For Israel : Hamas is merely a red herring to avoid peace

By Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem

[ 03/05/2011 - 10:53 PM ]

Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, have nearly lost their composure over the recently-reached reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.

Some Israeli officials went as far as warning that Palestinian national unity was an ultimate red line for the racist apartheid entity. Some of the more jingoistic elements within the Netanyahu government, arguably the most hawkish in Israel's history, demanded the immediate "reoccupation" of the West Bank as if the occupied region were free from decades of Israel's colonialist occupation.

Israel's president, Shimon Peres, the "hero" of the Qana massacre in South Lebanon in 1996, said the restoration of Palestinian national unity made the prospects of peace in Palestine more distant. The elderly certified war criminal didn't explain his explicitly mendacious words. However, one doesn't have to be a great authority on the Israeli regime to understand that what Peres really meant was that reconciliation between the two largest political camps on the Palestinian arena would make the Palestinian people more resistant and more immune to Israeli repression and less willing to renounce its inalienable rights usurped by Israel.

In brief, Peres felt that Palestinian reconciliation would strengthen the Palestinian's bargaining position vis-à-vis Israel.

The more irate but equally dishonest Netanyahu called on the international community to reject and denounce the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, ignoring the fact that Palestinian national unity is none of the international community's concern.

Ehud Barak, who bears on his dirty, murderous hands tons of spilt innocent blood, warned that Israel wouldn't negotiate with Hamas if the Palestinian Islamic liberation movement didn't stop "terror."

The fornication with words went on and on and on as Zionist leaders threatened to use an "arsenal of reprisals" against the Palestinians to force them to remain divided and disunited in deference to Israel's interests.

In this article, I will try to refute and demolish all Israeli arguments objecting to Palestinian reconciliation, including the possible inclusion of Hamas in a prospective national unity government.

Israel claims that it can't negotiate with Hamas since the latter doesn't recognize the "legitimacy" of Israel.

Well, Hamas whether inside or outside any Palestinian government won't take part in the so-called peace negotiations which are solely the responsibility of the PLO. Hamas is not a member of the PLO. Moreover, Israel has been negotiating with an often pliant PLO for nearly 20 years and the net result has been a gigantic zero as proclaimed by PLO official Ahmed Qrei'.

Hence, one would have to be extremely naïve to buy the Israeli argument that Palestinian reconciliation would significantly impede any genuine resumption of peace negotiations between the Zionist regime and the PLO.

Israel claims that since Hamas indulges in "terror," which is actually none other than a legitimate duty to resist a Nazi-like foreign occupier that is hell-bent on stealing Palestinian land and ethnically cleansing the indigenous Palestinians, Israel can't deal with any Palestinian government comprising, inter alia, Hamas.

This is again a mendacious and dishonest argument. Hamas, it is amply clear, has maintained the Tahdia'a or calm in the Gaza Strip in the face of murderous Israeli provocations and often at the expense of strong active opposition from a number of resistance factions. Hamas is still painstakingly observing calm in the Strip. However, instead of receiving recognition, the Islamic liberation group has been receiving vilification and demonization, in addition, of course, to murderous Israeli provocations.

A third point. Israel which continues to refuse, rather adamantly, to recognize a putative Palestinian state on the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, is demanding that Hamas recognize Israel, even without reciprocity on Israel's part. This is beyond Chutzpah.

The PLO recognized Israel in 1993 as part of the scandalous Oslo accords, even without obtaining a mutual Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. However, instead of relating to this unconditional recognition of Israel by the PLO as an expression of goodwill, Israel continued to build settlements, demolish Arab homes and steal more and more Palestinian land, rendering the goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state unrealistic and virtually impossible.

In other words, Israel would like to see Hamas make the same blunder which the PLO had committed and cost the Palestinian people dearly.

Furthermore, it is abundantly clear that Israel continues to refuse to define its borders. Hence, one really wonders how under such circumstances any state or quasi-state would be able to recognize an amorphous entity without fixed borders!!

Finally, Israel argues that it would be very difficult to reach peace with a government (a Palestinian government) that includes extremist parties. Well, in making such spurious arguments, Israel actually sees only the supposed speck in Hamas's eyes, but fails to notice the log in her own eyes? After all, the current Israeli governments is, par excellence, a government of extremists, fascists and terrorists, to say the very least. It is not only the most hawkish government in the Zionist state's history; it is also a government of settlers, by the settlers, for the settlers.

This pornographic hypocrisy on the part of the Israeli government must not be allowed to go unnoticed by the international community, especially by those honest and conscientious elements in western governments.

In light, the world should dismiss Israeli ranting about Palestinian reconciliation for what that ranting really is, namely a ludicrous and cynical attempt to invoke the mantra of Hamas in order to avoid and evade real peace in Palestine, a peace that would consign to history Israeli apartheid, fascism and Nazism.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Haneyya calls on PLO to withdraw its recognition of Israel

[ 29/04/2011 - 05:59 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Prime Minister of the Palestinian government in Gaza, Ismail Haneyya, called on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to withdraw its recognition of the Zionist entity in response to its rejection of Palestinian reconciliation.

He told journalists after the Friday prayers that there was no justification for the recognition of an entity which rejects Palestinian rights and internal unity stressing that the presence of the Zionist entity “on our land is illegitimate and cannot be recognised.”

He belittled the Zionist threats and hysteria after Hamas and Fatah initialled the national reconciliation agreement in Cairo two days ago.
“We do what serves the interests of our Palestinian people, we do not care much about Israeli stands,” he said stressing that sincere intentions and a positive atmosphere are the guarantee for a successful reconciliation.
Hamas and Fatah announced two days ago, in a press conference, that they have reached an agreement that ends the rift and lays the foundation for a new stage of national unity.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Palestinians must reject new American tricks

[ 13/04/2011 - 10:34 PM ]

By Khalid Amayreh

The Obama administration is reportedly planning to launch a new "peace initiative" in the Middle East. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested the US would make fresh efforts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the occupation of Palestine by Zionist Jews who supported and backed by the West, especially the United States.

According to reports from Washington, President Obama will lay out US policy toward the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks. Obama had laid out his administration's policy numerous times, only to discover that Israel's supporters in Washington possessed a real veto power over the administration's policy toward the Zionist regime.

"The president will be speaking in greater detail about America's policy in the Middle East and North Africa in the coming weeks," Clinton said at the US-Islamic World Forum, a gathering sponsored by Qatar and the Brooking Institution, a Washington Think Tank.

The planned American activation of the so-called peace process, which has long been proved futile and fruitless, comes against a backdrop of popular revolutions in the Arab region that have toppled long-time tyrannical and pro-American regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.

It is really hard to give renewed American peace efforts the benefit of the doubt. Consecutive American administrations introduced numerous initiatives which failed even to make a dent in Israeli insolence and intransigence.

In fact, far from achieving any progress toward real peace, the US kept up enabling Israel to steal more Arab land, build more Jewish settlements and constantly erode the possibility of creating a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state.

Indeed, one would have to be a real idiot to think that an administration which stood quite powerless to prevent Israel from demolishing a single Arab home in East Jerusalem or stop the illegal seizure of a small plot of Arab land in the West Bank would be able to force Israel to return to the borders of the 4th of June, 1967.

Clinton and her boss at the White House may sound as speaking occasionally authoritatively with regard to the Palestinian issue. However, when it comes to implementation, we all know who has the final say. It is Israel and her powerful lobby, which holds Congress by the throat.

This is not pessimistic prognostication or, as some naïve people would put it, "not giving peace a chance."

e have given a thousand chances for a dignified peace settlement but to no avail. The reason was and remains simple, namely the fact of Zionist insolence, arrogance of power and rapacity for more Arab land. Needless to say, Zionist insolence, arrogance and territorial expansion wouldn't have paralyzed peace efforts had it not been for the simple reason of unlimited and unrestricted American backing of Israel.

Yes, the US may occasionally declare a certain stand that is not completely harmonious with Israeli whims, especially territorial aggrandizement. However, at the end of the day, Israel is allowed to have its way.

I don't have a shred of doubt that the planned American effort to revive or promote the moribund peace process will meet the same fate and same failure which past efforts had met.

One doesn't have to be a political genius to locate the fault lines in the long-standing American policy toward the Palestinian plight. Indeed, with a long history of complicity with Israel and acquiescence to her Nazi-like aggression and bellicosity, there should be no illusion about what the US can and can not do.

It is widely expected that the Obama administration will try to take credit for the democratic revolutions in the Arab world. There are also fears that the administration might try to trade off democratic successes in the Arab region, which by the way occurred in spite of Washington's wishes, for possible Arab and Palestinian concessions to Israel. That would be scandalous, to say the very least.

There are two main reasons preventing the Obama administration from crossing the Rubicon with regard to the Palestinian issue. First, the Obama administration has entered the second half of its term, which means that it has to choose between pressuring Israel to give up stolen land in the West Bank on the one hand and preparing for a second term in office on the other. Needless to say, the two tasks are not compatible at all since pressuring Israel to dismantle settlements and give up stolen land would nearly certainly weaken Obama's chances for re-election.

Likewise, failing to pressure Israel to be forthcoming for peace would most likely embolden the Zionist state and encourage her to build more colonies, steal more land and make the goal of establishing a viable Palestinian state utterly unrealistic and even far-fetched.

Second, there is also no doubt that the balance of power between the Obama administration and the Zionist lobby, which, as mentioned above, holds congress by the throat, is seriously tilting in Israel's favor. This means that Obama will face a serious dilemma: If he dares challenge the lobby, he will seriously jeopardize his chances for re-election, and if he doesn't, his peace efforts in the Middle East will evaporate into nothingness.

I understand that it is probably unwise to ignore, let alone challenge the only superpower in the world. However, it is even more unwise, to put it mildly, to give up our inalienable national rights just because some Zionist Jews happen to be in tight control of American politics and policies.

Eventually, any real and durable peace must be based on truth and justice. Otherwise, it wouldn't withstand the test of time.

PLO hints approval to resume peace talks


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian