‘I think there will be a change in these things [dialogue with Hamas] in the near future,’ said Ihab el-Ghusiem, a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman in Gaza City. ‘In the last year there have been many backdoor meetings and dialogue with Europeans. I personally sat with them myself. They reached the conclusion that they must talk with Hamas because we are not going anywhere soon.’ This agenda of talking to Hamas, which has been pushed to such effect byConflicts Forum and Forward Thinking -- the two groups shilling for Hamas under the cover of ‘conflict resolution’ – is not yet the officially stated policy of the Obama administration; but it surely cannot be long before it merges with the Europeans, to whose approach Obama so clearly feels such an affinity. The Times tells us of the new US Middle East envoy George Mitchell (pictured) that Mr Mitchell, who compiled a report in 2001 into ways to tackle violence in the region, is not scheduled to talk to Hamas officials during his visit but Hamas hoped there would be progress in the truce talks. But the Guardian goes further: President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is expected tomorrow to explore the chances of the Palestinian group Hamas being brought into a peace dialogue with Israel. Mitchell, on the first leg of a weeklong trip to the region, is scheduled to meet the President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo tomorrow. The Egyptians have been engaged in extensive talks with Hamas, which controls Gaza. Although Mitchell has no plans to visit Gaza or to talk directly with Hamas in the near future, the Egyptians offer an indirect route to the group, which is classified by America as a terrorist group. And as Mitchell arrives in Jerusalem to start this process, there’s a sense of déjà vu all over again. For Mitchell reflects the key misconception driving the Obama approach to the Arab/Israel impasse – the misconception that led directly to the Oslo intifada, the empowering of Palestinian terrorism and its elevation into actual warfare in the ranks of the global jihad. This is the morally degraded and historically illiterate belief that both sides in this dispute are equally culpable, that Israel as well as the Palestinians must make compromises, and that a Palestine state alongside Israel would bring a peace settlement. The Jerusalem Post quotes Mitchell making clear in a lecture what he thought was the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ‘Israel has a state, but its people live in unbearable anxiety, so security for the people is an overriding objective. The Palestinians don't have a state and they want one, an independent, economically viable and geographically integral state; that is their overriding objective,’ he said. ‘I believe that neither can attain its objective by denying to the other side its objectives. [My emphasis] Israelis are not likely to have sustainable security if the Palestinians don't have a state, and Palestinians will never achieve a state until the people of Israel have some security.’ Israel’s objectives, to exist peacefully in the region as a Jewish state within secure borders, most certainly should not be denied. But the Palestinian objectives -- which Mitchell says must not be denied -- are to destroy Israel as a Jewish state. The state that they want is Israel -- plus the rest. Just look at the shape of their aspiration as displayed on all their insignia. Just look at what they teach their children. Just listen to what they repeatedly say. The Americans (and Bush was exactly the same) make a distinction between Hamas (beyond the pale) and Fatah (a partner for peace). But while there are certainly differences in ideology and strategy between the two, Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies are on record saying that they will never, ever accept Israel as a Jewish state. Their aims remain to reoccupy the land ‘from the river to the sea’. Unlike Hamas, they merely believe the best way of doing so is through the diplomatic process, aided by deniable acts of terror, which will bamboozle the west into weakening Israel through a pincer movement of demonisation, delegitimisation, diplomatic thumbscrews, terrorism and demoralisation until eventually it is defeated. And now they have in the White House a man who, even as he professes America’s undying commitment to Israel, espouses a moral equivalence that would cause Israel to commit national suicide. As the Times reports: President Obama said before dispatching his envoy: ‘The moment is ripe for both sides to realise that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. Instead it's time to return to the negotiating table.’ The moral equivalence here between Israel and the Palestinians is odious. The suggestion that if Israel altered its path – by which he presumably means removing the wretched settlements from the West Bank – this would result in ‘peace and security for its people is demonstrably ridiculous. Not only are the settlements irrelevant to the real Palestinian agenda to destroy Israel, but Obama doesn’t seem to have noticed that removing the settlements from Gaza merely resulted in 6000 rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel. He’s also -- astoundingly -- stuck in the mother of all time warps. While Gaza is run by Hamas, and while the only thing that prevents the West Bank similarly becoming an Iranian mini-state is Israel’s presence, a Palestine state is off the agenda.
The Middle East Appeasement Process
The evidence mounts up that, as predicted, with the accession of Obama to the White House the forces of darkness are hugely buoyed by the new dawn of appeasement. Hamas, which broke its ‘cease-fire’ again yesterday by blowing up an Israeli patrol and killing a soldier, certainly thinks it’s winning. The Times reports:
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Madness.
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