Negotiations between Israel and Hamas are bound to fail if parties ignore the religious dimensions of the conflict

Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 3h ago3 hours ago

At a time when the Israeli public is demonstrating against the war in Gaza and demanding for the hostages to be released, it’s time to rethink the traditional approaches to negotiation that focus on “getting to yes”. (Yuliia Bukovska / iStock / Getty Images)

The 7 October attacks orchestrated by the Palestinian organisation Hamas — which targeted Israeli citizens and continues to forcibly hold hostages — ignited a deadly retaliatory response from Israel. The air strikes on and ground invasion of Gaza has caused nearly 2 million Palestinians to flee southward toward the Rafah border with Egypt, even as the Israeli army controls the flow of food, medical supplies, fuel, water, and humanitarian aid to the citizens of Gaza. An estimated 35,000 Palestinians have died, and over 70,000 have been injured or are missing.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled the Gaza invasion “Operation Swords of Iron”, promising the Israeli public to fulfill the mission of eradicating Hamas as an organisation. And Israel’s allies — including the United States, the UK, and Australia — maintain the position that the conflict in Gaza and the current suffering of the Palestinian people can be over with the complete surrender of Hamas.At a time when the Israeli public is demonstrating against the war and demanding for the hostages to be released, and, simultaneously, when Netanyahu is refusing the latest round of terms agreed by Hamas, there are often divergent approaches to negotiations that include complex opposing strategies among the stakeholders.But the key question is this: How do we negotiate with violent extremists inspired by religion? To put it more precisely: are traditional modes of negotiation with a group like Hamas effective if they ignore the religious ethical framework at play?Why negotiate with extremists?In order to not concede power, legitimise the acts of violent extremists, or be perceived as weak, government officials often repeat the doldrum words, “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” The truth is that there is a great deal of secretive communication activity behind closed doors. For example, the Clinton administration established a back channel to discuss political issues with Sinn Fein which led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, ending conflict in Northern Ireland.Within the field of conflict resolution, the aim of engagement with violent extremists is to ensure that the use of violence is in check, to transform their ends from destruction to participation and dialogue. Which is to say, engaging in negotiations with violent extremists is a means to open the space for limiting, moderating, and ultimately containing violence — or, at least, to initiate information exchange for proper planning in negotiations.Active negotiations with a terrorist organisation ensure our ability to keep channels of communications active, if for no other reason to move their thinking away from the existing framework of violence. Controversial as it may appear, conflict resolution experts agree that direct engagement prevents the escalation of violence.Why negotiations that ignore religion failUnfortunately, the current negotiations between Hamas, Israel, the United States, and Egypt, facilitated by Qatar, are falling in line with the typical approach to negotiations, often advocated by business leaders as “getting to yes”. These principles involve:

focusing on mutual interests, not positions;separating the people from the problem;generating gradual mutual gains as “carrots” (as opposed to “sticks”); andidentifying “the best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA).

Paramount to the US and Israeli negotiators is to have the hostages released immediately and for the Hamas leadership to surrender and permanently evacuate Gaza. For Hamas, these negotiations are not about the current crisis or the thousands of Palestinian civilians suffering or the demands by the Americans — rather, they want to internationalise the conflict so that the world would become advocates for an independent Palestine.Hamas is driven by political aspirations which are pursued within a worldview that holds that religion, not secularism, provides the blueprint of a liberated Palestine. Understanding these aspirations would suggest that Hamas might respond more positively to religious diplomacy — that is, negotiations which utilise Islamic principles of conflict resolution and ethics, a mode of engagement which recognises who they are and seeks to accentuate the particular religious values they bring to the negotiating table.By reframing the negotiations this way, or even simply by tweaking the parameters, one strategically acknowledges the religious context that is at play, instead of ignoring it.The need for moral imaginationIt is needlessly limiting to frame the existing negotiations between Hamas and Israel, along with other stakeholders, in terms of irreconcilable goals and duelling polarities because we thereby immediately reduce the range of potential outcomes. This has been one of the greatest impediments to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the absence of authentic engagement, a lack of moral imagination when it comes to designing and implementing genuine sustainable peace processes. Indeed, moral imagination is needed to move beyond regimented dualities — but not just on the part of elected leaders, charismatic leaders, or self-imposed leaders, but from local communities who feel that their voices must be heard and respected, and that their presence in the negotiations is as important as that of other stakeholders.

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Eminent scholar of peace-building, John Paul Lederach, has written about how peace-building does not start or stop when the violence ends, or with the launch or termination of a United Nations operation, or with the establishment of political parties or the holding of elections. He insists that it’s important to think beyond traditional statist diplomatic resolutions or agreements, for sustainable peace will require a holistic approach that encompasses, generates, and ultimately sustains a full array of processes and stages of engagement to transform conflict.Israeli, Hamas, and other Palestinians leaders will ultimately arrive at a moment when direct engagement is unavoidable — so why not do it early and save all those lives, including those of hostages and innocent civilian bystanders? All parties to this conflict will need to move away from being prisoners of the cycle of confrontation, perpetually inflicting violence each upon the other. And it begins with authentically engaging with each other.Qamar-ul Huda is the Michael E. Paul Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Naval Academy. He has previously served as Senior Policy Advisor for US Department of State Secretary’s Office for Religion and Global Affairs, where he focused on civil society, religious communities, and diplomacy with non-government organisations. He is the author of Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam.

Posted 7h ago7 hours ago, updated 3h ago