So, all those pundits who kept on predicting the moderation of Hamas after winning the PA elections—do you think they’re going to stop lying to themselves?
JERUSALEM, Oct. 6 — Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya told a huge, cheering crowd today that his Hamas movement would not give in to international pressure that has crippled his government, and that it still has no intention of recognizing Israel.
“I tell you with all honesty, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel,” Mr. Haniya said to a thunderous roar of applause from tens of thousands of Hamas supporters, many waving green Hamas flags, at the Yarmouk soccer stadium in Gaza City.
Mr. Haniya also called on the president of the Palestinian Authority — Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the secular nationalist Fatah movement — to return to Gaza and resume talks on forming a national unity government. Those talks have broken down amid rising tensions between the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah.
So, when they form that “unity government,” and Abbas says again that Hamas will recognize Israel, will anyone remember this news story? Not that it matters; within moments of Abbas saying Hamas will recognize Israel, someone in Hamas will tell the press again that they’ll never do it.
And the world is still going to pretend that an irredentist government of a population that consists of some 60% who still support terrorist attacks on the Jewish state is ready to make peace with Israel.
Say, the other thing Haniyeh said? You have to go to the Israeli press to read most of it. You can find this in the AP version, watered down, of course. First, Ynet’s report:
The government was “prepared to establish a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, but only in exchange for a long term Hudna and not conceding one more foot of the land of historic Palestine,” he said. “The Palestinian government will not give up on one foot of Palestinian land, nor on the right of return and the establishment on a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Now, AP’s:
Haniyeh said his best offer to Israel was a temporary truce in return for establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in Jerusalem, over which Israel claims complete sovereignty. He also repeated demands for the release of thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Notice that he doesn’t say “East Jerusalem.” Arafat never said that, either. He doesn’t mean “East Jerusalem.” He means all of it.
The media, by omission, continues to show its anti-Israel bias. And this is a perfect example of the effect that the wire services have on getting the news out—or not, as the case may be. AP’s anti-Israel bias greatly affects the way the average person gets his news about Israel.
As for the bull about the unity government, you won’t read this in the AP piece, either. It’s only in Ynet.
Meanwhile, earlier Friday, Deputy Palestinian Parliament Chairman Ahmed Bahar told Ynet in an interview that Hamas still wanted a unity government, but if such an arrangement failed, “We plan to stay in the government in accordance with the mandate we got from the people. No one can make us disappear. We will stay – with a coalition or alone. That’s what we were voted to do, and Abbas doesn’t have the authority to dismantle the elected institutions.”
As for recognizing Israel, Bahar said: “We will never recognize it. No Palestinian child will recognize it. We are not making any moves to cooperate with the Knesset. The Knesset is a symbol of the enemy, which pours it poisons onto us and our people every day. How could we talk to them?”
Not, however, that this is going to stop the world from trying to give the palestinians their welfare checks. Not that this is going to stop the world from pretending that Hamas is going to moderate. The “national unity government” that they’re going to create? That’s for show. That’s so they can get the world to give them money, which they will spend on weapons with which to kill Jews.
The world is ignoring their lies. The world is ignoring the arming of Hamas. And the world is refusing to believe that Mahmoud Abbas is simply their front man. He no more believes in Israel than does Ismail Haniyeh.
Abbas convinced U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he is sincere in his commitment to force the PA government to formally acknowledge the Jewish State’s right to exist, said the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Thursday.
On PA TV, however, Abbas said “It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.” Abbas is the head of the Fatah party and terror organization, which is currently the minority faction in the PA legislature.
“I do not demand of Hamas nor any other to recognize Israel,” said Abbas in Arabic, “but from the government that works with Israelis in day to day life, yes.”
I should like to point out that Fatah is Abbas’ own party. It was the ruling party until this past year. It was Arafat’s party. It’s the party that everyone calls “moderate,” and that has supposedly negated the part of the PLO charter that calls for Israel’s destruction.
But the world ignores these facts as well.
It is not a figment of your imagination. There is document after document after document that cites the unwillingness of the palestinians to recognize Israel. Ze’ev Schiff has an excellent column in Ha’aretz this week, with this conclusion:
Final lesson: The current bloody conflicts among the Palestinians indicate once again that Hamas is far from ready to forsake its religious principles, which say there shall be no relinquishing of the Islamic holy lands upon which Israel sits. This is a problem that the Palestinians will have to resolve among themselves - because there is no chance that Israel will agree to convert to Islam.
The palestinians have not shown themselves willing in the least to resolve among themselves.
Another war is coming. It will open on two fronts: Gaza and Lebanon. UNIFIL will get in Israel’s way in the north. And the world, as always, will blame Israel.
