Helena Cobban, talk on Hamas at Westmoreland Church, April 21, 2024

In March 2024, the Middle East Committee of Westmoreland Church, which is a very active  "UCC" congregation located on the borderline between Maryland and Washington DC, invited Helena to go and speak to their members on the topic "Hamas: A Primer."

The event took place on April 21, 2024, and took the form of a conversation conducted, for the first 35 minutes, by longtime Middle East Committee member Robert Mertz. In the second half of the program, several attendees at the gathering asked questions, both in-person from the church parlor, and online via the event's well-populated Zoom feed.

This episode contains the recording of nearly the whole of the April 21 event. Here is the "resource list" referred to toward the end of the episode:

•Online resource list: bit.ly/Keys-4-H

•Sign up for Helena’s (roughly weekly) newsletter at: eepurl.com/b-5d_9

•Learn about her company’s many books on Gaza, Palestine, etc, at: Justworldbooks.com

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Helena Cobban (00:00):
Hi, everybody.
I'm Helena Cobban. I'm thepresident of Just World
Educational, a smalleducational nonprofit
headquartered here inWashington, dc And I also have
a publishing company that I runcalled Just World Books, which
has published many excellenttitles by Palestinian and

(00:20):
Zionism questioning Jewishauthors. I grew up in England,
and over the course of a longcareer of writing about
Palestine and other globalissues, I have conducted
numerous reporting tours inGaza, other parts of Palestine,
and all the other parts of WestAsia, the area also known as

(00:41):
the Middle East, where largeconcentrations of Palestinians
exiled from their homeland havelong been forced to live. And
I've had the opportunity overthe course of many years to
interview numerous leaders ofand activists within Hamas and
all the other Palestinianpolitical movements. In March,

(01:04):
2024, the Middle East Committeeof Westmoreland Church, which
is a very active UCCcongregation, located on the
borderline between Maryland andWashington, DC , invited me to
go and speak to their memberson the topic, Hamas a primer. I
was pleased to take up thisinvitation as it is my strong

(01:25):
belief based on the copiousavailable evidence that this
Palestinian organization hasbeen subjected for decades now
to systematic demonization andsmearing by the Israeli
authorities and by manypolitical leaders here in the
United States. And it's also mystrong belief that the terrible

(01:46):
now genocide level strifewithin Gaza and the rest of
Palestine cannot be brought toan end unless all the
longstanding attempts todestroy Hamas and to exclude it
from any peace efforts are alsoended. In short, if the peoples
of Palestine and Israel are towin the kind of hopeful

(02:08):
sustainable peace that theyyearn for, and so sorely
deserve, then a way must befound to integrate this
movement Hamas, within thepeacemaking diplomacy, rather
than continuing to exclude andto try to destroy it. And for
this to happen, it would bevery helpful if citizens and
leaders around the world,including here in the United

(02:30):
States, could gain a muchfuller and more accurate
understanding that is generallyavailable of the roots
development and dynamic of thissizable movement within the
Palestinian Body Politic. Theevent at Westmoreland Church
took place on April 21st, 2024,and took the form of an , of a

(02:52):
conversation conducted for thefirst 35 minutes by longtime
Middle East Committee memberRobert Mertz . In the second
half of the program, severalattendees at the gathering
asked questions, both in personfrom the church parlor and
online via the eventswell-populated Zoom feed. All

(03:12):
those questions were thoughtfuland seemed to represent a
sincere desire among theseattendees to learn more and
understand more about Hamas.
The recording that followsMissed out the lovely welcome
and centering prayer thatMiddle East Committee head ,
Maryn Goodson delivered, andalso the portion where Robert

(03:32):
Mertz introduced me along withthe first question that he
posed to me. Also, later in therecording, you'll hear me and
Maryn Goodson referring to alist of resources that appear
on the screen. That list ofresources can be found in the
program notes accompanying thisepisode. So now here is the

(03:54):
audio of the conversation inWestmoreland Church. Robert
Mertz's, first question to mewas, what is Hamas? And here is
how the conversation then went.
So what is Hamas? My friendRami Khouri, who's a
Palestinian , um, journalistand intellectual and analyst of

(04:16):
many years standing, I thinkfive years more than me, he
says, when he , people ask himthis question, his response is,
it's just like the RepublicanParty. And , um, that is a bit
of a jaw dropper , but he goeson to explain that there are
very good people in bothorganizations who, you know,

(04:36):
volunteer at homeless kitchens, um, homeless encampments,
soup kitchens, organized churchsuppers, do all kinds of, well,
a Muslim equivalent of a churchsupper. Um, and there are a few
really crazy people . Um , andthere's a bunch of people in
between who have strongly heldviews, generally are socially

(04:56):
conservative. So I think that'sa really helpful frame for
Hamas to say that it's like theRepublican Party. Um, I would
also say that it's, you know,when we hear about Hamas in our
Western corporate media, it'salways about atrocities and
violence and intransigence. Andwhat is very little understood

(05:23):
is the extensive civilianorganization that Hamas has,
and from which it was born backin 2007 to , sorry, 1990. Oh
gosh, I'm getting so old. 1987.
Okay , , I've got allthis on a later question. So ,

(05:43):
um, it has extensive socialservice wings. It has
political, educational andmilitary wings, but people in
the west tend to hear onlyabout what's happening in the
military wing, what that'sdoing. Um, the, the political
leadership is currently basedin Qatar, which in case you

(06:04):
didn't know, is actually anally of the United States and
hosts a major US military base.
Mm-Hmm . . Sothat's kind of interesting to
me. They may be about to be getto , to be , um, thrown out of
Qatar, I don't know, in whichcase they're most likely to
move to Turkey, which is also aUS ally and a full member of

(06:24):
nato. So, you know, there's alot of things that we need to
unpack and understand aboutthis, this organization, it
also has extensive diplomaticlinks with governments around
the world , um, governments ,um, in the Middle East, or as I
call it, west Asia. Um, andgovernments like South Africa.

(06:47):
Um , a lot of governments in ,in Latin America, Moscow, China
, um, Pakistan, a lot of majorgovernments around the world
have a permanent orsemi-permanent Hamas , um,
liaison relationship. So, youknow, it's not just what you
see on the news.

Robert Mertz (07:08):
Well, that's a very good open opening. Um, and
I, I can remember , uh, aproposof what you just said that
Pamela and I had lunch with aAmerican woman in Gaza back in
2005 who said that Hamas wouldprobably win the elections
because they fixed the potholesin the roads and they had

(07:28):
schools and clinics and thingslike that. And it wasn't just
about their , their militancyor their political agenda. Um,
anyway, I don't wanna jumpahead. What can you tell us
about the charter and whatHamas' objectives were and are?

Helena Cobban (07:41):
Okay, so , um, let's go to the key points ,
um, slide. Um, so Hamas wasfounded, and I've got the dates
right here , um, late 1987 atthe time of the outbreak of the
first Palestinian Intifadaagainst Israel's occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza. Soprior to that, there had been

(08:05):
extensive Muslim social servicenetworks, social , in the
occupied territories that hadbeen actually kind of
encouraged by the Israelisbecause they were an
alternative or counter to thesecular nationalist networks in
those occupied territories. Sothen when the Infa broke out,
the Muslim Brotherhood, whichwas that parent organization,

(08:29):
said, we have to be jump intothe political game as well as
prior to that they had beenmainly focused on sort of piety
and religious observance, andthat , you know, that is a very
long term thing just to build apious society. So then , um, in
August, 1988, Hamas issued itsfirst charter, and it was a

(08:51):
deeply kind of religious focus,and it stated that the
usurpation by the Jews of theLand of Palestine was directly
descended from the crusaderkingdoms of the 11th to 13th
century. So kind of like eightcentury long grievance that
here, once again, non-Muslimpowers were coming in and

(09:15):
usurping , um, MuslimPalestinian land. And then in
1993 , um, I was actually onthe White House lawn when Yasa
Arafat and Israeli PrimeMinister, its et Rabin . And ,
um, president Clinton signedthe Oslo Accords, which was a,

(09:40):
an agreement between Israel andArafat's organization, the PLO
. And they agreed to finishnegotiations by mid 1999 for
the establishment of anindependent Palestinian state
in the occupied PalestinianTerritories, which would be
like a Palestinian, independentPalestinian state alongside

(10:03):
Israel with mutual recognitionand presumably some form of
mutual non-intervention betweenthese two independent states.
And they would complete thatnegotiation by the end of 1999.
Hamas at that point, stronglyopposed the division of the,
the land of Palestine. So theystrongly opposed Oslo. Um, and

(10:28):
then, and under Oslo, as youmay recall, yes , Arafat and
the PLO returned to , um, theWest Bank and Gaza, not to East
Jerusalem, sadly, which is partof the occupied West Bank. And
Arafat and his headquarters setup in Ramallah um, a Christian

(10:48):
Palestinian town a little bitout of of Jerusalem. Hamas was
so strongly opposed to thatwhole process. And then shortly
thereafter, in February, 1994,a US-born Israeli settler,
Baruch Goldstein went on armedrampage in the ancient Elon
Musk mosque and killed 29worshipers. It was, it was just

(11:12):
horrendous, obviously, foreverybody who was there
praying. And actually, a abunch of the, the worshipers
got together and were able tosubdue him and I , I think they
managed to strangle him beforehe killed any anybody else. But
after the Goldstein Massacre,Hamas started sending suicide
bombers against civiliantargets in Israel. And , um, it

(11:35):
was a terrible time forIsraelis, and it was a terrible
time for Palestinians as well,because obviously the Israelis
had the military in the WestBank in Gaza, and they cracked
down very hard. And Arafat's ,PLO and fateh helped Israel to
crack down on Hamas. Soremember the, the promise was--

(11:56):
sorry, Leon, you need to go tothe next one-- that there would
, the , the negotiations for a, um, an independent
Palestinian state would becompleted by 1999.
Parenthetically at the UnitedNations Security Council, just
this past week, our government,the United States government

(12:19):
vetoed a resolution that calledfor recognition of an
independent Palestinian state.
So these issues are still verylive today. Um, so by 2000, it
had become clear to thePalestinians there was not
going to be an independentPalestinian state. So you had
the outbreak of the secondAntifa in which Hamas and some

(12:39):
of the fatted grassrootsactually collaborated. And once
again, the Israelis crackeddown very harshly. Then in
2005, then Prime MinisterSharon pulled Israel settlers
and, and troops outta theinterior of Gaza, because it

(13:00):
was too difficult for them to,you know, control what was
going on in Gaza. They kepttight Israeli control of all of
Gaza's borders, which is whyunder international law,
everybody says that even after2005, Israel remained the
occupying power in Gaza becauseit retained effective security

(13:24):
control over everything thatwent in or out. And that means
that it continues, hascontinued since 1967 to be ,
um, bound by the Genevaconventions , um, regarding
what an occupying power can do.
And parenthetically, there, youknow, a military occupation is

(13:44):
supposed to be a short termthing like the US military
occupation in, in Germany,after 1945 lasted seven to nine
years, Japan, seven to nineyears, US military occupation
of Iraq lasted nine years. Thisoccupation of the West Bank and
Gaza has gone on for 57 years.

(14:06):
You know, it's become deeplyentrenched and, and hundreds of
thousands of Israeli settlershave been implanted in the
occupied territories, which iscompletely outlawed by the
Geneva Conventions. Anyway,2005. Um, so Sharon , the
United States and Fateh agreedas part of this, like

(14:30):
rearrangement of the Israelioccupation to hold new
elections for the PA Parliamentto be held in January, 2006.
This is what Robert had beentalking about , and really
intriguingly Hamas agreed tojoin those elections. There had
previously been parliamentaryelections in '96, and because,

(14:53):
because they were under theauspices of Oslo , um, Hamas
did not participate in 96. In,in 2006 , two things happened .
One was that Hamas agreed totake part in these elections,
which were still under theauspices of Oslo and the two
state framework, but also theUS and Israel agreed to let

(15:17):
them do so. And there must havebeen, I'm sure there were, you
know, some negotiations overhow that was done. Actually,
Hamas didn't use its own name.
It called itself the Change andReform Party. And they
participated in good order inelections that were , um, by t
he C arter Center and other open organizations to have been

(15:39):
free and fair elections inJanuary 26th. I think we need
to go to the next one. And guess who won the elections?
Hamas won the elections, sothat was a complete blow to the
U S and Israel, who had beenobviously rooting for and
hoping, and, and supportingFateh in those elections. So

(16:02):
they immediately startedplanning a coup to overthrow
the PA's, newly elected pm andthey, t he following year,
2007, they, um, l o they, theywere just about to launch the c
oup. Hamas actually preemptedit so t hat that's when you h
ad the separation of Hamasexercising civilian c ontrol in

(16:26):
Gaza and fatter, exercisingcivilian control over little
kind of points of land. Little,little tiny blobs of land
within the West Bank, but notthe whole o f the West Bank, as
you know, a ll the settlers there. So we'll go on to the
next one. Um, Leon , um, in2007, Israel started its tough

(16:50):
siege of Gaza with US backing,and it's punctuated that with
periodic , um, punishment , um,campaigns that are very deadly.
Um, sometimes 1500 people wouldbe killed, sometimes 200,
sometimes 500, and they callthose mowing the lawn, which I

(17:10):
think is an obscene expression.
But in Israel and Palestine,everybody knows what it means.
So under this , um,circumstance of siege with
periodic assaults in May, 2017,the Hamas leaders, and remember
what I said at the beginning,these are not just the Hamas
leaders in Gaza. These, this isHamas. Wherever there are

(17:33):
Palestinians, there is Hamas,you know, in, in inside Israel
amongst the Palestinian refugeecommunities , um, in Lebanon,
Syria, Jordan in the Gulf. Um,so in 2017, the leaders all got
together and adopted a newrevised charter. And it's very

(17:53):
important that peopleunderstand the changes that
they made in this charter. Itremoved all the antisemitic
language that had been in theearlier charter. It was much
more focused on Palestinianpolitical issues and less on
the kind of piety stuff. Ishouldn't call it. I shouldn't,
anyway, you know what I mean?
. Um, and it opened thedoor a little bit more toward

(18:17):
accepting a two state solution.
Something that, you know, as Inoted, had been presaged in
2005, 2006, when they agreed totake part in these elections.
And they stressed that Hamas isnow quite separate from the
Muslim Brotherhood, which theyhad to do, really, because the
Muslim Brotherhood is veryharshly oppressed in Egypt in

(18:40):
particular, and has been since2013. So, you know, since Egypt
is the only country that has atiny land border with Gaza , it
it's important for them to havea continuing relationship with
the government in Egypt. So,sorry it took so long, but
yeah, , there's a quickhistory. No,

Robert Mertz (18:58):
I think it's very important and very important to
understand, particularly thepoint that you make about the
fact that they've , their ,their sort of geographic scope
is now focused on the West Bankand Gaza . It's not focused on,
on what is called Israel today.
Um, well , so let's jumpforward then to October 7th,

(19:18):
and what was actually thepurpose of that?

Helena Cobban (19:24):
So , um, October the seventh really came as a
huge shock to everybody inIsrael. It wasn't just the
number of people who werekilled, which was roughly 1,160
. It wasn't just the number ofpeople who were , um,

(19:47):
kidnapped. It was the fact thatthe entire security concept
that Israel had followed since1948 was punctured overnight,
like within hours, like alltheir extensive military that,
you know, is capable of flyinghitter and yarn and bombing
people here, there, andeverywhere that is , has been

(20:11):
capable with the help of Googleand other, you know, us high
tech industries of controllingall these people in the
occupied territories. Suddenly,they were incapable of stopping
this breakout from theconcentration camp that Gaza
had been since 2007. So, youknow, it , the Hamas people who

(20:35):
did it were , um, smart,sophisticated. They had been
planning for a very long time.
They had looked at all thelike, surveillance towers that,
that Israel maintained aroundGaza, and they figured out how
to use drones to disable thisentire concentration camp
surveillance system , which ,you know, and , and the

(20:58):
Israelis had been, been relyingon that to keep the
concentration camp enclosed asa result, not just the, the
Hamas operatives. Hamas had aplan they were going , and
which they, which theyfollowed. They were going to
disable the surveillancesystem. Then they were going to

(21:20):
break out through, I think,maybe five or six locations and
go to pre-planned Israelimilitary units, including the
command of, I think it's theGaza Command headquarters,
which was in this , um, placecalled ra , where there was

(21:40):
also the music festival. Butthe , and they took over all
these command posts and tookthe commanders with them and
killed many military people inthese command posts. As you
know, if you read , um, theaccounts of who works killed on

(22:00):
, on October 7th that are in,and other Israeli newspapers,
something like , um, 40% of thepeople who were killed were
either military or they were ,um, the guards for these little
kibbutz and Israeli , um,communities. There, there were

(22:22):
of course, a lot of civiliancasualties. There were
civilians taken hostage. So Ithink taking the hostages was a
big part of the goal, but themain part of the goal was to
puncture the Israeli sense ofself-satisfaction. And, and,
you know, that they had aworking strategic concept that

(22:44):
relied on all this high techstuff, and they didn't have to
put their soldiers on the frontline . And they completely
punctured that. It took theIsraeli military about between
three and five days to be ableto regain control of all that
area because , you know, their, their military was in chaos.

(23:06):
It had been blinded. And manyof the key people in the
military around Gaza in whatthey call the Gaza envelope,
which was designed to envelopGaza, it , it , it had
completely failed. They didsend in , um, Apache
helicopters and tanks to try toregain this land . And in the

(23:28):
course of those battles, manycivilians were killed. It's not
clear which were killed. It isclear that some were killed by
the Israeli military, some werekilled by, by the Daza people.
And the other point about thisis that once Hamas had broke ,

(23:49):
done the break breakout fromthe Gaza concentration camp,
other people in theconcentration camp were like,
wow, you know, I'm going out ofhere. I'm gonna go and loot.
I'm gonna go and see mygrandfather's farm, you know,
that he had been forced toleave in 1948. He was like,
wow, we get out of theconcentration camp. So there

(24:11):
was a lot of just completelyuncontrolled, like incursion
of, some people call them theriffraff of Gaza, but you know,
people, just regular people. Soyou had a lot of things going
on there. Um, of course, theway it's portrayed by the
Israeli media machine is thatHamas were focused on killing

(24:38):
and raping Israelis andkidnapping civilians. That ,
that , that is the , you know,the story that they have
unbelievably successfully beenable to pedal , including to
President Biden, who, you know,came out within a few days and
said something like, I've seenpictures of the 40 beheaded

(25:00):
babies. There were no 40beheaded babies. You look at
the, you look at the , um,accounts in ha or other Israeli
media, there was, I think onetoddler age two who was killed.
There were a handful ofchildren up to the age of 18. I

(25:23):
forget exactly how many, thereis no record anywhere of any of
these either children, babies,adults being beheaded. But, you
know, they had so successfullygotten into Joe Biden's brain
that he said this thing, like,I've seen pictures of the 40

(25:46):
beheaded babies, you know, and,and now we have actually the
whole story about, about the,the mass rapes came out very
much later because that wasanother deliberate campaign.
Now, of course, there were someterrible killings. There were,
you know, some , um, abductionsof civilians as we know, but

(26:09):
this was not what, what Hamashad been intending. I I have to
say that when I started writingabout this, I would call what
happened on October 7th fromHamas' point of view, a
catastrophic success. Mm-Hmm , , you
know, they did beyond a doubtpuncture Israeli self , uh,

(26:33):
sense of, you know, that theyhave a strategic concept that
works, and there's still , theIsraelis are still, you know,
in the government and themilitary and the think tanks,
trying to figure out how yourepair that strategic concept.
And, you know, it was alwaysbased on deterrence. So
deterrence has to bereestablished through, you

(26:54):
know, even more violent acts.
That's , that's how deterrenceworks , whether you're talking
about US deterrence or, youknow, Soviet deterrence back in
the day, or , or Israelideterrent now. So that , that's
kind of the best that we cando. I do have some resources
that I'm gonna share at the endhere on, on the slide , um,

(27:14):
because I've pulled together asort of a , a first reading
list. There was an, you know,an excellent in-depth , um,
in-depth investigation carriedout by Aljazeera in into the
military actions that happenedon , on January 6th, which is
definitely worth looking at .
So you , you'll find referencesto this in the reading list

(27:35):
that I'm gonna share later.

Robert Mertz (27:37):
In addition to the bilateral , um,
considerations you justilluminated, were there any,
any things happening in thesort of broader Arab world or
including, say, the, the west ,uh, that were perhaps changing
the , uh, the dynamics, thepolitical dynamics that , that
Hamas was reacting to?

Helena Cobban (27:58):
Um, absolutely.
And it's not just that theywere reacting, they were also
acting. Um, I wrote an article, um, came out a couple of
months ago about the bigchanges in the global balance
of power that happened in 2023prior to October, that actually

(28:20):
enabled and provided the, thecontext in which Hamas could
act. And the biggest one ofthese was that in March, I
think March 11th, March 17th,2023, the Chinese government
was able to unveil a, adiplomatic initiative that

(28:43):
nobody in the west knew theywere undertaking, which was a
reconciliation between thegovernments of Iran and Saudi
Arabia. So why is thisimportant? This is important
because for many, many years,Saudi Arabia has been like the
linchpin of US planning, how dowe contain or roll back Iranian

(29:05):
power and suddenly thegovernment of, of Saudi Arabia
is having a reconciliation withIran. That's bad enough, but
who gets to broker thereconciliation China? Well, how
did that happen? Like nobody inthis country had an idea that

(29:25):
it was underway, which also is,is a sort of a blow to the
conceit of the people in theAmerican military that they can
surveil everybody's diplomaticcommunications worldwide. They
didn't have a clue was happen .
So , but the , what happenedfor the, for, in terms of Hamas

(29:47):
is that this thing betweenSaudi Arabia and Iran for a
long time was stoked by theWest on the basis of its
Shiites against Sunnis. So theSunnis are, you know, most of
the Arab countries with someexceptions, and the Shiites are
Iran. So suddenly they ,they're making friends again.

(30:11):
Now that's important for Hamasbecause until 2011, Hamas,
which is a so Muslimorganization, had had a very
close military and operationalrelationship with Hezbollah in
Lebanon, which is a Shiiteorganization. And then when the
, when the, when the Syriancivil war happened, which had a

(30:34):
lot of sectarian, Shiite versusSoni aspects to it, Hezbollah
was fighting with the , theSyrian government, and Hamas
was fighting against the , notopenly, but supporting the
people who were fightingagainst the Syrian government.
That operational relationshipbetween Hamas and Hezbollah was

(30:58):
broken by the Syrian civil Warfrom roughly 2012 until this
reconciliation between , um,Iran and Saudi Arabia that
happened last year. So, youknow, you may not have noticed,
I don't know what's happeningon here, but Okay . Um,

Robert Mertz (31:19):
The viewers are objecting or

Helena Cobban (31:21):
Having questions , somebody's

Robert Mertz (31:24):
Coughing in the background.

Helena Cobban (31:26):
So yeah , um, maybe we could ask people to
mute the , um, I don't know ,whatever everybody , uh, please
mute on the , uh, thank you, . So, yeah. Um, since,
since, you know, roughly latespring of last year, Hamas and
Hezbollah have been back intouch with each other. And ,

(31:48):
um, you know, Hamas has bigorganizations in the , um,
Palestinian refugee camps inLebanon. Um, and they are back
in, you know, in , in goodtouch with Hezbollah in
Lebanon. So that's real , beenreally important. Um, and now
for example, you see thebiggest support, overt support

(32:10):
for Hamas and for a ceasefirein Gaza that you see anywhere
in the Arab world comes fromthis organization in Yemen
called the Julius . Their realname is Anah . They are
essentially a Shiiteorganization, but they are
very, very active in support ofceasefire to the embarrassment

(32:31):
of the US Navy . So , you know, I think that reconciliation
was a , was a big thing . Andthere , there were other big
geopolitical shifts in 2023that that preceded October 7th.
Yeah .

Robert Mertz (32:44):
So that we , we've had in the past, and
you've very be beautifullyillustrated the differences
between , um, the , the Hamasand some of the other actors,
including domestic andinternational. What about where
do we go from here? Does the,how does Hamas , which has now
changed its charter to focus onWest Bank and Gaza, which would

(33:07):
be similar to fat , I wouldassume , uh, does this mean
that there's possibility for acoordinated Palestinian quality
, or is there, does the ,there's the lingering conflict
between FTA and Hamas precludethat

Helena Cobban (33:24):
Great question.
One that I've , uh, beenworking on quite a lot. So I
think there are two dimensionsto this. The first is relations
between fat and Hamas , which,you know, have , have been very
fraught for a long time. Um,but they have also periodically
throughout all this past periodhad attempts to, to reconcile

(33:50):
their differences. Um, so mostrecently, I think it was in
February of this year, highlevel leaders from both fat and
Hamas did engage in, you know,talks about reconciliation and
where did they take place inMoscow, you know, so it's

(34:14):
really fascinating to see thegeopolitics of this as well as
the local politics. Now, thereare other, there are Arab
countries like Algeria that arealso pushing very hard for a
reconciliation between fatterand Hamas . So it may well
happen. Um, so that's theinternal Palestinian , um,

(34:39):
dimension. Of course, the USgovernment is deeply opposed to
this reconciliation. Um, as ofnow, I , let's hope that
changes. So as to whether Hamasis edging toward recognition of
Israel and accepting a twostate solution, I think it's

(35:02):
early to say that I thinkthey've put out some useful,
like messages that of theirreadiness. To me, this, this is
most reminiscent of whathappened with the PLO back in
the 1970s and 1980s, becausethe PLO had originally had as

(35:26):
its goal, the creation of asecular democratic state in the
whole of , um, historicPalestine that is, there would
be no separate Israeli state.
And then in the 1970s, theystarted moving, and I was
working as a, as a journalistin Beirut at this time. They

(35:46):
started moving toward the ideaof accepting what they called ,
um, a , a , a mini state injust the, the territories
occupied in 1967. And when Iwrote my book on the PL , which
came out in 1984, they werestill working towards this. And
actually in , uh, the lateeighties, my spouse, bill Quant

(36:09):
and I were involved in helpingto open a diplomatic channel
between the PLO , and then itwas the end of the Reagan
administration. It was GeorgeSchultz. And there was, you
know, we, we helped to, toestablish that so that they
could test each other. Andthat, you know, for better or

(36:34):
for worse, it part of, youknow, what, what preceded the
Oslo Accords in 1993. So thatwas hard for, for , for Fata
and the PLO to, you know, to,to jettison. Its its claim for
like the whole of Palestinebeing a secular democratic
state. And to say, we will putup with, you know, just a mini

(36:55):
state . So Hamas is goingthrough something very, very
similar right now. Um, and, andyou know, the , the , there's
so many parallels. Like whenwhen fat did it originally,
they said, you know, that themini state would be a step on
the road to the , to , to , tothe secular democratic state in

(37:16):
the whole Palestine. That'swhat you hear from Hamas . Now,
the ones, the leaders who aresaying, you know, well, perhaps
we could have a, a , a , anindependent Palestinian state
in the West Bank and Gaza,parenthetically, that would be
alongside Israel. So whatstands in the way of this
happening right now is a lot ofthings. One is our government,

(37:38):
as I alluded to earlier, whichis refusing to recognize the
Palestinian's, right, to anindependent state. Although the
Israeli's right to anindependent Jewish state in
Palestine at the, in level ofinternational law, stems only
from the part , the UN'spartition resolution of 1947,

(38:01):
which said there will be a , aJewish state and an Arab state
in Palestine. So, you know, ifone of them gets the , uh, the
birth certificate and the otherhas the birth certificate, annu
, well, first of all, it's notfor the United States to be
able to do that, except that wehave the veto. So we have to
figure out how to over , itwill take a global effort to

(38:24):
overcome these really damagingUS vetoes . And, you know, we
need here in the United Statesto be part of that global
effort to overcome these , theUS veto on a ceasefire and to
overcome the US veto on anindependent Palestinian state.
So, okay. Do , do we think that, um, Hamas and the vast

(38:50):
majority of Palestinians wouldbe satisfied with an
independent Palestinian statejust in the lands occupied in
1967? I don't know. I'm notPalestinian. That's for them to
decide it. Would the Israelisbe satisfied with an
independent Israeli state thatis just in the areas that it

(39:16):
occupied prior to 1967? I don'tknow. I would say that is far.
I mean, that , that , that it ,they are gonna be far more of
an obstacle because they havegotten used to ruling over the
whole of Jerusalem. And thatannexation has been recognized

(39:37):
by our government. They'vegotten used to ruling over
Golan, and that annexation hasbeen supported by our
government, and they've gottenused to having, putting their
settlers who of course areheavily armed and often
extremely lethal to theirPalestinian neighbors. They've

(39:58):
gotten used to having thosethroughout the whole of the
West Bank. So, you know, the,the obstacle in the way of a
two state solution or a twostate situation to two state
formula, let's call it theobstacles, are not currently
mainly on the Palestinian side.

(40:19):
They are mainly on the USIsraeli side, but what is, what
is supportive of theindependent Palestinian state
alongside Israel? And the twostate formula is the vast
majority of the governments ofthe world say that this is what
needs to happen. So, you know,that's where you have

(40:41):
diplomatic momentum still, andI , I can't predict.

Robert Mertz (40:49):
No , um, I think you've covered an awful lot of
territory, and I think maybe weshould open it up to, to
questions at this point,because I'm sure there are a
lot

Helena Cobban (40:59):
Of , before we start the questioning, I think
we ought to set some groundrules, and that is we'll try to
alternate , we'll be checkingthe chat, but if you have a
question or comment, pleasestand, identify yourself and ,
uh, pose the question. And noone will speak the second time

(41:20):
until everybody has had a , whowants to speak has had an
opportunity. And Robert, canyou handle that? I can try, but
that sounds good . Do you wantme to ask , answer each
question as it comes, or do youwanna group the question?

Robert Mertz (41:30):
Well , let's see what they're , I think , um,

Helena Cobban (41:32):
See if there's a pattern . Yeah .

Robert Mertz (41:33):
Okay . So who would like to throw the first
stone ? So

Speaker 4 (41:39):
Proximity has its advantage . Does indeed, he , I
know Bill Fry , I have commentin question that is very
complicated. The comment is, Ithink your characterization of
October 7th as a catastrophicsuccess is quite ap . Uh, it

(42:03):
accomplished a lot in terms ofcollateral incidents ,
ramifying through theinternational system that could
not have been predictedconfidently , but which are
part of the success amass hasenjoyed . At the same time as
an identified terroristorganization, amass has paid a
price in its marginallegitimacy outside of gospel .

(42:26):
At the same time, it hastriggered Israeli responses,
which have diminished Israelislegitimacy. So that's a big
part of the success story,tainted with terrible losses
and defeat. My question is verycomplicated for years, friends
of Israel and Palestine, andlook for the two state solution

(42:48):
, and a large part of theprostration voiced by
Palestinians often has been afailure of the Palestinian
community inhibited as it hasbeen by occupation to be able
to develop a successorleadership that could be in a
position to negotiateeffectively. Now, that's still

(43:09):
a large part of the puzzlebefore us, which Palestinians
can in fact take charge of amovement toward a two state
solution. A part of this, andhere's my complexity, is that
the decimation of Gaza assurely reduced the non-military
functions of Hamas drastically.

(43:32):
They certainly cannot operatesocial services and education
in the same way. But one ,imagine a transition in which
the restoration of those socialservices distinct from Hamas
military activities could beundertaken by international
institutions as a preludesetting a foundation for a

(43:54):
Palestinian successive takeoverof those functions, and
frankly, sanitizing them. Sothey're disconnected from Hamas
as a part of a move to aPalestinian state.

Robert Mertz (44:07):
Very complicated and interesting question.
, have a go.

Helena Cobban (44:11):
Okay. Um, first , thank you for good questions.
Um, I agree with your initialobservations, except when you
said that because of whathappened on October the
seventh, Hamas has lost supportin the region. It has not,
Hamas' support in the regionhas never been higher. So that,

(44:34):
that's important to remember. Imean, if you look at the , the
massive demonstrations fromJordan, if you look at the
massive demonstrations inYemen, the reason you don't see
them in Egypt is because ofthe, you know, are Egyptian ,
um, allies are cracking, havecracked down on. But Hamas'

(44:56):
support in the West Bank , um,in Lebanon, Syria, all around
the region has skyrocketedsince October 7th. So, you
know, I I, that's just onething I, I would note. So the
question, your question as toif it's lost, its civilian
networks in Gaza, does thatprovide a pretext for

(45:19):
international institutions tocome in and , uh, in your
words, sanitize, redirect,reestablish a sanitized , um,
version? So my answer to thatwould be that first of all,
Hamas' civilian and socialservices networks do not exist
only in Gaza. They exist in theWest Bank, they exist in

(45:41):
Jordan, they exist whereverthere are Palestinians. So, you
know, the, the genocide in Gazahas been unbelievably damaging,
obviously. I mean, anybody, anyof us who have friends in Gaza,
any of us, it's, it's justhorrendous to see it happening

(46:02):
in real time . The destruction,not just of so many people, so
many homes, so manyneighborhoods, but so many fine
institutions like universities,the , the , uh, municipality of
Gaza, which had all themunicipal records going back
to, you know, the days of theOttomans, I mean, it , it's a

(46:25):
destruction of an entiresociety quite deliberately
undertaken. So of course, thatis a setback for Hamas'
civilian networks. But I , I'llsay a couple of things. One is
obviously that there are Hamasnetwork civilian networks
elsewhere. Another is thatbecause of Israel's policy

(46:46):
pursued over 57 years ofstrangling gaza's society, if
you had had, it's hard to dothese hypotheticals, okay? If,
if you'd had everybody who wasliving in Gaza in 1967, whether
they were refugees from 1948Israel, or whether they were

(47:08):
indigenous Gaza , and most ofthem were refugees and still
are refugees, if they had beensitting there and allowed to
continue to have children andgrandchildren and flourish and
build these institutionswithout Israel's restrictions,
then the population of Gaza,instead of being 2.3 million

(47:28):
would probably be about 6million today. But Israel's
stifling of Palestinian familylife means that a majority of
people who feel very, veryclose to Gaza are living
outside. There's a wonderfulpoet in Houston called Fadi
Yoga . There , you know, thereare dozens of Palestinians all

(47:50):
around the world who areunbelievably talented. And
let's not forget that thepeople who built the states in
the Gulf were Palestinians andsome Egyptians back in the
1970s. So it's not thatPalestinians lack skills, you
know, administrative skills,political skills, beautiful

(48:16):
poetic and writing and literaryskills. They have all of that.
But colonial suppressionpolicies have kept them divided
and, and not, and , andprevented them from having a
place to, to build and flourishon their own. You know, I grew

(48:38):
up in England at a time ofcolonial repression, or more to
the point a time when theBritish Empire was crumbling,
but with, with huge colonialpunishment undertaken in places
like Kenya or Malaya or Aidenor elsewhere, you know, the

(48:58):
British military was, waskilling tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of peopleper year in a desperate last
attempt to hold the empiretogether. It failed. And the
very people like the au or youknow, the , uh, what were they
called ? Not the NLF orwhatever in Aiden that the

(49:19):
British Military and PoliticalPlus had been saying, we can't
talk to them. They, you know,they are murderers, they are
terrorists. They make , they dothis, they do that. At the end
of the day, they had to talk tothem . So who ended up ruling,
you know, in, in Kenya, it wasthe brother organizations of

(49:41):
the mal map who ended up rulingin Aden , who ended up ruling
in Malaya . So I see exactlythe same thing in the last
throes of a colonial empire.
The Imperial Center will getvery violent and will do all
kinds of things like, oh, wedesignate them as a foreign

(50:02):
terrorist organization. Oh, I'mso scared, you know, get real ,
you know, the era of whitecolonialism is over. We've got
to accept the fact that themajority of the people of the
world, the majority of thegovernments of the world, the
governments that produce themajority of global GDP all want

(50:26):
this occupation to end. So, youknow, we can deal with that.

Speaker 5 (50:33):
Steve, Steve France , a Redeemer Episcopal church.
Um , I'm struck by the factthat you , you're putting , see
that you're putting most ofyour , uh, chips on two state
solution , which , um, for someyears now has been widely , uh,
ajudicated. And there's theidea of a , the idea of a

(50:56):
paradigm shift that no longer adiplomatic or state to state
kind of a crisis to be solvedby those parties . Um , but it
is a human rights issue for theworld to deal with , but more
like South Africa. So , um, how, I mean , how do you account

(51:21):
for that ? Um , just abandoningthe , the new paradigm of human
rights, and isn't it a dangerthat those power are a negation
of the Palestinian voice? Andif we don't , it's as long as
the Israelis and the Americansdon't listen to Palestinians,

(51:43):
no hope .

Helena Cobban (51:46):
Um, so what you are , I think you're asking,
it's sort of one state or twostates , um, as an, as, you
know, whether we should go backto the old PLO goal of a
secular democratic state in thewhole of Palestine, or as Hamas
would say now, an Islamic , uh,state in the whole Palestine
with, you know, guaranteedrights for, for the other

(52:08):
peoples of the book. Um, whichwould they , they are very much
opposed to anything forsecularism , um, as I
understand it. So my firstanswer to that is that I am not
a Palestinian, it's not for meto decide whether to continue a
struggle for a, a singledemocratic state in the whole

(52:31):
of Palestine, or whether toaccept a, a partial , take, a
partial victory of a , youknow, independent Palestinian
state alongside state ofIsrael, which would require, of
course, that all the claims ofthe Palestinian refugees need

(52:52):
to be addressed. They can't beswept under the carpet. And
they, they've been variousattempts to do this over the
years. None of them have workedat all, of course, 'cause the
Israelis are not about to letpeople go back who are
refugees. So back in, I wannasay 2002, I was part of a a an

(53:12):
international group of Quakers. Um , and by the way, I'm a
member of the friends meetingof Washington. I don't think
that came up for what it'sworth. Um, I then, I was a
member of Charlottesvillefriends meeting . Um , so I was
part of an international groupof Quakers that did a fact
finding mission. We , um, Ithink there were about 15 of

(53:33):
us, mainly from the UnitedStates, but also from Canada,
South Africa, Britain, and ,um, a Palestinian Quaker. And
we undertook a , a fact findingmission three weeks , um,
inside Israel, the occupiedterritories, Jordan, and part
subsections of our group wentto Lebanon, Syria , um, and

(53:55):
Egypt. And it was, you know,then we came back together and
wrote a report in the report inthe manner of Quakers. You
know, we had to struggle a longtime to come up with , um, a ,
a unified text, but we did, andwe said that, you know, we
should support either a onestate or a two state outcome,

(54:21):
but as , as in on the basisthat everybody's rights would
be , um, respected, which Ithink is a good position for a
non Palestinian body to, totake, it's really for the
Palestinians and the Israelisto decide whether they want to,
you know, live in equality inone state or live as two equal

(54:43):
states, and that there arecomplex issues involved. Um, I
go right now with theinternational momentum of the
two state solution, you know,because that is where you can,
like, you , you can really, atthe diplomatic level, leverage

(55:06):
that. And I, I took sometimeswith , um, a friend in Dublin,
you know, in 1923, the IrishLiberation Movement Now , so,
so Ireland was the firstcountry that was subject to
English settler colonialismback in the days of Cromwell.

(55:27):
And they implanted Protestantsettlers into Ireland and tried
to suppress the Catholics. Andit took the Irish Catholics a
long time. I'm trying to thinkhow many centuries. But anyway,
in 1923, they finally managedto get independence for not the

(55:52):
whole of Ireland, but forhowever many counties it is in
the south of Ireland. And theytook that as a win. And they
still have to put up with thefact that there is this, well,
it's long been Protestantdominated little thing in the
north of Ireland calledNorthern Ireland. So you have
the United Kingdom of GreatBritain and Northern Ireland.

(56:16):
But here's the thing, there wasa new prime minister elected in
Northern Ireland and Greece .
Do you know what her party, isshe insane in Northern
Ireland? I mean, you know, backin the seventies, I could not
have believed that . So younever know, like 1923 was 101

(56:38):
years ago. History is, youknow, quite intriguing if you
look back at it or if you thinkforward to it. So I would say,
you know, it's not for me todecide one state or two state ,
but what has internationaldiplomatic momentum is two
state right now.

Speaker 6 (56:58):
There's some questions on ,

Helena Cobban (57:01):
Okay , let's take that first

Speaker 6 (57:02):
Question. Let's take this question first .

Helena Cobban (57:04):
You'll have to do that because I can't, we
can't see that.

Speaker 6 (57:07):
It says , uh, how would you counter the statement
often made by us politiciansand others that calling for a
ceasefire means ha mo winnings.

Helena Cobban (57:22):
Can you identify the questioner?

Speaker 6 (57:25):
Jennifer

Helena Cobban (57:25):
Bing . Jennifer Bing is an old friend of mine,
, she's a Quaker leaderon this issue from Chicago. So,
hey Jennifer, and thanks forthe good question. So I mean,
Jennifer is a Quaker since whendoes anybody seriously think
that calling for a ceasefiremeans, you know, it is

(57:49):
something that we should notdo. I have been calling for a
ceasefire in Ukraine sinceFebruary 24th, 2022. Um, I
think calling for a ceasefirein Gaza, it, it just makes so
much sense. And then in either, in any case, you know, like

(58:13):
during the Vietnam war, likecalling for a ceasefire, did
that mean that the NorthVietnamese win? Actually,
shouldn't the North Vietnamesehave won? What the heck were
the Americans doing there inthe first place? But, you know,
so yes, we call for a ceasefireand then let you know the

(58:34):
diplomatic process play out.
Let the, of course, thehostages need to be released.
And so do you know, thousandsof Palestinian political
prisoners? And that's whatthey're negotiating about, I
hope right now. And then youcan have an independent

(58:56):
international investigation ifthis is what people want into
exactly what happened onOctober 7th and exactly what
has been happening in monthssince October 7th. Let's look
at everybody's record fromOctober the sixth until today.

(59:19):
But hey, how about we look ateverybody's record since June
6th, 1967 until today. So, youknow, October 7th was a, a
really terrible day forIsraelis in the many different
ways that I have described. Butthe 18,570 days that preceded

(59:43):
it have been really terriblefor Palestinians living under
military occupation.

Robert Mertz (59:50):
Can I just make a , just a second? Uh , I just
like to recommend a book, hopeyou agree , uh, by Danoff , uh,
it's called Killing a King ,and it is written , uh, I
happened to be in bed watchingthe 11 o'clock news until in
Jerusalem when Ravi wasassassinated, and Don Ro was
the US News and World Reportcorrespondence in Jerusalem at

(01:00:12):
the time, and wrote a bookabout the rise of , uh, radical
right wing on both sides, bothon the Israeli side and on the
Palestinian side. So whenHelena talks about, you know,
it's not gonna be a kumbayamoment for anybody when they
look at this , uh, thesituation in their respective
quality , the Jews gonna haveto deal with extreme right wing

(01:00:35):
, and if anybody doesn't , ifyou don't read the paper, you
dunno what's going on in theWest Bank. And the Palestinian
is the same, but it , it's notas if this is going to be a
simple sit around the table andagree on splitting differences,
I'm afraid . Um ,

Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
Handle one more from the chat . Okay , sure . Uh ,
from Carol Johnson , and I'llsummarize a couple of three
comments. Uh , the saga , uh,sad saga of UN and what's the
status ?

Helena Cobban (01:01:10):
So un yeah . Um , un obviously was , um,
established in, I wanna say1950 or so , um, with the
express mission of by theUnited Nations with the express
mission of providing relief andwork services to , um, the

(01:01:35):
Palestinian refugees from thewar of 1947 through 1949. Um,
and it provide these servicesto Palestinians in the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, um, in Gaza, in Jordan,
Syria, and Lebanon. And , um,it has done the best job you

(01:01:56):
can imagine, actually, ofproviding not only shelter,
very rudimentary shelter, butalso medical services and
educational services. The, the, the Palestinian refugees are
the best educated population.
And you know , however , you ,you , you measure this within

(01:02:19):
West Asia, far and away, likethe number of people who have
doctorates, the number ofpeople who run universities,
who run oil companies, who, asI mentioned earlier, developed
all the state apparatuses in inthe Gulf. I think

Speaker 6 (01:02:37):
The , uh, question also , uh, centered on what
happened, the , the Israeligovernment , uh, had some kind
of slanderous program.

Helena Cobban (01:02:50):
So, so this was the exact day after the , um,
international Court of Justiceissued its ruling on that.
There had been a , there was aplausible genocide going on in
Gaza, and suddenly the Israelikind of deflection machine

(01:03:10):
said, oh, and by the way, wethink that some of the staff
members of ONA have beenworking with Hamas . So
therefore, you know, we, wewant to like, really , um,
crack down on Ona and all the ,the people who receive generous
APAC funding in Congress andpeople in the, in the Biden

(01:03:31):
administration, you know, justjumped immediately and said,
oh, yes, we got to cut offfunding to, to anwar the , the
real beef against on . I thinkfor the Israelis, there are two
beefs against Anwar . First ofall, it's part of the United
Nations, and if you've seen theperformances of Israel's
current and some of theirrecent ambassadors to the

(01:03:53):
United Nations, you can see thedeep hostility and disdain and,
you know, just summing theirnose at the United Nations and
international law, that that'show they re regard the United
Nations as a whole. But thenAnwar in particular keeps alive

(01:04:14):
the claims of the Palestinianrefugees because it, you know,
that that's the , thepopulation it is designed to
serve, and that the , therights of the Palestinian
refugees include the rights toreturn to the homes and
properties , um, that theyleft. Now, of course, in the
context of a negotiation, maybesome of those claims could be

(01:04:36):
settled , um, in other ways,but that's for a negotiation at
a very high level. In themeantime, if the Israelis are
capable of dismantling Ona ,and they, they have been
largely, they have been to someextent, successful in
dismantling on's capabilitiesin Gaza. They have not

(01:05:00):
dismantled on's capabilities inthe West Bank and Jordan and
Syria and Lebanon and the otherfields where Anwar continues to
serve. Um, but what they'vebeen trying to do in Gaza is to
replace Anwar with other aidorganizations, including the

(01:05:21):
World Central Kitchen. But ofcourse, that didn't go very
well, because then they killedthe seven Internationals who
were working for World CentralKitchen. So , um, the , the
needs of the people of Gaza areso huge, but they are part of
the continuing needs of thePalestinian people for , uh, in
national independence,dignified life and sovereignty.

Speaker 7 (01:05:45):
Did you

Helena Cobban (01:05:46):
Wanna add ?

Speaker 7 (01:05:47):
No , that's okay .
Diane ? Yes . Um , we all ready? Oh , Diane , number of , um,
we , we , it's a temptation tobe ready for the last war .

Helena Cobban (01:06:01):
Sorry, I can't quite hear

Speaker 7 (01:06:02):
You. It's , it's a temptation to be ready for the
last war all the time. You seewhat , uh, I think succession
is really crucial questionhere. Uh , we don't move from
one leader to another. Um , youcompared Hamas to the
Republican party. Uh, there'vealways been world class jerks

(01:06:24):
in the Republican party, butthere's also, until fairly
recently been a lot of verydecent people, there was still
Mc bias . Now there aren't, andthat hasn't been that long, but
, and now that the Republicanparty has really shown what it
is to be , thedecent people are leaving. And

(01:06:48):
it's been years, it shouldhappened faster, but it's been
five or six years. Hamas hasbeen Hamas for a long time.
Leadership matters,followership matters. And
Israel people have been reallyupset with Netanyahu for a long
time with huge demonstrationsagainst him. I don't know if

(01:07:12):
there's been any , uh,disagreement voiced by any
Palestinians, and I am reallyafraid to ask why. I don't
think it's because they havefree speech capacity and , um,
succession until you have thepossibility for succession in

(01:07:34):
both Palestinian entities andamong the Israelis, the wackos
on the far ends are just goingto go totally crazy. And for
the first time, Israel has beenaccused of genocide so many
times. This is the first time Ihave to say, good Lord, it
really looks like it. The , thewackos are winning and we have

(01:07:57):
to do something about that. Andfinally, now, the two state
solution is something thatpeople on the Palestinian side
will accept instead ofrejecting outright. Why did the
Palestinian people have to waitso long for possibility of a
two state solution , two statesolution, if it had come 70

(01:08:21):
years ago , there would bethriving states ? I don't
understand.

Helena Cobban (01:08:32):
Well, it's a big question. Um, I'll take the
last part of it. Um, why thePalestinians have not come out
in favor of a two statesolution. You know , um,
growing up in England, as Idid, I saw there was this thing
that empires and colonialprojects do to survive, and
it's called divide and rule,and it's been going since the

(01:08:55):
days of the Romans, perhapslonger. So , uh, that's a big
part of what's happened for thePalestinians. The Israelis
have, you know, as I saidearlier, they, they kind of
fostered the Muslim Brotherhoodfor many years as a counter to
the secular nationalists. Andnow they , more recently
they've been playing off batterand , and Hamas, and , and

(01:09:21):
sadly, in many cases, thosedivide and rule policies work.
You know, look at India andPakistan, look at, you know,
north Northern Cyprus andSouthern Cyprus. I mean,
empires are devilishly good atthis. So it's hard for the
Palestinians to be able to, youknow, overcome , um, those kind

(01:09:44):
of deliberate policies of dividand rule. That's one thing. The
other is, you know, you talkedabout the Republican party
having gone over to the wackos,and you, you kind of seem to be
saying that the , um, Israelisand Palestinians have both been
going over to the wackos ontheir respective sites. I

(01:10:04):
disagree. Hamas are not wackos.
You know, I have actually, asI, as Robert mentioned, I've
interviewed a number of their,their leaders. They are
capable, thoughtful people witha definite point of view. They
have very widespread women'snetworks that I have spent a
few days working with. I wentwith , um, some women , um,

(01:10:31):
Hamas activists to , um, at oneof their preschools. The
pedagogy in that preschool inGaza was better than the
pedagogy in most preschools inthis country, in terms of like
encouraging the children to askquestions, showing them how to
write your name, but alsoencouraging them to play
together well in creative ways.

(01:10:51):
You know, people don't knowthat about the Hamas social
services, which is an essentialpart of the broader
organization. So, you know, I,I don't think you can say it's
been handed over to the wackos. I think what you can say is
that Hamas has a huge amount ofsupport politically amongst

(01:11:13):
Palestinians, everywhere forits attempt . Its successful
breakout from the concentrationcamp, regardless of the, the
horrible punishment that cameafterwards, but also for its
desire for Palestinianindependence and sovereignty.

(01:11:35):
So, you know, I don't thinkthese are wackos. There are
some wackos, but Hamas isabsolutely not the same as, for
example, isis, which you know,was fostered in, in the
aftermath of the US invasion ofIraq and the US deliberate
dismantling of the stateapparatus in Iraq. And then you

(01:11:59):
had ISIS coming out, you know,and defying everything and
using extreme brutality,including against civilians,
against, you know, religiousminorities against everybody
that they could in order tomake a very violent point.
Hamas is not like that at all.
They are not wackos. No,

Speaker 5 (01:12:18):
I think you have time for one more question ,
um, either here or online. Doyou have, okay . Okay . I'm
Richard and I'm amember here at Moreland . It's
a two part question, but Ithink third part more important
than that has to do with yourparallels between Hamas and the

(01:12:38):
Republican party , ,which I , I , I think in the
sense of , you've explainedthat Hamas has a whole lot
going on, that basically itstheir society together in ways
that people need. And so thefirst part of the question is ,
uh, do you , it seems that wemust negotiate, we, is there at

(01:13:00):
least the internationalcommunity must negotiate with
from us . 'cause they're going,the structure that is from us
is gonna be part of anythinggoing forward . So first
question is, do you think youwill need to negotiate with
them ? The second question is,would their name at least
that's presented to the worldneed to be different in order

(01:13:24):
to basically size that Hamasissue . Could that be done ?
Good

Helena Cobban (01:13:28):
Motion . And can we ask Sarah to pose her
question and then , no , Ireally wanna answer this one .
So , um, Can Hamas be foldedinto the negotiations? Yes.

(01:13:49):
They've indicated exactly howthey want that to happen, which
is not by posing themselves asa counter to the PLO , but by
having a reconciliation withthe existing forces in the PLO
that is fatter and thedemocratic front. And by the
way, we do need to underlinethat. It's not just Hamas that
is a part of this resistancemovement in Gaza. It's also

(01:14:13):
Palestinian Islamic Shihad .
It's the popular front for theLiberation of Palestine and a
few other smallerorganizations. So, but Hamas is
clearly the big kid on theblock. So they have been
involved in Moscow andelsewhere in Egypt, in a lot
of, in Jordan, really in a lotof different places with their

(01:14:33):
counterparts from fatter with a, with a view to how do we
bring Hamas into the PLO . Andthe reason to do that is
because it is the PLO that hasthe international legitimacy.
It's, you know, it , it'scomplicated, but yeah, it is
the PLO that signed the Osloaccords with Israel that gave

(01:14:58):
birth to the, to the pa andthen to the concept of the
Palestinian state . So they'renot seeking to supplant the PLO
, they're seeking to beadmitted and embraced in the
PLO . And that is going aheadas to whether they would change
their name. They may, they maynot. You know, when they ran in
the elections in 2006, theychanged their name to the

(01:15:20):
change in reform party.
Everybody knew who they were,but you know, if, if that's
what it takes, it , it can bedone.

Speaker 7 (01:15:27):
Sorry . Thank you.
Um , thank you so much forcoming. Um , I wanted to , who
are

Helena Cobban (01:15:33):
You?

Speaker 7 (01:15:34):
Sarah Wilson , member of Western World , um,
and current moderator. Um, twoquestions that , two issues
that haven't come up so far,elections and , um, interested
in your point of view onwhether , uh, Hamas has opposed
free and fair elections in Gazasince it came to power in 2007

(01:15:56):
, which is why we reported .
And second , uh, according tothe US governments, Hamas
received $500 million a year infunding from various sources
and also widely reported. I'minterested in your presumably
counterpoint of review , uh,that its leaders, including the

(01:16:20):
gentleman who was on the slideearlier, Liz and Qatar , and is
worth about $11 billion a year.

Helena Cobban (01:16:30):
Um, so elections in Gaza, so as I mentioned
earlier, they , they didparticipate in the o PTs , the
, um, the West Bank and Gazaelections in 2006 in good
order, and then they won themsince then. Um, there have been
several proposals for follow upelections, but they have never

(01:16:55):
wanted, nobody has ever wantedto have elections just in Gaza.
They don't wanna separate Gazafrom the West Bank. So that
means that you need to have anagreement between fatter ,
which controls civilian affairsin, in the West Bank and, and
Hamas. And it's that level of,of agreement that has not
happened, which is why therehave been no elections since

(01:17:17):
2006, since the ones that theywon. Um, but you know that
there have been no electionsin, in the West Bank either,
and that's because of thefailure of the two, two
movements to, to be able tofigure out how to work
together. So that's the bigpolitical challenge , um, about
the Hamas leaders living a lifeof luxury or financing. So yes,

(01:17:43):
they have financing. They havefinancing from many sources,
including from Palestiniansworldwide, many of whom, as I
mentioned earlier, holdresponsible and well , uh,
compensated jobs. You know,when you talk about Palestinian
refugees, you're talking abouta whole socioeconomic gamut

(01:18:03):
from people who live horriblelives in, in primitive huts to
people who run, you know, megamillion , mega billion
international corporations atthis point because of the
education that they havereceived. So Palestinians
contribute a lot to Hamas andthey contribute to other

(01:18:25):
organizations like the popularfront or fatter according to
what they wanna do and whatthey're able to do. They
receive funding from Qatar ,which is an extremely rich,
small US supported Emirate inthe Gulf. And we know that. Um
, so I couldn't tell you whatthe, what the annual budget of

(01:18:49):
Hamas is. It would probably beimpossible to know because they
have all these grassrootsorganizations providing various
services in many differentfields, and I'm sure they have
somebody in their headquarterswho knows the budget. If so,
I've never met him or her , um,the Hamas leaders abroad,

(01:19:11):
living a life of Riley . Idoubt it. I mean, honestly, if
you look at people who are ,um, very credibly accused of
corruption, it is much more infatter , which, you know, for
which the, the pa and itsgenerous budgets from the US

(01:19:32):
Japan and the EU has been asort of like a continuing gravy
train. And that's a continuingstory. I've seen very, very few
stories of corruption insideHamas. For example, there was
like the Israeli said, oh , wewent into this Hamas office in
Gaza, this was a few monthsago, and we found some

(01:19:53):
diamonds. You know, so clearlyIsrael haniya is , is like just
giving diamonds to his ladyfriends all around the world or
whatever. No. If you are anunderground organization, how
do you, you know, actuallydistribute money or distribute,
like you , you use the , thegold trade, you use the , the

(01:20:13):
jewel trade to smuggle it intoJordan or to smuggle it
wherever. I mean, nobody hasever said credibly that Ismail
living in Qatar is living highon the hog. There's a, was a
really interesting, lengthyinterview recently in HuffPost,

(01:20:34):
a a in which the reporter wentto interview two Hamas leaders
in Qatar. And, you know, hedescribed the very simple
place, it's hard to find asimple place to live in Kaar ,
let me tell you. But they, theydid. So, you know,

Robert Mertz (01:20:51):
It's also been widely reported that Israel
has, has encouraged gutter topay the salaries of Hamas , uh,
officials, government officialsand so on, in to try to keep
the lid on. So I'm not sure youcan take credibility for , put
credibility in all , and

Helena Cobban (01:21:11):
Yahoo's bragged about that. Just a matter,
could we at some point show thenext slide? Yes , yes , yes .
I'll , I'll , uh, let me justleave that up while she makes
presentation. Hold on just sec. Okay . Uh , we have a
tradition, two traditions. Weopen with a prayer quiet
moment, and we present ourspeakers with a bottle of olive

(01:21:34):
oil. And this is , um, a bottle. Robert , you can describe
playgrounds for Palestine . Oh, wonderful. So thank you.
Okay. The other thing I wouldadd, I will , you see these
resources, I will include theseresources in the May newsletter

(01:21:56):
so that you don't have to writethings down so you're not on
that newsletter list. Let meknow and I'll see that you get
it. So, because I, I like to doa follow up in the newsletters
of the previous speaker. Sothank you very much for coming.
Thank you, Robert. Thank youPaula .