US embassy cable - 03JERUSALEM2293

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