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Fayyad: Hamas Losing Support In Gaza, West Bank
In which our hero reveals that which disinterested observers realized long ago, plus a few more conventional bits of Palestinian boilerplate.
[Jerusalem Post] PA PM says Gazoo-based group avoiding elections because it is pessimistic about results; condemns Netanyahu over settlements.

Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has been avoiding elections because it is pessimistic about their outcome, Paleostinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either...
 said in an interview with The Washinton Post published Friday.

"It is a well-known fact borne out by various opinion polls that there has been a steady erosion in Hamas's standing, both in the West Bank and Gazoo," Fayyad said. "I believe that is why they have been dodging elections."
Why then, pray tell, has the PA avoided elections?
Fayyad said that it was unacceptable that elections have not been held recently in the Paleostinian Authority, calling a vote "overdue" and saying that it is "something I believe is going to happen, and I hope sooner rather than later." PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
 was elected on January 15, 2005 for a four-year term, but remains in office due to the indefinite postponement of elections. The Paleostinian Legislative Council, which sits in Gazoo, was last elected to a four-year term on January 25, 2006, but also remains unable to renew its mandate.

During the interview, Fayyad spoke at length about his personal future in the Paleostinian political establishment. "I'm not going away," he said twice, adding that he "would not rule out" starting a party of his own in case a potential Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal forces him out of the government.
A neat way to commit suicide in that part of the world, but feel free to try, my dear.
Tensions between PA President Abbas and Fayyad have continued to intensify, and calls are growing within Fatah to dismiss the sitting president and appoint a Fatah figure as head of a new government.

Turning to relations with Israel, Fayyad said he thought that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was not serious about making peace based on a two-state solution. "Going back to June 2009, Netanyahu signaled for the first time a willingness to accept a two-state solution concept. But in terms of projecting that into effective support for a two-state reality, there is a serious distance to be traveled."
And all of it must be travelled by the Palestinians.
Asked about the potential to renew unilateral action for statehood via recognition by various United Nations
...An organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
 agencies, Fayyad respond that "I am for any initiative that brings us closer to the day when we are able to live as free people in a country of our own."

Fayyad added: "What is the alternative to the Paleostinian state as a solution to this conflict? There is no meaningful alternative."

That said, Fayyad was hesitant to promote diplomatic gimmicks that fail to really advance the Paleostinian cause. "I don't need another declaration of statehood," he said. "We already have one."
Posted by: trailing wife 2012-06-24
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=347093