Skip to main content

Hamas and Israel: Time for Reality Check?

"The unique predicament of the Palestinian Authority denies Israel and the Quartet the luxury of a benign neglect, wait-and-see approach to the Hamas government. Virtually all aspects of Palestinian economic life, trade, movement of persons and goods, and 40 per cent of government income (via the customs duties Israel collects) are at the whim of Israeli policy. Hamas' ideology, popularity and military aggression are unlikely to evaporate if they are forced from office by an Israeli-U.S.-led squeeze. The prospect of premeditated regime collapse may even be encouraging violence from Islamic Jihad and elements of Fatah. Certainly Fatah is unlikely to undertake its own much needed internal reform and regeneration process if it is expecting to be imminently re-anointed in an internationally blessed coup. British Foreign Secretary Straw and Italian Prime Minister-elect Prodi have both hinted that a policy rethink is needed."

Writing in Ha'aretz, Daniel Levy explores the way Israel needs to address the realities of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Levy also suggests that before the new PM goes off to Washington to be feted there, that a true policy of how the present impasse with the PA might be dealt should be the order of the day.

Read Levy's full and realistic assessment of the world which is Israel and its neighbour, the PA, here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t
Post a Comment
Read more

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l
Post a Comment
Read more

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?
Post a Comment
Read more