One reaction I thought interesting comes from Americans for Prace Now President and CEO Debra DeLee. She believes that Palestinian Reconciliation Deal is an Opportunity for Obama. Watch her brush aside any concern for the Hamas dedication to Israel's destruction--let alone the firing of rockets at civilian targets:
"Clearly, it would be preferable if Hamas -- a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization with a long history of bloody attacks on Israel -- could be completely wished away. However, five years of U.S., Israeli, and international efforts to sideline Hamas have failed. The reality today is that the Gaza-West Bank split is a hurdle to peace efforts, raising questions about the capacity of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to implement an agreement.If you blinked, you missed how a self-professed advocate for peace just made Hamas terrorist goals a secondary concern.
DeLee wants to get past that inconvenient law about firing rockets at civilians. After all, if Hamas has managed to keep doing it for 5 years, surely they deserve something for their trouble. How about a state?
On the other hand, House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros- Lehtinen delineates how Congress would view a Hamas-Fatah state , based on--of all things--the law:
“According to existing U.S. law, such a hybrid government cannot be a recipient of U.S. taxpayer funds because the law stipulates that the PA government must recognize the Jewish state of Israel’s right to exist, among other things. Therefore, in order to implement existing law, the U.S. must end assistance to the Palestinian Authority.It remains to be seen whether the EU will likewise be consistent in applying the law to the proposed terrorist state.
Hopefully, not eveyone will be as nonchallant about terrorism as Americans for Peace Now.
2 comments:
Americans For Peace Now are as relevant to the debate as the moribund Israeli Peace Now movement is in Israel. There is no sign the Arabs are interested in peace with Israel.
That said, its remarkable how people are able to delude themselves about how the environment in the Middle East is completely inhospitable to real peace.
You'd have to believe that eighteen years of failure never existed. But to the Left as always, hope springs eternal.
Even if its nowhere in sight in the Middle East.
Hamas is the stronger party... the PA has all but conceded defeat. A Palestinian government will simply be a fig leaf for Hamas even if it has Fatah ministers. There is going to be no question as to who is calling the shots - and the cumulative impact of yesterday's development will be to push the Palestinian Arabs in a more radical direction.
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