| This is the by now all too familiar Paleostinian two-step. Abbas is meeting with Bush and telling him what Bush wants to hear, the voice of sweet reason. Haniyeh, supposedly in agreement with Abbas, is back in Gaza, telling the rubes what they want to hear and incidentally causing Meshaal not to murder him. What'll happen is that the Paleos will eventually get their aid, Hamas will have made no changes to its program, the "uncontrollable elements" — Popular Resistance Committees, Islamic Jihad, and al-Aqsa Martyrs — will continue popping rockets and trying to infiltrate some krazed killers, while Hamas imports ever larger quantities of armaments through the tunnel network. At some point, Bush is going to have a KarineA moment with Abbas and the Paleo regime is going to be frozen out like Yasser's was. Bush may even come to the conclusion that there's no honest actor to be dealt with and write off the Paleos totally, like he's thinking seriously of writing off Perv. |
(Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on Wednesday rejected three conditions put forward by the Middle East Quartet to resume aid to and deal with any new Palestinian coalition government. Haneya, the premier from the governing Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), voiced the rejection while addressing supporters rallying before his Gaza office to support his Hamas-led government. "They (the Quartet) told us that there are conditions for the Palestinian people, namely recognizing the legitimacy of the occupation, condemning resistance and accepting previous agreements," Haneya told the supporters. | “There is a reality we have been dealing with over the past six months, but dealing with the reality doesn't mean we recognize it or its legitimacy...” |
Meanwhile, Haneya asserted that Palestinian employees, who didn't get their salaries paid for several months, would be paid before the end of September. One-month salary would be paid before Muslim's holy month of Ramadan that will fall on Sunday, Haneya said. Haneya also disclosed that the Qatari Prince Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has allocated a 50-million-dollars aid in cash for the Palestinians in addition to donations from Saudi Arabia.
The Quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, has demanded the Hamas-led government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace accords. The United States and the EU cut direct aid to the cash-starved Palestinian government after Hamas took power in late March due to its refusal to soften its political stance. As a result, the Palestinian territories have fallen into grave fiscal and political crises. On Aug. 17, Abbas and Haneya agreed on forming a coalition government with a new moderate political program in order to alleviate the crises facing the Palestinians.