Leading Hamas official Khaled Meshal, who directs the terrorist organization from Damascus, has asked Abbas to stay on and agree to a unity Hamas-Fatah government. This would serve Hamas' interests, as its experience until now has added up only to waging terror attacks and running charity organizations - but not running a state government. Fatah, however, has not shown great enthusiasm in joining such a regime.
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in one of his first decisions today following the Hamas victory, ordered the ministers in his government not to discuss publicly the developments in the PA. He plans to hold an emergency meeting this evening with Foreign Minister Tzippy Livny and Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz to discuss the developments in the Palestinian Authority.
The Hamas victory took the world by surprise. Reports about the elections all predicted a Fatah victory, acknowledging only that it might be narrower than thought. Regarding the U.S., analysts discussed whether or not the Bush Administration would engage in dialogue with Hamas ministers of a Fatah-led government, barely noting the possibility that they might have to consider talking with a government led by Hamas.
U.S. President George Bush told the Wall Street Journal this week, "And so you're getting a sense of how I'm going to deal with Hamas if they end up in positions of responsibility. And the answer is: not until you renounce your desire to destroy Israel will we deal with you."
The Washington Post reported early this week that the U.S. had, relatively secretly, spent $2 million in recent weeks to promote Fatah.
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yigal Pressler said today that he does not expect Israel to re-enter Gaza, even if Hamas continues its terrorist attacks, as long as it heads the Palestinian Authority. Pressler is a former advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers on terrorism.
Pressler predicted that Israel's refusal to talk with Hamas would last only as long as Hamas says it does not recognize Israel. "I don't see a big difference between Hamas and Fatah," he said. "Israel until now spoke with Fatah because Fatah recognized Israel after the Oslo Accords, but if Hamas decides to recognize Israel, Israel will negotiate with Hamas."
Labor Party Chairman Amir Peretz said today that his party would never conduct negotiations with a terror organization that has set out to destroy the State of Israel. Observers said that this position is not so much hawkish as a declaration of intent to promote further unilateral withdrawals.
Former General Security Service director and current Labor Party Knesset candidate Ami Ayalon said, "We have to rely on ourselves; we must continue building the fence, something that is in total [sic] consensus in Israel... We absolutely must not talk with Hamas, unless they totally change their entire approach to Israel - not just if they call another temporary ceasefire or the like..."
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HAMAS VICTORY - GOOD FOR ISRAEL OR BAD?
by Steven Plaut
January 26, 2006
Perhaps the best indication of the extent to which the world has been
Orwellized is observing the toady news coverage of the Palestinian
"election", including in the Israeli media, themselves largely the
occupied territories of the Far Left.
For months the media were all in suspense over whether the victors in the "election" would be the Hamas terrorists or the PLO terrorists. As it
turned out, the Hamas evidently "won" the "election" by a slim majority
(http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/674336.html )
The first part of the absurdity is the message being daily inculcated by
the Israeli political elite that there is any significant difference
between the PLO and the Hamas. There is not. Both are equally
dedicated to unlimited terror and violence, to genocide and the
eradication of Israel in any form and in any borders. Both have conducted
suicide bombings and in fact, if I am not mistaken, the PLO's terror
brigades conducted MORE than the Hamas did over the past two years.
The Kassam rockets are at least as much the initiative of the PLO as they are that of the Hamas. The PLO proliferates anti-Semitic propaganda as much as the Hamas and is as allied with teh Hezbollah and Syria and bin Laden.But the Israeli establishment has been repeating the empty mantra for so many years that "We have a peace partner in the PLO," that they managed to fabricate artificial suspense over the Palestinian "election". If the PLO were to win, then "Palestine" wouldberuled by moderates, people with whom Israel could strike a deal, do business, pragmatists. Nice nazis. Israel has been awash in speeches by politicians and mindless bumper stickers proclaiming "We have a Peace Partner."
Now, this may strike you as bizarre, but I have been arguing that the best thing that could happen in the PLO "election" would be a strong Hamas victory.Let me explain.A strong Hamas victory is the only thing that stands a chance of forcing Israelis to open their eyes and wake up. As long as the PLO is in charge, the gigantic game of make-pretend continues. When the Hamas is marching about with costumes of suicide bombers and with its swastikas and other paraphernalia, then there can be no delusions about the nazification of the Palestinians. It is not that the Palestinians would really be any LESS nazified with the PLO in charge. It is just that the Abu-Mazen reps
at the Potemkin negotiations and the make-pretend respectability of the
PLO hoodlum chiefs allow the politicians and the media to continue to
pretend that there is a peace process.
The Hamas victory, and I wish it had been stronger, puts the lie to the
game of make pretend. No longer can any intelligent Israeli pretend that
there is any way to deal with the Palestinians other than war. The only
way to stop the Kassams and suicide bombers is R&D = Re-Occupation and Denazification. And with the Hamas in charge, everyone in Israel is
forced to acknowledge this.Well, almost everyone. Haaretz and the Far Left have actually been preparing the Israeli public for a Hamas victory in recent months, and they are spreading the new epistle: "We can do business with the Hamas."
Leftist after leftist proclaims that the solution is to negotiate with the
Hamas. After all, the Hamas is as "genuine" and "representative" of
Palestinians as the PLO and it even wins "elections". Some Hamas
officials are encouraging the trend of self-annihilation in Israel by
putting out duplicitous statements about how the Hamas acknowledges that Israel exists (as an empirical reality that needs to be corrected, that
is). Statements that recall Arafat's duplicitous words.
So get ready for new calls to enter into negotiations with the Hamas. We
can try to persuade them to have a salad bar on the cattle cars taking
Israeli Jews to concentration camps, and perhaps institute recycling and
free tuition at the concentration camps Hamas is seeking to build.
Israeli professors will soon be wearing their Hamas lapel pins. Hamas
poetry will soon be taught to Israeli school children. Israeli schools
will be screening films celebrating the heroism of Palestinian suicide
bombers (like the University of Haifa screened this week).
And Second Shoah Now will be the fastest growing movement in Israeli
society, holding mass demonstrations for peace in Rabin Square.
========================
Mashal calls Abbas to inquire about political partnership
by Khaled Abu Toameh and AP,
THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 25, 2006
Khaled Mashal, the senior Hamas leader who is based in Syria, called Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and said Hamas is ready for a political partnership with the defeated Fatah Party. By early Thursday morning in had become clear that Hamas had shocked prognasticators by winning virtually all of the 66 seats in electoral districts.
"Mashal stressed the importance of a meeting with Abbas and the brothers in the Fatah movement, and all the Palestinian factions to agree on arranging the Palestinian house," according to a statement on the Hamas web site. Earlier, a senior official in the ruling Fatah Party reportedly called Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Hania, and congratulated him on the group's election victory.
Hamas plans to hold talks soon with Fatah on forging a political partnership, said Hania, adding, "this issue is going to be one of our priorities in the near future." He said Hamas would start consultations with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah and other parties on forming a government. Abbas has met, according to Israel Radio, with constituents from his Fatah Party in order to convince them to accept the outcome of the vote and to keep the public order.
Regarding its future diplomatic policy regarding Israel, a senior Hamas official said recognizing and negotiating with Israel are "not on our agenda." However, Hamas also signaled flexibility, saying it wants a "political partnership," presumably with Fatah.
In a surprise move the Palestinian Cabinet quickly submitted their resignations following the apparent Hamas victory, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's office said, setting the stage for Hamas.
The resignations were in part a formality required after an election, but the timing of the move, hours before the release of official results, was surprising.
In the election, 132 seats were up for grabs, half chosen from party slates and half in districts. In the districts, Hamas won a vast majority of the seats, election officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the vote count was not complete. The West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem were divided into 16 electoral districts. In the biggest districts of Gaza City and Hebron, Hamas swept all seats, according to the officials.
Candidates of the rival Fatah Party only won in the districts of Kalkilya and Jericho. In Ramallah, where Palestinian government is located, Hamas won four seats and Fatah got one. In Jerusalem, Hamas won four of six seats, with 60 percent of the vote counted, the officials said. Fatah officials concurred that Hamas captured a majority of seats, shortly after the terrorist group claimed victory.
