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Obama: No Sympathy For Hamas, But Gaza Cannot Remain Closed Off
[IsraelTimes] US President Barack Obama
Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back...
said Wednesday that while he did not care for Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, the Gazoo Strip could not remain permanently closed off from the world.
He really does wear his heart on his sleeve... and it's not blue-and-white.
"I have no sympathy for Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,. I have great sympathy for ordinary people who are struggling within Gazoo," Obama said.
The ones who voted Hamas into power in as free and fair an election as the Palestinians have ever had -- those ordinary people of Gaza?
Speaking at a presser, Obama said that the United States was supportive of ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, but that "long-term, there has to be a recognition that Gazoo cannot sustain itself permanently closed off from the world."

Ordinary Paleostinians living in the impoverished, blockaded Hamas-ruled territory need to "have some prospects for an opening of Gazoo so that they do not feel walled off," Obama said.

Obama reiterated his concern about civilians killed in the conflict, which left 1,886 Paleostinians dead, according to officials in the Hamas-ruled Gazoo Health Ministry. Israel says that hundreds of them are gunnies. Sixty-four soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side were killed in the month-long conflict.

Obama insisted he has "consistently supported Israel's right to defend itself" and repeatedly castigated Hamas, saying that the terror group has acted "extraordinarily irresponsibly" by launching rockets into Israel.

The people of Gazoo need greater hope for the future, he said as he urged the extension of the 72-hour ceasefire that was brokered by Egypt and which went into effect Tuesday morning.

"The US goal right now would be to make sure that the ceasefire holds, that Gazoo can begin the process of rebuilding," Obama said.

Similarly, he said, Israelis need to "feel confident that they're not going to have a repeat of the kind of rocket launchers that we've seen over the last several weeks."
Actually, the Israelis are confident that at some point there will be another attack. Possibly on Friday, if Hamas decides not to extend the hudna, which is why The Times of Israel, and we here at Rantburg, are continuing to observe the live blogging of the situation over there for a bit longer.
Israel and Hamas appeared to be at odds on the extension of the ceasefire that expires at 0500 GMT on Friday.
Yes, that one, Mr. President.
Negotiators from Israel were meeting with a Paleostinian delegation in Cairo for talks on extending the temporary ceasefire and trying to resolve underlying issues to broker a more lasting truce. Officials from the US, the United Nations
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
 and Mideast nations were helping foster the discussions, which began with both sides taking hard-line positions and much jockeying expected ahead.

Obama said that peace efforts needed to involve the Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
, amid US fears that the conflict has empowered the more hard boy Hamas.

Obama said that the Abbas-led Paleostinian Authority, based in the West Bank, has been "responsible" by recognizing Israel and seeking a two-state solution.
Seeing shallower into the rock than most...
"I think Abu Mazen is sincere in his desire for peace, but they (the Paleostinian Authority) have also been weakened, I think, during this process," Obama said, referring to Abbas by his nom de guerre.
He has no idea who did the weakening.
"The populations in the West Bank may have also lost confidence or lost a sense of hope in terms of how to move forward," he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the Paleostinian Authority should play an "important" role in the Gazoo Strip.

In late April, Netanyahu ended further negotiations with Abbas after he formed a unity goverment with Hamas amid the breakdown of the US-led grinding of the peace processor.
Bad enough to be forced to pretend to negotiate with the team that wants to drive the Jews out of Israel, without adding the team that wants to eradicate the Jews from the face of the Earth.

Posted by: trailing wife 2014-08-07
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=397319