GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — To relaunch Middle East peace talks on Thursday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and their American mediators quietly agreed to push aside the question of Hamas — the Islamic militant group that controls one of the two Palestinian territories and rejects negotiations.
But Hamas let it be known with its bullets that it would not be left out of the equation — the militants killed four Israelis and wounded two others in a pair of attacks on the eve of the new talks.
The bloodshed was a reminder that Hamas is now on the list of intractable issues that have stymied decades of Mideast ne
gotiations. There can be no peace without Hamas, but there is no solution so far for bringing the Iranian-backed group into the process.
“The attacks were meant to tell (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas he is not the one who decides the fate of the Palestinians,” declared Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, adding that the group deserves a place in national decision-making because it won parliamentary elections in 2006.
“Hamas will never agree to be ignored and isolated, and it can reshuffle the cards,” he said.
Hamas is firmly in control of the Gaza Strip, one of the two territories that are supposed to be part of a future Palestinian state. It wields virtual veto power over any agreement and has given no indication it would be willing to accept a deal with Israel reached by Abbas, who runs a rival government in the West Bank.
The more moderate Abbas met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday for the first peace talks in two years, hosted by President Barack Obama.
Abbas and Netanyahu are far apart on issues that have eluded a solution for decades, including the borders of a Palestinian state, the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees and the most explosive issue, the competing claims to the holy city of Jerusalem.
But if they can somehow work out these differences, Hamas would be needed to implement any deal. The Palestinians seek the West Bank and Gaza — located on opposite sides of Israel — for their future state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
For now, the Palestinians appear to be unified on one issue: There can be no peace that leaves the 1.5 million people of Gaza out.
Abbas has rejected any suggestion of a partial solution granting independence only to the West Bank and its 2.4 million Palestinians. This would be perceived by the Palestinian public as a massive sellout and sign of weakness. Hamas would paint Abbas as a traitor.
“Any result and outcome of these talks does not commit us and does not commit our people. It only commits Abbas himself,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.
Abbas has repeatedly said he will present any peace deal to a national referendum, a vote that would include the people of Gaza. A vote in favor of peace would put heavy pressure on Hamas to accept the will of the Palestinian people.
So if Abbas will not go it alone, the quandary is how to bring Hamas into the fold.
Hamas, founded two decades ago as a Palestinian offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, has repeatedly played the role of spoiler in Mideast peace efforts over the years.
A series of suicide bombings in the mid-1990s helped derail peace negotiations at the time, and the group killed hundreds of Israelis during the second Palestinian uprising last decade.
When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas stepped up rocket attacks on southern Israel, helping fuel years of violence. After the 2006 election, a unity government formed with Abbas’ Fatah movement collapsed into civil war, resulting in Hamas’ takeover of Gaza the following year.
In fiery speeches ahead of the launch of peace talks, Hamas leaders repeatedly rejected compromise with Israel and condemned Abbas for seeking peace.
Yet behind the public rhetoric, the enigmatic group has also shown itself to be remarkably pragmatic. In its short-lived power-sharing agreement with Abbas, it agreed to let the moderate president handle negotiations with Israel, as long as he presented any deal to a national referendum.
While refusing to recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist, Hamas has largely honored a cease-fire since a devastating Israeli military offensive ended early last year.
Hamas forces have even blocked smaller militant groups from staging attacks, and this week, commanders ordered their forces to hold fire when Israeli tanks were conducting exercises along the Gaza border. Hamas leaders frequently speak of long-term truces with Israel that could last decades.
Hamas is also eager to win legitimacy in the Arab world. The reaction of key Arab players — including Syria, which hosts Hamas headquarters in Damascus, as well as Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and Egypt — could greatly influence Hamas’ behavior.
Beyond condemnations of the shootings, neither Israeli, American or Palestinian officials in Abbas’ delegation have said much about Hamas, reflecting the international community’s inability to find a way to work with the Islamic militants.
Asked about Hamas on Thursday, White House Mideast envoy George Mitchell said: “We do not expect Hamas to play a role in this immediate process.” He added, however, that the U.S. would welcome Hamas’ “full participation” if it complies “with the basic requirements of democracy and nonviolence that are a prerequisite to engage in these serious types of discussions.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor agreed the Islamic militants have no role to play for now.
“Hamas does not fit into the process,” he said, adding that although the sides hope to reach an agreement in a year, implementing it would have to be gradual.
“Very efficient measures will be needed by all parties involved before an eventual peace agreement can be extended to Gaza,” he said.
In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, top Hamas officials voiced great skepticism over the new peace talks, but signaled they have no intention of scuttling the negotiations, at least for now.
“You want to go? OK, go. We have no objection,” said Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, referring to Thursday’s gathering in Washington. He confidently predicted the talks would fail, saying Abbas is “wasting time.”
Since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the Palestinians have been torn between two governments.
Hamas now has tens of thousands of armed fighters in Gaza and a sizable arsenal of rockets and mortar shells at its disposal. Neither a three-year Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza nor Israel‘s fierce military offensive last year put a dent in Hamas’ control.
Israel and the international community shun Hamas as a terrorist group and would have to make a tough decision to engage with the militants. The group has long coveted international recognition. But it has refused to accept international calls to renounce violence or recognize Israel’s right to exist.
“Our resistance is continuous,” Zahar said.
___
Barzak reported from Gaza City and Federman from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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FoxRules
Posted on September 5, 2010 at 11:47amNo to mention, UNSTABLE!!!
(In more ways then one.)
Report Post »Denise Matthews
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 2:12pmFirst of all, there are 12 tribes of Isreal, 10 of them went over the caucases mountains and later settled Europe, Ireland, Scotland, the America’s and Canada. When you hear the “Jews” are God’s chosen people just being a resident of Judea classifies one as a Jew. Currently Isreal and Judah are separate. Many of us don’t even know our heritage back to biblical days so you too could be of one of the 12 tribes. Do you biblical homework and find out just where you came from.
Report Post »zagfan
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 12:10pm10Rights..familiar enough that we are living through it now!
The total push for all of us to be tolerant while we watch the Muslims building and growing, it so wrong to me. They brag they will have a large enough population to vote in a Muslim President in the near future. Like we haven’t tried that one already…
I think we are giving to much help to the CCMO..Last night I heard about them building low income apartments on top of the New York City Mosque..So what are they really doing with that piece of property. Is New York going to let them turn it into a squalid housing community or are they going to pay attention? As long as we have Obama pushing for all things Muslim, we will end up with Hamas in our community in full force, recruiting some real home grown terrorists.
Report Post »10rights
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 6:34amMore of…I found this info. in encyclopedia…Totalitarianism = ‘The officially proclaimed ideology penetrates into the deepest reaches of societal structure and the Totalitarian government seeks to completely control the thoughts and actions of its citizens’…again, sound familiar?
Report Post »duane38637
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 6:00amcopy this and e-mail to friend and vote in Nov
Think of it as ACORN reborn, with a slice of Jihad on the side.
On August 31, this coming Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood-associated “Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations” (CCMO) will bring 25-30 Muslim leaders of 20 national Muslim groups to attend a special workshop presented by the White House and U.S. Government agencies (Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services etc.) to provide the groups “funding, government assistance and resources.” The workshop will apparently provide special access for these Muslim Brotherhood organizations: the organizers pledge to provide “direct access” and “cut through red tape.” Government and Muslim groups will hold an Iftar dinner (breaking the fast of Ramadan) after the workshop.
The event was announced in an email newsletter sent August 27 by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial, long associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the global Islamist network (great backgrounder here from Hudson Institute). Here are three key paragraphs from the email (the entire article on the August 31 event from the ISNA email is pasted below this post as reference):
This year, a phenomenal next step has been made where government iftars become coupled with workshops to provide resources and benefit the Muslim community. The US Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO) have paired the first of such events, scheduled for August 31, 2010.
…Leaders from Muslim organizations around the nation, particularly social service organizations, are invited to a workshop with representatives from the DOA, Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Health and Human Services, the White House, Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and more. Twenty five to thirty Muslim leaders representing 20 Muslim organizations are expected to attend the workshop.
According to a representative of CCMO, this workshop is designed to clarify how Muslim nonprofits, mosques, Islamic centers, and social service organizations can strengthen their communities through more direct access to opportunities provided to social service agencies at the Federal level. “It will hopefully help cut through some of the red tape and shine light on the many opportunities for funding, government assistance, and resources that we just don’t know about at the local level,” said Elsanousi.
The Problem: Your Money, redistributed to the Muslim Brotherhood
This workshop constitutes an abdication of their professional responsibility by all government participants – and a taxpayer-funded government stimulus program for the attending Muslim Brotherhood-associated groups. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, is a global Islamist political movement dedicated to imposing Shariah law on all nations and institutions. Their credo is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
Why do we think some of these groups attending, possibly all, may be associated with the Muslim Brotherhood?
Because the sponsoring organization – the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO), co-sponsoring with the Department of Agriculture – has a long history of associations with the Muslim Brotherhood. They also signed a 2009 American Muslim Task Force statement threatening to “suspend” relations with the FBI, because the FBI was investigating possible links to homegrown terrorism in mosques and other Muslim organizations.
Report Post »Pa7sy
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 11:28pmYou know those wacky cartoons where they fire a missile and it somehow does an about face and goes *KaBooM*! in the sender’s face leaving a pile of ashes (which remarkably regains shape after the commercial break)? Well, how can we sneak one of those “about-face” mechanisms onto Iran’s missiles ~ (preferably one of their nukes)! I know, I know. Why am I not working in the Defense Department, you ask.
Report Post »Shayn Roby
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 11:08pmObama also has an imam on the Uncle Sam payroll that refuses to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Enough said.
Report Post »Buckaroo
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 10:12pm“there can be no peace without Hamas”
oh, i think the IDF would beg to differ [!!]
Report Post »truebearing
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:38pmThe radical elements of Islam control Islam, both on the field of battle, or terror, as it were, or in the doctrinal disputes with moderate Muslims. Being moderate, the peaceful Muslims aren’t inclined to fight the jihadists and have no weapons, or will to do so. Doctrinally the Koran supports the radical jihadists, so the extremists win on both counts, and it has been that way for a long time.
For the idiot Obama administration to ignore Hamas is like sitting on a two-legged chair. Once you lose your concentration you’ll land on your ass. It is inevitable, and is exactly where Obama will end up, to the detriment of the nation’s prestige, and the peace process itself.
The failure to even admit the radical jihadist Hamas exists is precisely what is wrong with the 9/11 Mosque controversy. Honest people know that the supporters of the Mosque are pretending Islamists are a figment of our imagination, and that we are overreacting to a baseless fear when in fact, they are lying with every breath that denies the true intent of radical Islam. Hamas is a textbook example of an intransigent hate that makes our alleged “intolerance” look like the open arms and the red carpet treatment.
Report Post »debak
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 10:45pmExactly Truebearing, exactly.
Report Post »10rights
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:23pmMeredith, Thank you for laying out historical information regarding a situation that is difficult for me too fully grasp. Glenn has suggested that we ‘Question with Boldness’, so here is what I don’t understand…If Israel and the international community shun Hamas as a terrorist group, please explain to me the meaning of a 6/10/10 article by Christi Parsons of the Los Angeles Times, ‘Obama Pledges $400 million for Palestinians’…I need to understand the reasoning behind President Obama’s Pledge of money to Hamas, an international terrorist group. Thank you.
Report Post »Buckaroo
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 10:11pmwe give money to the Pali Authority and say [with a straight face, mind you] that we’re NOT giving money to hamas!
/sigh
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