There is little prospect of an agreement between Israel and Hamas-led Palestine in the near future, said Larry Napper and Christopher Sprecher.
Napper and Sprecher conducted a joint lecture on Wednesday night in the Memorial Student Center entitled “The Future of Palestine.” The lecture was the final installment of the MSC Wiley Lecture Series for spring of 2006.
The United States’ foreign policy has run into a problem with Palestine’s election of Hamas in January, said Sprecher, an assistant political science professor.
“The United States is in a bit of a pickle with Hamas,” Sprecher said. “The Bush administration has made a policy not to negotiate with terrorist organizations. On one hand, the U.S. is interested in dealing with democratic governments, but the Palestinians voted and elected terrorists.”
An agreement between Israel and Palestine is desirable, though unlikely, said Napper, a former United States ambassador to Latvia and Kazakhstan and a senior lecturer at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service.
“A negotiated and agreed-upon settlement is more durable and just (than unilateral action),” he said. “(But) spokesmen for Hamas have shown no interest in negotiating the core issues (and) Hamas has not taken actions to stop terrorist attacks on Israel. Changes may come from Israel, (but) Israel does not recognize the Hamas government.”
Hamas is not solely responsible for the dispute, Sprecher said.
“Israel does still antagonize raids and is discriminatory toward Palestine,” he said. “Both sides need to come to the table.”
A qualified mediator is needed to aid discussions between Israel and Hamas, Sprecher said.
“There needs to be someone who can come and mediate and it needs to be someone who is on good terms with both sides,” he said. “Right now, there is no one like that. The way it’s going, the prospect of negotiations are very slim.”
According to a pamphlet distributed at the lecture, the Palestinian government would face a cash deficit of more than $1 billion a year, which it needs in order to pay salaries to its 140,000 employees who are breadwinners for at least one-third of the Palestinian population. The Palestinian nation is likely to fail for economic reasons, Sprecher said.
“The Palestinians are currently broke,” Sprecher said. “(They) have wanted a homeland for a long time, so they are going to make a go at it. But they will most likely realize that it isn’t economically feasible.”
Alex Brown, a senior political science major who attended the event, said he considers the United States’ current position with Palestine intriguing.
“The United States wants to support democratic governments and not deal with terrorists,” he said. “Now with Hamas, that puts the U.S. in an interesting position.”