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Hamas prepared to talk

Whilst Israel - as also the US and many European countries - side-lines Hamas and courts Fatah's Abbas the rationale for doing so is that Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel. That Hamas has disavowed that a number of times now is ignored. Hamas has called for Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders. To be remembered that Israel is the only country in the world without defined borders.

Mousa Abu Marzook is the deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau. He writes in a piece in The Guardian "Hamas is ready to talk":

"While Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert is busily courting Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas as a "partner for peace", successive voices continue to speak out against efforts to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government. As the Britain's Commons foreign affairs committee concluded on Monday, this strategy is counterproductive and doomed to fail, for the simple reason that the support of the Palestinian people is unmistakably lacking. Abbas's party does not democratically represent the Palestinians, yet what is in effect now a dictatorship in the West Bank is being welcomed by Israel and its western allies. The duplicity of this situation is shameful. Israel and its allies were quick to dismiss Hamas and the national unity governments and isolate both, and are now equally as quick to welcome an illegally formed self-proclaimed government for the Palestinians. Is this democracy?

The Palestinian people's struggle for freedom has been continuing for almost a century. During this time, we have faced every form of challenge, from persecution, abuse and humiliation, to military assaults, engineered starvation and social anarchy. All these trials have been deliberately imposed by an occupying power that is breaching international law on a daily basis."

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