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Hamas calls on West to end boycott, as Gaza truce takes hold
Bet you didn't see this one coming.
GAZA CITY - A fragile truce took hold in the Gaza Strip Thursday, ending, for the time being at least, months of deadly violence and prompting Hamas to call for an end to the Western boycott against it. The truce - the result of months of indirect, Egyptian-led negotiations between Israel and the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza - took effect at 6 am (0300 GMT) Thursday morning.

Although Israel negotiated the truce with Hamas indirectly, internal Israeli critics have charged the deal grants legitimacy to the radical Islamic movement and recognition of it as the de-facto ruler of the Strip.
Correct. Whether 'direct' or not, Hamas is now the go-to people for the Paleos, and Abbas is roadkill.
Hamas too called on Western leaders 'to change their attitude' toward the movement after it committed to the truce. 'We call on the international community to reconsider its decision to impose an embargo on the movement,' Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters in Gaza City.

But European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, although he welcomed the truce, said it was too early to say whether the EU could begin holding direct talks with Hamas, which the bloc considers a terrorist organization. The truce, he nevertheless said in Brussels, could create 'a dynamic that will allow political dialogue to continue.'

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Hamas was still a 'terrorist organization,' with which Israel did not and would not hold direct negotiations. 'Hamas and the other terrorist organizations have not changed and have not become patrons of peace. These are contemptible and bloodthirsty terrorists,' Olmert told a conference near Tel Aviv.
Yet you still talked with them, and conceded important issues to them, in return for essentially nothing. Once some 'splinter' group launches rockets at you, you'll be a laughing-stock.
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald from Jerusalem published Thursday, he also warned that the truce was Hamas' last chance to avoid a massive military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Olmert was scheduled to travel to Egypt Tuesday, for talks with Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak on the truce brokered by Cairo.

The first stage of the three-phase, six-month truce entails a mutual end of hostilities. According to Hamas officials, Israel is to lift severe restrictions on the entry of fuel into the Strip already in the first hours of the truce. As of Sunday, it is to ease restrictions on the entry of other goods.
What does Hamas do in return?
One week after, Cairo is to invite Hamas, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and European Union representatives for talks on a mechanism to open the Rafah border crossing between southern Gaza and Egypt.
Posted by: Steve White 2008-06-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=242185