Rattling the Cage: Abbas yes, Hamas no

[oberliner]

As someone who wants the world to pressure Israel into ending the occupation, who hopes the UN recognizes Palestine in September, and who roots for Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad, I say their agreement Wednesday to form a unity government with Hamas was a blunder. It was a blunder even before Hamas leaders in Gaza denounced America’s killing of the “holy warrior” Osama bin Laden.

Hamas is a dead end to the Palestinians’ drive for independence because Hamas can’t reach a peace deal with Israel, and reaching a peace deal with Israel is the only way a Palestinian state can be born. Optimists are saying maybe Hamas will become more moderate, but all the signs since the pact was initialed last week point in the opposite direction. Since then, Hamas leaders have reiterated their refusal to negotiate with Israel, they’ve called on the Palestinian Authority to retract its 1993 recognition of Israel, and again, that was beforebin Laden’s killing provoked them to outrage at “the United States policy of destruction.”

For the past couple of years, optimists have been picking out statements made by Hamas leaders to Western interlocutors as evidence that they want to negotiate, that they’ll agree to a longterm cease-fire with Israel within its pre- 1967 borders. But even if you disregard everything else we know about Hamas and take these diplomatic statements seriously, which Hamasnik has ever shown the slightest flexibility on the demand that millions of Palestinian refugees be allowed to move to Israel proper? Or that the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Mt. of Olives cemetery and the rest of Jerusalem’s “holy basin” come under full Palestinian sovereignty? Or that all 500,000 Israelis living over the Green Line be uprooted, not just the 100,000 living far over it?

Even when talking to Jimmy Carter, no Hamasnik has ever given an inch on the “right of return,” Jerusalem or land swaps. So even if you isolate a few remarks spoken when they were on their best behavior, take them as true and forget everything else the leaders of Hamas ever said or did, how can even the most optimistic observer see them reaching a peace agreement with any Israeli government?

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=219238

For all the Larry Derfner/Rattling the Cage fans...

[shira]

1. Larry Derfner's wrote this?

Is his brain being settled by foreign occupiers?

What happened to the Derf?

:shrug:

[oberliner]

2. What is your take on the Hamas-Fatah deal?

How do you see this all playing out?

[shira]

4. A gimmick for the September UN vote, nothing more.

The 2 groups absolutely hate each other and are only united by their efforts vs. Israel.

Neither will want to lose power to the other for fear of what would happen.

Hamas' goal isn't even nationalistic. They're not for a Palestinian state as much as they're for the area being part of an Islamist caliphate.

This unity is a joke.

[JDPriestly]

3. Hamas members will go the way of Bin Laden

except that at least some of them will probably be tried because they and their witnesses will be subject to arrest. Their statements and their conspiracy in terrorist acts should be provable. So, as long as the Hamas movement thinks it can change things through violence and terror against civilians including civilian Israelis, its days are numbered, in my opinion.

[azurnoir]

5. The Gaza government ruled by Hamas is beng dismantled

as is the government on the West Bank to be replaced by a interim government that will have neither Fatah or Hamas as members, it is part of the unity deal that somehow never gets mentioned,Perhaps Mr Derfner isn't paying attention

[Bodhi BloodWave]

6. oh. i think most is well aware of that particular fact

highlighting or mentioning it tho tends to go counter to whatever claim those people want to advance, as such they pretend it doesn't exist

[azurnoir]

8. apparently so

:hi:

[shira]

7. LOL! The same thugs rule Gaza and the W.Bank and that won't change until the IDF leaves the W.Bank

....and leaves the PLO defenseless against Hamas.

New boss, same as the old boss.