'Meet the Press' transcript for Jan. 4, 2009

MS. MITCHELL: So the U.S. is giving a green light to Israel, and there's a lot of implications down the road for American diplomacy.

MR. GREGORY: But, Hisham, there is not a lot of love for Hamas in the Arab world, at least in the Arab governments.  And Israel has said it does not want to reoccupy Gaza, though there has been the suggestion that they'd like to see members of Fatah, who are in control in the West Bank, to govern Gaza again.

MR. HISHAM MELHEM: It's true, there is no love between the governments and Hamas.  But there's a great sympathy with the plight of the Palestinian people, and the outrage and the sense of frustration that you see in the Arab world, especially on, on the, on, on the people's level is--it will be felt by the government, because we've seen demonstrations, we've seen growing criticism.  The problem is that America's friends and allies, who believed that the Annapolis process could lead to something by the end of President Bush's...

MR. GREGORY: The peace process initiated by the Bush administration.

MR. MELHEM: Yes, exactly.  See nothing but frustration.  The Bush administration gave Israel unqualified support, as you would, you would expect.  Barack Obama's going to inherit a huge mess.  And then the problem for, for the moderates is that they cannot show the radicals that there is a workable peace process.  If the administration succeeded in stopping, for instance, Israeli settlements on the West Bank, then you could say to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to the radicals, to Iran, there is a workable peace process; there is an active, acceptable alternative to your way, for instance.  Now the Israelis can go on the rampage in the West Bank, create new facts on the ground.  They may control the borders between Gaza and Egypt.  But if Hamas doesn't, doesn't collaborate the way you had in Lebanon after the...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. MELHEM: ...2006 war, what would be the end?  Hamas can always claim victory if Hamas politically survives, which is the likely outcome of this. We are seeing a replay of 2006.  Even the terminology, "destroy the infrastructure of Hamas."

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. MELHEM: Well, remember '82 and "destroy the infrastructure of the PLO"? The same thing.  We are going to see a replay of 206.  The radicals will be embolden and the, and the moderates, including Mahmoud Abbas, will be among the losers.

MR. GREGORY: So, Katty Kay, from a U.S. perspective, in the remaining days of the Bush administration and for an incoming president who has been assiduously quiet on this question, whereas he has weighed in on matters of the economy, how does this play out for, for a U.S. role?

MS. KATTY KAY: Well, he's also weighed in on other foreign policy issues.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MS. KAY: He weighed in on Mumbai, but he hasn't weighed in on, on Gaza.  I think one of the biggest risks for the U.S. here is actually not just the Israeli-Palestinian question, it's over the question of Iran; that it would be in the U.S.'s strategic interest to try and form some sort of a loose coalition between moderate Arab governments, the Israelis and the U.S. against Iran, which most people think this year will develop enough low-enriched uranium to develop some sort of nuclear device.  That is going to be extremely difficult with this kind of action going on in Gaza.  Moderate Arab governments, although they're quite happy to see Hamas kicked, have to listen to their own people.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. KAY: Their own people now are rallying in favor of Hamas. Sixty-thousand Jordanians rallied in favor of Hamas.  That's a moderate Arab government.  The kind of government the U.S. would like to keep on board, especially coalesced against Iran, a nuclear--possibly--armed Iran.  This kind of action undermines any sort of tacit agreement that moderate Arab governments like--might be able to have with Israel and the U.S. against Iran.

MR. GREGORY: The reality is, Jeffrey Goldberg, that Israel sought this action and took this step to re-establish deterrents to stop groups like Hamas from attacking Israel and launching rockets into Israel, hurting Israeli civilians, killing them as well.  The question that you have sought out to tackle is, is any kind of deterrence really possible with a group like Hamas?

You write about Nizar Rayyan in your--on your blog on atlantic.com this week. Here's a picture of him.  He was the Hamas leader who was killed in that bombing raid earlier in the week.  And you saw him last, actually, in Gaza two years ago when you were writing your book "Prisoners." You were, you were writing the book and you, you saw him at a mosque in the Jabalia refugee camp, and this is what you wrote this week on your blog: "The question I wrestle with constantly is whether Hamas is truly, theologically implacable.  That is to say, whether the organization can remain true to its understanding of Islamic law and God's word and yet enter into a long-term nonaggression treaty with Israel.  I tend to think not, though I've noticed over the years a certain plasticity of belief among some Hamas ideologues. ... There was no flexibility with Rayyan.  This is what he said when I asked him if he could envision a 50-year hudna (or cease-fire) with Israel: `The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle.  We don't need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel.' There is no chance, he said, that true Islam would ever allow a Jewish state to survive in the Muslim Middle East.  `Israel is an impossibility.  It is an offense against God.' ... What are our crimes?  I asked Rayyan.  `You are murderers of the prophets and you have closed your ears to the Messenger of Allah,' he said.  `Jews tried to kill the Prophet, peace be unto him.  All throughout history, you have stood in opposition to the word of God.' Can Israel achieve deterrence with someone like that?

MR. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, it's hard to negotiate with God, obviously.  You can achieve military deterrence for a time, obviously.  You can stop Hamas from getting access to rockets.  Politically deterrence is a, is more difficult, and theologically it's near impossible.  This is, this is not something that people in Hamas, sincere believers, believe is possible.  You cannot allow a Jewish state to remain in the Middle East.  So the, the, the problem arises then, what is there to talk about?  And like I said, when you're negotiating with a political party like Fatah on the West Bank, it's one thing.  When you're negotiating with God, it's quite different.

MR. GREGORY: David Sanger, what's the bigger picture here, of a wider conflict, of wider repercussions?

MR. DAVID SANGER: What we're facing, David, right now is the reality that Iraq so distracted President Bush for so long that we did not have a chance to really look toward the rest of the agenda in the Middle East.  Iraq was supposed to be, you remember, the beginning of a spread of democracy.  How many times sitting at the White House together did we hear that?  The democracy dividend would be peace in the Middle East.  You're seeing, at the end of President Bush's presidency, where that has ended up.  But you see it elsewhere, as well.  As Katty said, this is really, to many--to a large extent, about Iran.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. SANGER: Because the Israelis need to show that they once again have their deterrent capability back.  That is what their bombing of the Syrian reactor that the North Koreans helped the Syrians build was all about a year and a half ago.  It's what this is about.  It's about saying to the Iranians, "We have a way to get out and reach you."

MR. GREGORY: Go ahead, Andrea.

MS. MITCHELL: In fact, this "belief in Democracy," quote/unquote, is what led to supporting the election that led to Hamas having its victory.  That has been a misplaced belief, many critics would say, in terms of Bush strategy; and in fact, that there hasn't been intensive enough day by day, on the ground diplomacy.  That's what the Obama team was planning to bring to the table. It's clear that Israel did this now, the timing of it now.  They've been planning for a year.  The--Hamas has been defending against it and planning its counteraction for at least a year.  They did it now because they wanted to clean the slate before the new administration came in.  Despite Obama's, you know, statements about his support for Israel, he's still an unknown entity to them, and they knew that they had unrelenting support from the Bush administration.  That said, with the ground action now, most people do not believe it's not going to be done by January 20th.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. MITCHELL: And it won't be a clean slate, and it does complicate what Obama and Hillary Clinton have to do.

MR. MELHEM: The problem with deterrence is that it is easier to be used against states.  States can be easily deterred, because the states are responsible for people, for institutions.  It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to turn--to deter nonstate actors, as we've seen with Hezbollah and as we've seen with Hamas.  If those groups survive politically, to them they succeeded.  And they will always go underground and, and, and fight, fight, fight, fight for another day.  As far as democracy is concerned in the region...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. MELHEM: ...and in the Middle East, the president, President Bush intellectually was not even curious to know more about the Arab-Israeli conflict like previous American presidents.  He focused on Iraq and on a democracy in a very really shallow way.  They equated democracy with elections and...

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. MELHEM: ...they never learned anything...

MR. GREGORY: And in this--Hamas can be emboldened here.

MR. GOLDBERG: Hamas can be emboldened, but let's remember that Hamas is not Hezbollah and this is not Lebanon.  There are--Israel has more options in Gaza than it has in Lebanon.  It has an incredible intelligence network made up by the way of Palestinians who are opposed to Hamas, it knows the territory very well and it has room to maneuver in ways that it didn't have in Lebanon.  So it might end this--you might end this with a, with a cease-fire in which Hamas, for a time...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. GOLDBERG: ...can't really fire rockets into Israel.  But to underscore Hisham's point, if they're--if they have the capability of firing even one rocket after, after this operation, then they could plausibly...

MR. GREGORY: Let...

MR. GOLDBERG: ...claim some kind of victory.

MR. GREGORY: Let me get to the larger point here about Iran, because I think it's so important.  The Israelis--who, David Sanger, have drawn up plans in the past to be prepared to reduce or eliminate this nuclear threat from Iran--believe that Iran will actually achieve the know-how to build a nuclear bomb by next year, and could produce their first nuclear weapon by 2010. There's been some debate about that intelligence between the United States and Israel.  If Iran goes nuclear, what then?

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