(IsraelNN.com) An Israeli-Arab journalist warns that the main beneficiary of the feud over settlements between the U.S. and Israel is Hamas, which continues to turn Gaza into a Taliban-like entity.
Khaled Abu Toameh, writing for the Hudson Institute of New York, says that the “high-profile controversy over Israel's policy of building new homes for Jewish settlements has in fact facilitated Hamas's mission.”
The article was recirculated by the pro-Israel Stand With Us organization.
“As the row between the Obama Administration and the Israeli government over the settlements continues,” Toameh writes, “Hamas is gradually turning the Gaza Strip into a Taliban-style Islamic entity that poses a threat not only to Israel, but also to the Americans, Europeans and moderate Arabs and Muslims.”
The settlements issue has even eclipsed Fatah corruption and other problems, Toameh writes, pleasing both Hamas and Fatah: “Both Hamas and its rivals in the Palestinian Authority appear to be satisfied with the fact that the Obama Administration has turned the issue of the settlements into the major problem, shifting attention from the incompetence and corruption in the West Bank and the emergence of the new Islamic state in the Gaza Strip.”
Other excepts:
“The foreign media is no longer interested in what's happening in the Gaza Strip. Nor are Western governments and international organizations dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict. As far as most decision-makers in the US and Europe are concerned, the ‘natural growth’ of the settlements is much more dangerous that the rise of another radical Islamic state in the Middle East.Toameh quotes a journalist inside Gaza as saying: "The Americans and Europeans are fighting against Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Hamas is building a new fundamentalist entity here. The settlements may be an obstacle to peace, but Hamastan will soon become a major threat to stability in the region.”“Hamas feels confident to do whatever it wishes in the Gaza Strip because the Obama Administration and its allies in France, Germany and Britain are too busy arguing with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu whether settlers should be permitted to build new homes or not.
“So what if young women in the Gaza Strip are being harassed and arrested by Hamas's ‘morality police’ for laughing in public or leaving their homes without hijabs?
“So what if young Palestinian women are banned from swimming unless they are covered from top to bottom? And so what if women are being banned from entering coffee shops and restaurants and other public places unless they are escorted by male relatives?
“So what if young men are banned from swimming in the sea topless? And so what if Hamas is now operating a secret police whose job is to separate males from females in public places? “
Peace Process Itself is a Victim
Toameh sees another casualty that has resulted from the Obama fixation on settlements: the peace process itself. He writes that the PA leadership is boycotting peace talks with Israel until settlement construction stops – something it did not do in the past, even when Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister. The reason for this, Toameh explains, is because the PA leadership is simply “waiting for the Obama Administration to deliver. Tensions between Obama and Netanyahu have left many Palestinian Authority leaders very happy and hopeful… that Obama will force Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, including the eastern part of Jerusalem, and expel all the Jewish settlers from the West Bank.”
“Some Palestinian officials in Ramallah seriously believe that Israel will eventually succumb to Obama's demands,” Toameh observes. He therefore concluces that they see no reason to “return to the negotiating table with Israel when the Obama Administration has actually endorsed the Palestinian position and is negotiating with the Netanyahu government” in their place.
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