So, you both agree that 'hummus' is good?

One of my favourite Bruno moments is when he goes to the Middle East to try and solve the Israel-Palestine conflict and manages to get agreement that hummus is good. For your amusement, the clip can be found here. The relevance, albeit tenuous, is the news that Hamas and Fatah have reconciled and are forming a unity government. Personally, I'm not sure how you can have peace talks with an entity that is now backed by an organisation that opposes them - ignoring the added complication of that organisation being a terrorist organisation sworn to Israel's destruction. I am also confused as to how Abbas can claim any commitment to peace if he is seeking unity deals with such organisations.

There are some positives:

1. If (a huge huge huge if) Hamas commits to peace talks and Israel's right to exist, there may actually be some viability in the peace accords. 

For ages I have thought the peace process was a complete sham - Abbas had absolutely no authority to negotiate on behalf of the Gazans. (He barely has any authority to negotiate on behalf of the West Bank Palestinians considering he is 4 years beyond his term, but let's ignore that.) Considering any peace deal presumably included Gaza as Palestinian territory, this was hugely problematic. Assuming a return to peace talks (a huge assumption, of course), this is no longer a problem and makes a peace deal that little bit more viable.

2. Elections

Fresh elections, long overdue, can only be a good thing.

3. A government including Hamas need not be 'Hamas' inspired. 

In other words, the new government could decide to not oppose peace talks and to not be committed to Israel's destruction. It's unlikely but it is possible. A new Palestinian government controlling Gaza and the West Bank could extend security co-operation existing in the West Bank to Gaza, which could prevent future terrorist attacks. Or it would, at least, be a start. If the status quo remains, if Hamas remains sworn to Israel's destruction and terrorist activity out of Gaza continues then Abbas has made his intentions perfectly clear. It is true that you don't make peace with your friends, but with your enemies, but Fatah were enemies enough for Israel. In short, If Hamas remains Hamas within a new unified Palestinian government, I fail to see how peace can be negotiated.

Israel is correct to halt peace negotiations with any Hamas backed government - for the time being. Only time will tell what the make-up and ideology of a new elected, unified, Palestinian government would be. Netanyahu and myself fear that Abbas' cuddling up to Hamas only means it will be more extreme than it currently is, which ends the peace process. Crucially, it need not be so. If nothing else, however, this reconciliation may just confirm what many Israelis have argued since the split - Hamas and Fatah are two sides of the same coin. And that is not a positive. Not for peace, not for Israel, not for the Palestinians.

Peace In Our Time

The big news coming out of the Middle East, if one ignores Syria as so many seem so capable of doing, is the announcement of a return to peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I'm an Economist, so let's make a few assumptions. Let's assume that peace talks begin; that both sides want peace; that negotiations could be fruitful and heck, that a solution is reached. Picture the scene, Netanyahu and Abbas could stand arm in arm on Temple Mount each waving a piece of paper to the gathered masses. Palestinians and Jews would embrace, the status of hummus as a joint Israeli-Arab dish would be assured and the respective leaders heads of state would proclaim, "(real) Peace in our time," or whatever the Hebrew and Arabic equivalent is, ignoring the previous connotations of that phrase. We could head to my uncle's bakery for a sandwich and then on to a local falafel and shawarma joint to really kick-start the party, sharing many a tale from the past few centuries of conflict joking about how we have managed to fool the West into believing it all began in 1948. Does that not sound all so amazing? I cannot wait.

But then you come back to the real world. You realise that even with the best of intentions on both sides, the above picture is a distant dream regardless of whether Abbas and Netanyahu want peace or can negotiate peace. Many will argue that neither truly wants peace in the first place, so there is not much point in starting them off on whether a negotiated settlement is possible. And even pulling on our Economist caps on, assuming those problems away, it does not look much better. There are many obstacles to peace, on both sides. There are many that a good, honest desire for peace could help erode. There is (at least) one, however, that no desire for peace can erode; one that makes the smell of falafel and hummus together on a sunny evening disappear quicker than you can say 'pitta bread'. That one obstacle is Hamas and the Gaza/West Bank divide.

Abbas may command (minimal) legitimacy in the West Bank (ignoring, as you must, the lack of elections and rampant corruption to mention but two problems with his leadership), but he cannot even see the other half of the territory that he claims to represent with binoculars, let alone step foot inside it. Whether you want to argue that Hamas is the legitimate representatives of those Palestinians (some will argue they were democratically elected) is neither here nor there. What is impossible to argue is that Abbas represents the Gazans. He simply does not, that is just the cold hard truth. For him to be negotiating a peace deal that Hamas has already rejected (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/05/201353144052527593.html), on behalf of Palestinians under Hamas rule, makes a mockery of the proposal. Abbas simply has no authority to negotiate a Palestinian state that includes Gaza which it surely would.

I hope you can forgive my obvious pessimism about the latest announcement. I do sincerely hope, pray and (dare I say it) dream that we will see peace in our time. The Palestinian and Jewish people deserve a lasting peace that has a viable Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state with its security guaranteed. The latest round peace talks, however, can, at best, end with Abbas declaring a Palestinian state in the West Bank with Gaza continuing to provide the home for rocket fire into Israel. That is not a peace that any Israeli leader can or will accept.

Turn off the ovens Binyamin, falafel and shawarma will have to wait.

Find me a dead Israeli: There maybe a story here.

Violence in the Middle East is not a new thing. Rockets being fired into Israel and Israeli responses are events that, for the citizens of Gaza and Israel, have become quite commonplace. The media response is, too, nothing new. Nor is the justification for the media response (or lack of it). The most common is, "But the rockets don't kill anyone". This is then either extended to suggest it is 'not newsworthy' or, even more extreme, "Israel shouldn't make a fuss about it". How anyone can be so irreverent to rocket fire, I do not know, but I shall attempt to debunk both of these views here. 

The argument can be formulated as follows:

1                    1. The rockets, in the main, do not kill anyone

2                    2. That which is aimed to kill but doesn’t kill is not:

                                   a.     Newsworthy

                                    or

                                   b.     Something that warrants a reaction/condemnation

3                    3. Therefore rockets (which aim to kill), in the main, are not:

                                   a.     Newsworthy

                                    or

                                   b.     Something that warrants any reaction/condemnation

If 1 and 2 are true it follows that 3 is also true. Ignoring the obvious complication that rockets can and do kill people for now, premise 2 is clearly false. In other words it is not the case that things which aim to kill but fail are neither newsworthy nor something that warrants a reaction for 6 reasons:

1. The rockets still have a profound effect. In England, students look forward to "snow days" as a day off school. In the southern parts of Israel, students have rocket days where it is deemed school cannot be opened, not because they may slip and fall or because the coach service cannot run as per snow days, but because it is deemed that the threat of a rocket attack means students are in the position where they may go to school but not return. Thus, a day in rocket shelters is the solution. Whatever way you look at the situation - whether you argue Israel is an occupying power and the rockets are only in retaliation to IAF strikes on the Gaza strip or not, the fact rocket fire targets schools and prevents children from attending school is not only newsworthy, something that warrants a reaction from Israel but also just plain wrong. To note an example, when schools are shut in England due to snow, that is deemed newsworthy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-16903487 - just one example of this being reported). When schools are shut due to rocket fire, because the rocket fire hasn't resulted in dead Israelis, it is not newsworthy. If anything, it should be the other way round. 

2. The rockets may not (always) kill, but they inflict damage and do cause injuries. Simply put, since when did 'deaths' become the criteria for what warrants a reaction or is newsworthy. Multiple Israelis are injured in rocket fire - the attitude that no deaths=not newsworthy/not worthy of a reaction can be crudely put as, "If there are no dead Israelis, I do not care enough to report it and/or Israel has no right to react". It makes me worry for some people that I genuinely have to explain why 'deaths' as the criteria upon which something becomes newsworthy or deserving of a reaction, is simply absurd. The unsuccessful nature of the rockets doesn't render them not bad nor does it mean that indiscriminate rocket fire is neither newsworthy nor deserving of a reaction. 

3. Linking both of the above points, the rockets aim and have the potential to kill. They are fired at children forcing them to miss school and spend the day in a rocket shelter. Hamas are not on some mission to disrupt the schooling of Israeli children. They wish to kill Israeli school children. They are fired into villages and cause damage to buildings and injuries to civilians. Hamas is not on some mission to keep Israeli builders and doctors in work. They wish to destroy villages and kill civilians. Again, when something is aimed to kill and has the potential to kill, only in the case of Israel is the failure to kill deemed a reason not to report about the rockets and/or to condemn any reaction by Israel to the rockets. Firstly, foiled terror plots haven't killed anyone yet they are still deemed newsworthy (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/times_square_car_smoke_scare_TyBE8K6vF3PzScpS9xG0XP) - as they, of course, are. The fact the terror plot failed doesn't then render it irrelevant to news organisations. (Unless, Israel is on the receiving end). Indeed, in the case of the Times Square scare, it was deemed newsworthy even though nothing even exploded, unlike rocket fire which, in itself is successful, even if it fails to kill (many). Secondly, the fact that the rockets don't kill (many) doesn't mean Israel has no right to attempt to prevent the rocket fire. What government's defence of her citizens is only justifiable if a citizen has died? That the rockets can (and does) kill civilians is enough to warrant a reaction from Israel to prevent the rocket fire. 

4. The rockets are a barrier to peace. If we work from the assumption that a Palestinian state will compromise of the Gaza Strip and, as of yet, an undetermined amount of the land known commonly as the West Bank, then a future Palestinian state will include the land where the rocket fire emanates from and the people that fire the rockets. In other words, the actions of the ruling party from an area of land that is generally assumed to form part of any future Palestinian State is indiscriminately firing (albeit useless) rockets into Israel, actions which by definition are not peaceful. Not only should this make the situation newsworthy - whether peace is attainable in the Middle East is surely newsworthy and thus actions which, without doubt a a barrier to peace must also be newsworthy, but it means that a response from Israel is more than justified. Again, whether or not you also deem the Israeli response as a barrier to peace and not justifiable in the face of Hamas' regime of terror is besides the point - the rockets into Israel are a barrier to peace, regardless of whether or not there exist other barriers to peace.

5. Israel has spent millions on mechanisms to prevent the rockets from being deadly - iron dome defence system, bomb shelters etc etc. It is not the rockets themselves that mean Israeli deaths are few and far between but Israeli efforts to ensure this is the case. Why, therefore, should Hamas essentially get the credit for the Israeli efforts? By getting the credit, I mean not having the rocket attacks condemned or covered as extensively as, especially 100+ rocket bursts, should be. 

6. The rockets do kill people. The amount is irrelevant. (OK, granted, this is more to disprove premise one, rather than two, but the point is valid nonetheless) 

If premise 2 is false, then not only should the world's media report the rocket fire more extensively than it does, rather than taking the view that Israelis are not dying therefore it is not important but more crucially, Israel absolutely has a right to respond to rocket fire. You can argue to the ends of the Earth about the force it should use, the force it does use but the fundamental point remains that Israel, no matter how useless Hamas are, has a right to defend her citizens and put an end to rocket fire. That Hamas care not for the citizens of Gaza not only putting there lives in danger through attacking Israel but also using them as active human shields to further endanger them, is not Israel's problem. 

It is perhaps ironic that the one thing preventing Hamas from obtaining weapons which would, according to the proponents of the above argument, mean that attacks against Israel were newsworthy/deserving of a reaction is the blockade of Gaza which they all oppose. Surely preventing weapons of a more deadly nature entering Gaza is in the interests of the proponents of the above argument. They need a reason not to report on Hamas' attacks. If Hamas starting killing more Israelis, that already absurd reason would float away.