Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
03JERUSALEM2293
2003-08-05 15:28:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Jerusalem
Cable title:  

HAMAS READY TO EXTEND TRUCE, PA MINISTER CLAIMS

Tags:  PREL KWBG KPAL IS 
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O 051528Z AUG 03
FM AMCONSUL JERUSALEM
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4350
INFO ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
WHITE HOUSE NSC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L JERUSALEM 002293 


DEPARTMENT FOR NEA FRONT OFFICE AND NEA/IPA; NSC FOR
ABRAMS/DANIN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/04/2013
TAGS: PREL KWBG KPAL IS
SUBJECT: HAMAS READY TO EXTEND TRUCE, PA MINISTER CLAIMS

REF: TEL AVIV 4401

Classified By: Acting Principal Officer Jeffrey Feltman, per 1.5 (b) an
d (d).

(U) This cable has been cleared with Embassy Tel Aviv.

SUMMARY
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L JERUSALEM 002293


DEPARTMENT FOR NEA FRONT OFFICE AND NEA/IPA; NSC FOR
ABRAMS/DANIN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/04/2013
TAGS: PREL KWBG KPAL IS
SUBJECT: HAMAS READY TO EXTEND TRUCE, PA MINISTER CLAIMS

REF: TEL AVIV 4401

Classified By: Acting Principal Officer Jeffrey Feltman, per 1.5 (b) an
d (d).

(U) This cable has been cleared with Embassy Tel Aviv.

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) Following up on his conversation with Embassy PolOff
last week (reftel),PA Minister of Culture Ziad Abu-Amr, in a
meeting with A/PO in Ramallah on 8/4, said that Hamas leaders
would tell PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza this week
that they are prepared to extend the cease-fire for an
additional three months. During that time, Abu-Amr insisted,
the PA must move decisively toward municipal elections as a
way to channel Hamas' "energy" into a permanent buy-in to the
PA's political program, including negotiations for a
two-state solution. Hamas is ready, Abu-Amr argued, and may
even be ready to participate in PA elections (which would
symbolize belated acceptance of the Oslo political
landscape). Bringing Hamas on board without a major
confrontation is not appeasement but realism, Abu-Amr
insisted: the PA might very well lose an outright fight and,
even if the PA largely prevailed, the result of a
confrontation might be splinter cells that are impossible to
root out. It is far better to capitalize upon what he
described as the extreme internal discipline of Hamas (which
he compared favorably with the unruly nature of Fatah) to end
the violence once and for all through an internal political
process that includes Hamas. If the cease-fire unravels, he
predicted, it will be due to a process started by Al-Aqsa
and/or Israeli actions, not something Hamas starts. End
summary.

HAMAS TO TELL ABU MAZEN
"YES" ON EXTENDING CEASE-FIRE
--------------


2. (C) In his high-rise Ramallah office overlooking the
ruins of the Muqatta'a, Abu-Amr continued his conversation
begun the previous week with Embassy PolOff on the PA-Hamas
dialogue (reftel). Hamas leaders, he predicted, will tell
Abbas in Gaza this week that they are prepared to extend the
cease-fire ("hudna" was the word Abu-Amr used throughout the
conversation) for an additional three months. Hamas leaders,
keenly monitoring popular reactions, sense that the
Palestinian population at this point largely supports the
cease-fire; moreover, the Hamas external leadership is still

feeling the pressure of U.S. demands on Syria. Thus it has
not been all that difficult, Abu-Amr claimed, to persuade
them to extend the cease-fire.

DANGER TO CEASE-FIRE NOT
(IN FIRST INSTANCE) FROM HAMAS
--------------


3. (C) As he had last week, Abu-Amr dismissed concerns that
Hamas or rogue elements thereof might unilaterally start
actions that break the cease-fire. Citing the "extreme
discipline" of Hamas, Abu-Amr expressed far more worry about
unilateral Israeli moves or Al-Aqsa Martryrs Brigade attacks
that could invite Israeli retaliation that would cause the
cease-fire to unravel. Abu-Amr referred with worry to the
Al-Aqsa-claimed firing that wounded four people near Gilo the
previous night. While Palestinian disappointment over what
they perceive as the inadequate Israeli positive response to
the drop in violence and threats "seriously weakens" the
commitment to the cease-fire, Hamas, he insisted, will not be
the ones to endanger the cease-fire.

HAMAS LEADERS MORE MODERATE
THAN THE STREET
--------------


4. (C) At the same time, Hamas will not be able to extend
the cease-fire indefinitely without something to show for it.
The considerable "energy" that has been focused over the
past few years in "waging the Intifada" must be channeled
elsewhere. Hamas leaders in Gaza are "more moderate" than
their young followers, Abu-Amr insisted, and are ready to
turn the movement toward what the PA would consider more
constructive and more acceptable activities. (Abu-Amr
claimed that the fiery Abdulaziz Rantissi was the exception
to his claim that the Gaza leadership was more moderate.
Rantissi's "problem," he said, is personal, in that he bears
severe grudges against the "humiliations" he suffered at the
hands of Mohammed Dahlan's forces in 1996, when Dahlan had
Rantissi shaved and jailed.) In this, the "more moderate"
Hamas leaders are assisted by the Hamas prisoners in Israel,
whose prison experience has generally given them a "more
sophisticated,less radical" understanding of their political
horizons. (Abu-Amr digressed at this point to a "law of
diminishing returns" regarding the prisoners -- that, having
gone through a period of moderation, they risked becoming
radicalized if Israel continued to stall on prisoner
releases, doing only small numbers begrudgingly.)

CHANNELING HAMAS
ENERGY TO ELECTIONS
--------------


5. (C) Abu-Amr speculated that, before the expiry of the
second three-month cease-fire, the PA must be in the midst of
serious preparations for "rolling" municipal elections.
Elections, rather than the conflict with Israel, would then
become the focus for Hamas and other groups. Everyone's
attention, he predicted, would be on the local races, rather
than on Israeli action. A/PO asked what sort of standard the
PA would insist upon as the price for Hamas' admisssion to
the elections, commenting that the PA should not entertain
the thought of allowing participation in elections by any
group that maintained illegal military wing and considered
violence an acceptable political tool.

HAMAS MUST BUY ON TO PROGRAM
--------------


6. (C) Abu-Amr agreed that Hamas must subscribe to the
basic parameters of the PA and PLO program, which he
articulated as renunciation of violence, acceptance of a
two-state solution and Israel's right to exist in peace and
security, and resolution of the conflict through
negotiations. Abu-Amr claimed that the Hamas leaders are
already "more or less" committed to these ideas but need to
have a political excuse, cover and incentive -- which
elections would provide -- to be more explicit on these
points. It is good, Abu-Amr said, that Islam as an ideology
is flexible -- one can find justification for fighting, and
one can find justification for ending the physical fight in
favor of political fights. "The doctrine is hospital to
change." A/PO asked whether the PA would insist on written
commitments to this effect by any candidates or groups that
would choose to participate in the elections, but Abu-Amr,
avoiding a direct answer, responded that all would be decided
as preparations for local elections geared up. A/PO
reiterated the point that Hamas would never be accepted by
the U.S. and Israel as a legitimate political faction as long
as it maintained its military wing and left open the
possibility of returning to violence.

HAMAS READY FOR PA ELECTIONS, TOO?
--------------


7. (C) Musing about how he has witnessed the evolution in
thinking by the local Hamas leaders, Abu-Amr speculated that,
once conditions are right for PA legislative and presidential
elections, Hamas would also want to field candidates in those
races. This is a revolution in Hamas thinking, he argued.
Before, Hamas leaders always left open the idea of
participating for local or "national" (PLO-wide) office, but
they clearly rejected any PLC elections that might bless what
Hamas viewed as an illegitimate Oslo-based institution. By
hinting that they would field Hamas candidates in PLC races,
Hamas leaders are again underscoring their acceptance of the
Olso political landscape including a negotiated settlement
with Israel. Abu-Amr also noted, however, the
"impossibility" of legislative elections in the current
period. He cited two roadblocks: the Israeli occupation of
most West Bank cities, and the U.S. hostility to PA
presidential elections (as long as Arafat would emerge as a
viable candidate) which the Palestinians would insist
accompany any legislative elections.

TRYING TO CAPITALIZE
ON HAMAS DISCIPLINE
--------------


8. (C) When A/PO cautioned Abu-Amr that the PA must be very
careful not to encourage a process that would in effect
extend a lifeline to terrorist groups that must be fought,
Abu-Amr responsed that co-opting the majority of Hamas
members through elections was "not appeasement." If the PA
launched a frontal battle against Hamas now, he said, "we
would lose." Even if, with time, the PA would prevail in an
outright military confrontation, "we would create a thousand
splinter groups," individual cells that would step up attacks
on the PA and -- especially -- on Israel, since Israel would,
"based on its behavior over the past three years," pound the
PA in retaliation to what Hamas was doing. The plethora of
"splinter groups" would be impossible to root out. Abu-Amr
described this scenario as a "lose-lose" proposition.


9. (C) What he is proposing, Abu-Amr said, is a "pragmatic,
realistic" approach: use the best quality of Hamas, its
internal discpline, to end the violence definitively in favor
of a political approach. If elections can induce the Hamas
leadership to echo Abu Mazen's message that the armed
Intifada is over, then the majority of the Hamas cadres would
be on board. It would be relatively easy for the PA to crush
those elements that do not go along with the Hamas
leadership, since the numbers would be relatively few, he
predicted, and because they would be defying the wishes of
the collective Palestinian leadership.

CRITICAL ELEMENTS OF THIS SCENARIO:
ISRAELI ACTION AND MOVEMENT ON REFORM
--------------


10. (C) Abu-Amr closed by saying that his relatively rosy
scenario assumed two things: that Israel would take steps
forward, even if more slowly than the Palestinians would
like, that strengthened the PA, and that the PA itself
proceeds as quickly as possible with its domestic reform
program. Both of those elements would bring credibility to
the Abu Mazen government, he said, and would illustrate to
the population the benefits of Abu Mazen's policies. If
Israeli steps or Palestinian reform stall completely -- and
he criticized both for not moving quickly enough -- then he
was worried that his scenario for co-opting Hamas through
elections might not work as well as he had just outlined.
For that reason, he said, he has become a "real nag" in PA
cabinet meetings about the need to move forward on reforms
other than in the financial area, "the only sector where our
record is excellent."


FELTMAN