A Cease-fire in Context
Last week, Israel and Gaza reached a new ceasefire deal.
That sort of sentence has appeared in print too many times to mean anything of substance. But, for the sake of being optimistic, let’s say for a second that this deal is different, and that it is a genuine step towards a lasting peace.
The last “ceasefire” was established in 2009, following Hamas’ escalation of rocket fire and Israel’s temporary occupation of Gaza. The failure of the 2009 ceasefire agreement was rooted in its brokers’ (namely, Egypt and the United States) lacking the support of surrounding populations. The Obama Administration hoped, with the help of the Egyptian government — then under Mubarak — to establish peace. But Talleyrand-style diplomacy no longer works. It’s now The People, and not necessarily elder statesmen, who have the power. With the near-universal inclusiveness social media provides, it no longer matters what the Congress of Vienna says; what The People accepts goes.
Conditions have changed. The Arab Spring has sprung. Governments and their people are no longer so isolated from each other. The Arab peoples now look towards America more favorably as an example of what a democratic republic can be, and what it means to be living in the twenty-first century. This is not to say there is no resentment between the West and the traditionally hostile Middle Eastern populations – but there is certainly less today than there was before Tahrir Square.
These movements may be inherently nationalist, but they carry significant international implications. The Arab Spring movements severely reshuffled the geopolitical arrangement of the Middle East. Syria, one of Hamas’ two benefactors crumbled into civil war. Egypt is now a country with a population bent on democracy. Qatar and oil nations like it find themselves with restive populations no longer happy playing as pawn for the United States, while also being alienated from Iran, as Iranian cyber attacks on these countries seem to suggest. And across the board, the specter of political Islam waxes, the ascendancy of which, with no moderation, turns the stomachs of Western diplomats.
In spite of Gaza’s characterization of the Israeli blockade as oppressive, it has failed to insulate change from seeping through to within the Gaza Strip. Within Gaza, unity between Sunni and Shiite factions is not something Hamas can boast about. Pressures stemming in the Arab Spring movements forced Hamas’ hand to make a choice of throwing its lot in with Egypt accepting their ceasefire, abandoning Syria and Iran.
The Arab Spring, despite its international implications is an innately nationalist trend. Unlike the 1960s and 1970s, the plight of one Arab ethnic sub-group no longer galvanizes all Arabs; pan-Arabism has simply fallen from grace. With history moving past it, Hamas has made a watershed decision to align itself less with the radical wing of political Islam (i.e. Iran or Syria), and more with the nascent Arab democracies, many of which look to America as an exemplar. Hamas now seems to be pursuing a policy of what Fouad Ajami, senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution calls “realism,” finally concluding their “wounds are self-inflicted, that their political maladies have nothing to do with Israel.”
For the United States, this geopolitical arrangement is a nugget of gold in an otherwise pewter field. Hamas seeks political legitimacy, and based on its willingness to negotiate at the hands of the United States and Egypt, they understand what that might actually entail: political compromise and moderation. Notions like these are not commonplace in Hamas’ political environment. If the United States and Israel are to make headway in effecting a lasting peace, then here is where to begin. Force Hamas’ hands further, ride the historic waves of the Arab Spring so as to corner Hamas into making the decision of aligning itself with the Arab peoples, or the failing regimes of Syria and Iran. What the Arab Spring means for the West and peace in the Middle East has yet to be determined. All that is known of it now, is that in its wake, the Arab Spring brought forth an opportunity for peace – carpe diem.