It’s time to check one of my predictions from over a year ago. Hamas had just won a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council. I likened their victory to a dog catching a car and saying, “Now what?”
My prediction was this: “I have to think it will be difficult for Hamas to reconcile the whole “destroy Israel” platform with ‘We’ll all be at the Parliament building at noon talking about how to do it.’ … I predict that Hamas will start softening their position by the time you read this. Or maybe they’ll wait a few weeks just to make it seem like they thought about it. But it’ll happen.”
Today I read this article that discusses the softening of their position, at least publicly.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070410-1051-palestinians-hamasriddle.html [no longer available]
It’s safe to assume that some if not most members of Hamas have a master plan of pretending to be peaceful while building up resources for future attacks against Israel. But publicly they are softening.
What would you do if you were Hamas?
Now that Hamas has some legitimate governing power, it can’t support terrorist attacks without inviting massive Israeli retaliation that would effectively eliminate their gains in the government, probably permanently. They can’t renounce their position about destroying Israel because their own members would turn on them. And they can’t govern effectively because most other governments have turned off their aid and refuse to talk to them.
The only path open to Hamas is to convince its followers that they are only going to pretend to be peaceful until they build up strength for an attack. Once the population believes it’s only a trick, they’ll support their officials in making disingenuous statements recognizing Israel’s right to exist and renouncing violence. While no one will trust their statements, it will satisfy the international requirements, and aid will start flowing again.
Here’s the cool part. According to my new favorite book, Influence, once someone commits a position to writing, even a position he doesn’t believe, and states it publicly, the person starts changing his actual position to what he said, even if the original statements were lies. The research shows this to be true. In other words, Hamas government officials could inadvertently lie themselves into becoming peaceful people.
My new prediction is that Hamas will realize it has no path other than to wink at its own citizens while publicly recognizing Israel and denouncing violence. There will be much secret plotting against Israel to keep people happy, but the time to act will always be “soon” and never “now.” Over time, Hamas will get used to being a legitimate government, visiting world leaders and whatnot, and they won’t want to screw it up just to blow up some hotels in Israel.
A splinter group will think the mainstream Hamas rulers are too soft, and they will start doing their own terrorizing. By then it will make more sense for Hamas and Israel to collaborate against the terrorists, since the terror will be directed toward both governments.
My prediction for the future is that Hamas and Israel will be allies against extremists in both of their countries. That’s what happens when the dog catches the car.