Netanyahu’s largest coalition partner, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu (Israel Our Home), party announced it would demand Israel’s government cease all contact between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s Hebrew-language Maariv reported Wednesday.
“It is impossible to expect the State of Israel to transfer money to Hamas and thereby fund terror activities against Israel’s citizens,” a party spokesman said. “Those who declared Bin Laden a Muslim freedom fighter, as Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh did, and those who refuse to allow the Red Cross to visit Gilad Schalit, cannot be partners in negotiations, either directly or indirectly.”
The cessation of contact would include all inter-ministerial initiatives and security cooperation in addition to the transfer of tax revenues, according to the report.
In a separate statement, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon who is in Eastern Europe, called on the European Union to threaten the PA with financial consequences, should they fail to comply with the Quartet’s principles.
“As the largest funders of the Palestinian Authority, you have a heavy responsibility to make it clear to the Palestinians that failure to comply with the Quartet’s conditions will be met with sanctions,” he said. He spoke after meeting with Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner repeated long-standing U.S. policy that if Hamas wants a political role it must meet criteria established by the Mideast “Quartet.”
The Quartet – the U.S., Russia, European Union and U.N. – say Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence, and adhere to previous signed agreements.
Hamas refuses to do so and has indicated it will continue to refuse even after being re-admitted to the PA.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who on Wednesday condenmed the signing of the Fatah-Hamas unity agreement, is expected to meet with his cabinet to discuss cutting ties when he returns to Israel.
Senior PA leaders have defended the unity agreement on the grounds that reconciliation with Hamas reflects a “deep-seated public desire to end internal division.”
With all due respect, Fatah is “considered the more moderate group” by those who — unaccountably — are unfamiliar with the old “good-cop, bad-cop” game.
They certainly have their differences, but they are hardly above exploiting the more superficial ones for the sake of manipulating the more gullible elements not only among the war-weary Israeli populace, but also throughout the civilized world.
Allow me to draw your attention to the perhaps startling, but much-overlooked (and easily documented) fact that throughout the Oslo/Camp David Intifada that began in the autumn of 2000, and lasted half-a-dozen years, the overwhelming majority of attacks on Jews were perpetrated not by Hamas, but rather by the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — an arm of Fatah.
To state the matter cynically — but, judging from the verdict of well-established history, alas, accurately:
Hamas tells you
precisely what they mean to do with you…….
while Fatah tells you
precisely what they think you want to hear……
Fatah has been around considerably longer than Hamas, so they are arguably somewhat more savvy, politically speaking, than Hamas. That is, Fatah has had time to discover what works, & what doesn’t, in accomplishing their aims. You might want to check out some of their earlier statements (to say nothing of their earlier behaviors), going back a few decades — before returning to the term, ‘moderate,’ in characterising them…..
In the end the fundamental difference between Fatah & Hamas gets down to the difference between
what the cat leaves behind the couch
and what the neighbors’ dog leaves on your front lawn.
May I suggest to you, Sir, that there are TWO (and only two) kinds of “durable peace”:
A. the peace of truth, and
B. the peace of the grave.
Fatah also wants Israel’s destruction.
Israeli tanks drive next to the border between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip April 8 2011……………….. ….Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman says Israel should topple the Palestinian militant group Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip in response to several days of deadly fighting between the two sides. A truce appeared to be taking hold in the region Monday a day after Israeli forces ended airstrikes against Gaza militants who fired sharply fewer rockets into southern Israel than during previous days.But Lieberman said it would be a serious mistake for Israel to agree with Hamas on a new period of calm which he said would enable the militants to rearm and set the terms of future confrontations.
Fatah is considered the more moderate group its leaders negotiate with Israel in order to bring about durable peace. Hamas does not recognize Israels right to exist in fact it has stated that Israels destruction is its core mission. It is Hamas that Israel has been at war with during the Gaza Operation Cast Lead on December 2008 January 2009.
Or else, what? Will Lieberman really quit the coalition if Bibi doesn’t go along? I don’t think Beiteinu can get a majority in the knesset to go along with this, even after new elections.
Would not Hamas’ admission to the PA be tantamount to formal abrogation of Oslo by the PA?