 A day after its sweeping victory in Palestinian legislative elections, pressure mounted on Hamas to renounce violence and accept the existence of archfoe Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he would soon ask Hamas to form the next government. Supporters of his Fatah party fought a gunbattle with Hamas activists.
| Just a little exchange of political opinions, mind you... |
Leaders of Arab and Islamic countries urged Hamas to talk peace with Israel and called on the West to accept the Hamas poll win. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in a call to Abbas, urged Fatah and Hamas to work together for peace and an independent state. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called on the new government to affirm its commitment to an Arab peace proposal made in 2002. It offered peace with Israel in exchange for the Jewish state withdrawing to territory it held before the 1967 Middle East war. Speaking in Davos, Switzerland, he also cautioned Israel against using the Hamas victory as a pretext for halting the peace process.
| He's confusing "pretext" with "reason." A pretext is an excuse you use to do something for which there's actually another reason. |
King Abdallah of Jordan called for a “rapid return” to Middle East peace talks.
| "Into the peace processor wit' yez!" |
Turkey offered to act as an intermediary between Israel and the Palestinians. The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference also “may perhaps take on an important role,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Davos.
| If so, it'll be the first important thing it's ever done... |
He called on Hamas to recognize Israel, hand over its weapons to the Palestinian security forces and move away from extremism toward a middle ground. And he called on Israel to accept both the election results and HamasÂ’ role in the new government. |