Hamas in their own words:
“Many people make the mistake of presuming that Hamas has some ideological aversion to making peace. Quite the opposite; we have consistently offered dialogue with the US and the EU,” Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official, said Sunday.
In an open letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Yousef, who serves as senior political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said that his movement did not have any “ideological arguments” with the West.
“We are not anti-American, anti-European or anti-anyone,” he explained, adding that the time has come for Washington and other Western countries to talk to Hamas.Sources close to Hamas told The Jerusalem Post that Haniyeh and other top leaders of the Islamist movement had given their blessing to the content of the open letter.
Addressing Rice, he wrote: “Meaningful steps toward a resolution cannot take place while the legitimacy of the elected government in Palestine continues to be ignored by your administration. Not only is the policy to isolate Hamas unethical, it is ineffectual as well. Your administration ignores the realities on the ground.
“The Change and Reform Party, the name of the new political party we formed for the Palestinian elections, won an overwhelming majority in the occupied territories. To pretend otherwise is not only futile but detrimental to US interests in the region for many years to come and likely to add to the anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world. You cannot preach about exporting democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and ignore the democratic process in Palestine.”
snip
he added, “should be looking for new solutions instead of reinforcing old stereotypes. On a personal note, we found it amusing that a black person empathizes with Israeli deaths on the one hand and Palestinian segregation on the other – if media reports are accurate. It is a military occupation, Ms. Rice. Their citizens face insecurity and death because that is the situation they have created for themselves. We do not beg you to recognize us. Our party is the legitimately elected party in the occupied territories. You owe it to your sense of fairness to engage meaningfully with all relevant parties to the conflict.”Yousef complained that the Palestinians were being punished for holding a free and fair election and voting for Hamas. “It is hard to get across the appalling level of privation that the Palestinian people, and in particular the 1.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza, currently suffer from,” he said.
“Our isolation is complete, confining us in a ghetto (worse than the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw) where our sewage, power and water systems have been destroyed, all normal supplies constrained and even humanitarian aid withheld. Many people have not been paid for nearly two years, over 75% are unemployed and now the Israelis are threatening to cut off fuel and power supplies and to invade us once again.”
He reminded Rice that her predecessor, General Colin Powell, had stated that the US should find a way to engage with Hamas because it won the election and because it continues to enjoy the support of many Palestinians. “If you were even-handed in this conflict, if you engaged with us openly, then the chances of peace would dramatically increase,” he concluded. “As it is, you are setting yourself up for failure and with that failure will come more pain and anguish for the Palestinian people, a further colonization of our lands and a blank space in history for the Bush administration’s role in making peace in the Middle East.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847294451&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Meanwhile, today Israel continues beating the war drums:
Olmert: Israel will expose Iranian nuclear weapons program
“Israel will work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to expose the Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons, despite the limitations that Iran is setting,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.
Olmert said the new US intelligence report concluding that Iran has given up its nuclear weapons program will not change Israel’s view that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, his first comment on the report.
“Israel has no reason to change the assessments it had all along that Iran is continuing to pursue nuclear weapons and is developing weapons and rockets and enriching uranium,” Olmert told a closed meeting of his Security Cabinet, according to a participant in the session.
The US report reversed years of conclusions that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon. Israeli officials discounted the conclusion, insisting that their intelligence indicated that Iran was still on the course of nuclear weapons capability. For years, Israel has been urging the world community to act to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847294698&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
There is nothing on the Hamas letter on the Sunday talk shows. Wonder why?
There can never be a peace settlement without engaging Hamas, and Israel knows it. Every attempt Hamas has made for talks has been rebuffed. I’ve seen it played out over the last couple of years. Maybe this time the American public will finally wise up to the tricks.
We should not be financing Israel’s Greater Israel dreams. Any money going to fund illegal settlements should be outlawed. The hundreds of American non-profits that fund Israel’s illegal occupation should be outlawed, we are funding Israeli terrorism against an almost defenseless people.
Time we stopped funding this conflict.