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Dec. 16, 2011
Behind-the-scenes negotiator
Israel’s Gershon Baskin helped secure the release of Gilad Shalit.
SAMUEL SOKOL
While indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, undertaken through German and Egyptian intermediaries, foundered, Israeli academic and journalist Gershon Baskin kept a direct channel to the Gaza-based Islamist group open through his friendship with senior Hamas official Dr. Ghazi Hamad. It was through this secret channel that the breakthrough came in the negotiations to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held captive in Gaza since 2006.
In October, Baskin spoke about his role in the Shalit deal, his views on dialogue with Hamas and his hopes for a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
SS: Tell me a little about your friendship with Dr. Hamad.
GB: Ghazi was [a Hamas] spokesperson. Prior to that, he had been editor of Hamas’ newspaper. He had written a critical piece, a critical-thinking piece, in which he said that Hamas was almost ruling for the sake of ruling [and had to reform]…. One year into the Hamas government, [Hamad] said that Hamas did not have a direction or a strategy – it didn’t know where it was going – and he paid for that article with his job. He was fired as spokesperson for the government and then, later, got other jobs that were crucial in terms of the Shalit [deal] ... but Ghazi, all along, has maintained [contact with Israel].
One of the interesting things about our relationship, I’m not used to speaking with Palestinians in Hebrew. Ghazi, from the beginning of our connection, wanted to speak to me in Hebrew, which is really interesting. Ghazi is deputy foreign minister of Hamas, but he has worked very hard to open up connections with the West and the European Union. I even understand that he has met with officials of the U.S. government.
He understands that Hamas has to be part of the West and Hamas should be a responsible government that should be providing services and be accountable [to the people].
SS: Has the government given you any problems regarding your continuing ties with an organization designated as a terror group?
GB: The person in the current government who I have notified of my contacts with Gilad Shalit[’s former captors] is [Minister] Micky Eitan. I sat in Micky Eitan’s room in the Knesset and called Ghazi Hamad while I was there, and [Micky] wouldn’t talk to him, but I have never been harassed for any of these contacts.
SS: Is that because you are a journalist?
GB: No. I’m pretty well known in the security services. I’ve gone through polygraph tests for the GSS [General Security Service of Israel] ... for a period of four years, immediately after I founded [my nongovernmental organization] IPCRI [Israel Palestine Centre for Research and Information] in 1988, when I was on the Shabak security list. And holding contacts with Hamas is not against the law. The only limitations are a British mandatory statute that is on the books, the order against terror, which basically prohibits participation or identification with a terrorist organization.
SS: Can you tell me about Egypt’s role and about Hamas’ apparent flexibility?
GB: The Egyptians had some leverage over them in these negotiations, mainly because of what is going on in Syria. And, in fact, it was also because [Hamas] wanted to expand the discussions with the Egyptians about the future of relations between [Hamas and Egypt].
SS: Do you see Hamas head Khaled Meshaal moving from Damascus to Cairo?
GB: Although the understanding is that [one senior Hamas leader] will be spending a lot more time there, I understand, even though Hamas and Egypt officially deny it, I know this, from other sources, to be true.
SS: You wrote in the Jerusalem Post that you see Hamas’ Hamad as a hero. Can you explain why?
GB: The real hero in this story is [Binyamin] Netanyahu. He demonstrated [courage] in that he made a decision between competing values and it was clear, for Netanyahu, this was tough. It was the reason that [negotiator] David Meidan took the job, because he knew that he had the political backing to reach an agreement to bring Gilad back. So, throughout this thing, Netanyahu’s concern was not [political], his criteria for judging the agreement was pure security and not the political repercussions.
Another one of the heroes of this story is David Meidan, who had the intelligence put [their] faith in me [and told] the head of the Mossad and [Chief of Staff] Benny Ganz to go ahead with that.
Then there was the [Egyptian] intelligence officer who had spent time at the embassy in Tel Aviv and knows the Israeli mentality. He has a great appreciation for Israel.
Without Ghazi Hamad there would have been no chain of communication with Hamas – and [Hamas military wing chief] Ahmed Jabbari was really pissed off with him. Really pissed off.
SS: How would you respond to those who say he cannot be considered a hero due to the fact that he was, despite showing flexibility, ransoming a kidnapped Jewish soldier for convicted terrorists? Was he acting against the official Hamas policy? Is this why you said this?
GB: You are 100 percent right. The bad guys in this story are Hamas. The Palestinian people have to make them accountable for the fact that more than 2,000 Palestinians paid with their lives [during Operation Cast Lead] and ... [they] present this as a victory, [even] when, as a result of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, [they have suffered greatly] because of the policies of these Hamas leaders. So, they are in no way, in my book, heroes. Someone like Ghazi Hamad stands out comparable to anyone else who you will find in Hamas.
SS: Is there any chance of seeing Hamas become more moderate over the long term?
GB: I had a conversation with Ghazi about this the other day. The Arab Spring is hitting Hamas, and Hamas is going through a process in which they will [hold elections] for the Shura council. It’s a secret body; not all the members of the Shura council today know who the other members are. They have to become more accountable and more democratic and they began this process ... the fact that they are adopting an internal democratic process is fascinating to me.
SS: How did you come to be involved in the Shalit affair?
GB: Through a professor of economics from the Islamic university of Gaza, a member of Hamas. We met at a conference [and he was the] first member of Hamas who I ever spoke to. We spent more than six hours in dialogue between the two of us at the conference. For me, it was a time warp, it was like conversations that I had with PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] people 25 years before.
And, after the kidnapping, when Israel began the operation, which I think was called Summer Rain, when they attacked Gaza, this guy called me and said, “Gershon, we are under attack. We have no electricity, we have no water, my kids are screaming, we are being bombed all around, we gotta do something.”
I said, “Well, what can we do?”
He said, “I don’t know. I’m going to [Ismail] Haniyeh’s office and I got to talk to them; maybe they’ll talk to you.” So, half an hour later, I got a phone call from Haniyeh’s office. That was how I got involved.
They asked me to be involved and I thought, if I could open up a line of communication that would bring the release of Gilad Shalit, then that was a great thing that I could do. So that’s how it all began and I’ve been involved ever since … continuously and on a regular basis, with ups and downs.
Most of the time, the Israeli government rejected anything I had to say to them, but I was in touch with the Egyptian mediators and I was in touch with other mediators and other players, and constantly receiving other information from Ghazi and other people.
I think, over the last five years, five and a half years, more than 20 letters [have been written], also to Khaled Meshaal, including the one letter from the Shalit family to Khaled Meshaal [and] my own letters to them. My intervention resulted in the first sign of life that came from Gilad Schalit in September of 2006.
At that point, after ... I got the letter delivered to the Egyptian representative in Gaza, Ofer Dekel told me, “Thank you, now you are out of the picture. We have official channels now. We don’t need you anymore.”
The Egyptian consul at the time told me not to listen to Ofer Dekel and to continue working because we need other channels, as well.
SS: What brought about your more recent involvement that revived the talks?
GB: The first day that Ofer Dekel was on the job, I called him and contacted him. The first day that David Meidan got the job, a common friend from Hamas put us in touch and I talked to him. David Meidan was the first person that was responsive and wanted to hear what I had to say and eventually checked the information that I was bringing and saw that it was real. It was a live channel of communication and it was worthwhile and it should be pursued, and that’s what happened….
SS: How do you feel about the fact that, in order to free Gilad, you had to arrange for the freedom of terrorists, some of which have promised to return to violence?
GB: Look, another reason why one of the heroes of this thing is Netanyahu is because he made the decisions here. It was his call and [that of] the security people who advised him. I had nothing to do with the names on the list and I’m not [trying] to cop out. The one thing I had to do with [the] names on the list was getting Hamas to remove the worst of the arch-terrorists. That was my doing. I convinced them to remove [them] from their demands and got them to understand that there wouldn’t be an agreement if they didn’t remove them. So, I feel good about that, that I got [people like] Abdallah Barghouti and Abbas Said, and the worst of the worst of the worst, I got Hamas to agree to remove.
With regard to who was allowed on the list and who wasn’t allowed on the list, everyone who’s on the list is a terrorist and, I think, personally, and this is not a security assessment or anything else, just from my knowledge of what’s happening both in Gaza and the West Bank … the chance that most of these people are going to go home now and lead a normal life are much higher than they were at any time in the past.
Today’s Hamas government is enforcing a ceasefire. During the August terrorist attack [in Eilat] and the immediate aftermath, through this channel of Ghazi Hamad and me, we arranged the ceasefire, and it was Hamas that wanted the ceasefire and it was Hamas’ Izzadin Al-Qassam [Brigade] troops of Ahmad Jabari who went out to the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Committees and enforced the ceasefire….
In the West Bank, the Palestinian security forces arrest terrorists and transmit them over to Israel, so I think it’s a very different situation.
If there is no political process that’s going to move forward toward a peaceful end of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship, then it’s very possible that we’ll have another round of violence.
The Hamas and the Fatah don’t need these people who were released from prison. There are enough people out there who would be more than willing to join the forces to fight against Israel if they move in that direction.
SS: Hamad said that negotiating will not bring statehood and that Hamas will not continue to talk with Israel. Doesn’t that contradict what you said before?
GB: He has to say that publicly. I spoke to Ghazi already twice today.
SS: What is his private belief?
GB: I believe that Ghazi is someone who wants to negotiate peace with Israel on the basis of two states.
SS: How can that happen without a legitimate reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas? Israel can’t negotiate with two separate Palestinian factions.
GB: I think that the chances of moving ahead on some sort of reconciliation process now are much better than before. The Shalit issue was a major sticking point.
If it’s true, and here I don’t know for 100 percent because I haven’t had a full debriefing with David [Meidan] yet, but, if it’s true that the Israelis had agreed as part of the agreement to allow for economic development to take place in Gaza and if it also includes at some point in the future re-linking the Gaza and West Bank economies, then this is a very good thing because it will build more moderation in Gaza.
Samuel Sokol is the Jerusalem-based Middle East correspondent for Zman magazine and the Five Towns Jewish Times, and news director at Koleinu, a newspaper serving English-speaking communities in Israel. He has reported from all over Israel and from areas under Palestinian Authority control.
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