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Winners and losers.....and a message to Pres. Obama

Mousa Abu Marzook is deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau.

Writing a piece "A decisive loss for Israel" in Comment is Free in The Guardian, he declares that Israel lost the recent war with the Gazans. He also questions what Israel thinks it might have achieved with its barbaric onslaught.

No less importantly, as news comes today that Obama is sending his special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to the area next week, Marzook has a message for the US President:

"And to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to know the history of the places of which you speak. Sderot, which may be known to some as an Israeli town, lies on the ruins of Najd, a Palestinian village ransacked in May 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs. Villagers were forced from their beds and homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, rendering them refugees for the next 61 years. That is the story of Sderot. It is never a good start to get your tyrant and victims mixed up, but there is still room for a revival of passionate optimism. Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a new relationship with the Muslim world."

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