Redstate

By Dan McLaughlin Posted in War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

With Palestinian elections today, and the likelihood that Hamas will get a significant share of the vote (to say nothing of the fact that the alternative to Hamas is the Fatah party founded by now-departed billionaire terrorist Yasser Arafat), the debate reopens yet again: can we - or Israel - negotiate with terrorists?

The Bush Administration and the Israelis say no, at least for now:

The Bush administration lists Hamas as a terrorist organization and also refuses to deal directly with it. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday refused to rule out negotiations with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas ministers.

Abbas, elected a year ago, will still head the Palestinian Authority regardless of Wednesday's results, but the voting will usher in a new Cabinet that could include Hamas members. Israel says it will not deal with Hamas until it disarms.

I say yes, with a qualification: while I'm not opposed to a "peace process," even one involving the likes of Fatah and Hamas, the key to understanding the uses and limitations of such a process is that you can't negotiate about terrorism.

Read on . . .

Some people say that you can't negotiate with terrorists. Not so; sometimes, there's nobody else to talk to. Once you've decided not to kill them, talking always has to be an option. Here, in particular, for democracy to have a chance in Palestine, you need to let terrorists into the process because otherwise, who else is left?

But what you can't do is put terrorism itself on a negotiating table, for three interrelated reasons:

1. Negotiations require parties who can be held responsible.

First, you have to find someone willing to take responsibility for having ordered or at least permitted terror attacks in the past. But even if you get there, who will be willing to admit to responsibility for more attacks in the future? It's the easiest thing in the world to let attacks happen, blame them on "extremist militants," and then complain about a "cycle of violence" when the other side backs out of the agreement.

2. Successful negotiations require that proportional consequences for violations be set out in advance.

The core of any negotiating process isn't just concession and agreement to the current deal; it's also agreement to what happens if part or all of the deal breaks down. This is the part of the international treaties process that the Left so often misunderstands. We still hear people claim that the Iraq War was somehow a violation of international law, but what else are you supposed to do when you end a war with a cease-fire agreement and the other side violates terms of the agreement? (Similarly, any decent lawyer can tell you that if you don't set out in advance the costs of violating an agreement, you just have an agreement to litigate later).

But negotiating responses to terrorism in advance is problematic in the extreme. Anything that's subject to negotiation is legitimized, and the responding party may find its freedom of action restricted. And how do you negotiate meaningful provisions that put an acceptable price on this? "Could you stop sending teenagers to blow up restaurants, please? What do you want in return? What do you want for blowing up just a few less civilians? How about just not blowing up any little children for a few weeks? Our lawyers have drafted some reps and warranties, and even an arbitration clause in case there's any disputes over whether you've exceeded your quota . . . Take a look at the language and get back to me in the morning."

3. Negotiating over terror gives independent terrorists and outside agitators an incentive to wreck the deal.

If terrorism is part of the contract, then somebody who's cut out of the deal can break it by sponsoring attacks. This relates back to problem #1, but it's a distinct problem -- there are the separate issues of one side creating "deniable" terror attacks and that side negotiating in good faith but actually being undercut by extremists.

The way to make any peace process work is, instead, to just take terrorism off the table. You don't have to say, "no negotiations until it stops," although you can reserve the right to respond to attacks outside the process. Instead, the process should be not a peace process (the very phrase assumes that there's a legitimate military conflict going on, which there isn't) but an independence process, with steps on both sides building towards the creation of meaningful Palestinian institutions, of which these elections are (if conducted cleanly) a perfect example. Israel has to deal in hope: a carrot to give ordinary Palestinians hope that peace will produce positive results, and a stick to remove any hope that terror will accomplish anything. De-linking terrorism from negotiations to the greatest extent possible is the only way to make use of both carrot and stick.

Which doesn't mean you can't put things on the table that aid in Israel's security; but they have to be concrete positive steps or steps tied directly to responsible parties (conficating a certain amount of weapons, ceasing the use of hate-inspiring textbooks in schools, etc.) rather than negative promises about terror attacks. That's the only way to make a process function in a contructive way. And if Hamas is willing to make those deals, then that's who you have to talk to.