by now Israel's used to not getting cheer and well-wishing when they attack other nations, whether they've got a reason or not.

As for "quit making State look like an asshole" -- Why? That's not the government that the US wanted in there. What was wanted was a government who would be amenable to negotiations on the terms that the US and Israel were setting. Obviously, that didn't happen. So State's trying the stick approach, since Hamas hasn't shown much interest in carrots that aren't acceptable to the other party in the negotiations. Is it working? Not really. Will the carrot approach work better? Probably not at prices the administration is willing to pay, and in this instance, I'm not sure I disagree with them.

[patpandahat.livejournal.com]

Because we should honestly be able to engage in international geopolitics at a level higher than "petulant child hits others and holds its breath until it gets what it wants". We didn't get a complicit puppet-Palestinian government, so now, to show them how much bigger we are, we're using a stick.

Why? Because we're not willing to haggle.

It's either Israel's sit-at-the-table offer, or nothing. And that's stupid. Because it clearly isn't working, but we're too damned stubborn to try something else. Why? Because they might not be at prices the U.S. or the Likudniks in Israel are willing to offer. And rather then say "well, maybe they should swallow their damned pride and negotiate for a better future," we're just stuck with the same 50-year long bullshit.

And I full-well disagree with that furtherance of bloodshed.

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Very good for your disagreement.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, Hamas are not good guys, by any means.

But, what I dislike is the sense in that quote that there's not point in even /talking/ to the people who are in your way, even in an utterly unofficial capacity, because it sets up very nasty dynamics, y'know?

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Well, I doubt State's going to say "Oh, yes, we're talking to Hamas but pretending we're not," if you're going to suggest back-channel communications...

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

I think they're idiots if they're not doing back-channel communications...but then, based on this administration and anything having to with diplomacy, I think 'idiot' is the way to bet.

But, even if they were and just wanted deniability, there are far better ways to do that than say, "Those people aren't worth talking to," y'know? They invented 'no comment', or even a sniffy 'As an American citizen, Mr. Carter is free to talk to whoever he wishes within the bounds of the law, but we're not opening any negotiations at this time'.

[tearraws.livejournal.com]

In my ideal world, talking about problems would solve everything. It's how I try to approach all of my problems in my own life. To talk about them, to work them out. To empathize with each other. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes that's because I didn't express myself properly, but a lot of the time, it's because the other person isn't interested in talking to solve their problems.

In the end, I've sadly had to sometimes give up on talking to the people who have problems with me, because it was just making things worse, or more often, because it was damaging to me to keep trying to talk it out. They'd put more and more demands on me, until I was hobbled by my lack of ability to even address my point, due to promises made or emotions trying to be respected, while they ignored their own end of things and insult me and refuse to abide by their own promises.

Your response, and the response of many others I see here, seems to suggest a context as if the USA - or, really, anyone else - has ever talked to Hamas, and the 'talk to them' solution has never been tried.

There's been a lot of negotiations with Hamas, one has to remember, and they regularly break all promises they make. They destroy anything Israel tries to give them, and in recent history, they get their most violent when there's about to be a peaceful resolution for them to get the land that they say that they want. Throughout history, it's been shown that all they had to do to get half of what they want - self government - is to give up the other half of what they want - the destruction of Israel. And the latter is too important to them to give it up for the former.

I'm not saying anything about the intent of anybody involved, I'm not saying anything about good guys or bad guys, or anything like that, because it's far more complex than any storybook type of consideration like that, but I'm just pointing out the historical context - the things that they, themselves, have stated and done - that we're working with here.

We have tried to talk, but I fail to see what sort of compromise we're supposed to be working towards, here? If you have an idea, I would really like to hear it, but just saying 'talk to them' isn't really sufficient - it's already been tried countless times, and has led to more death and betrayal and lives uprooted.

I, too, want us to talk to them and work it out. The problem is less that anyone doesn't want to talk to them, and more that everything we'd say has already been said. What more would you suggest?