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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Ex-Abbas adviser calls for new Hamas-Fatah gov't |
| 2007-06-29 |
| former foreign policy adviser to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said this week that the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip marks the "end of one party rule" in the PA, and that any future peace deal must involve the Islamist movement. Speaking at a briefing organized by the Arab American Institute and Americans for Peace Now, Ghaith al-Omari, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, said a new situation had emerged in which Hamas was in charge in Gaza and was "there to stay." "A new reality has come on the ground," said Omari. "[And] one thing that is very clear is that Hamas will not be dislodged from Gaza." A new Hamas-Fatah unity government would need to be established if there were to be any chance of peace, he said. "If Hamas feels that they have no stake in this peace process, they will and they can be major spoilers. All it takes is a few terror attacks in Israel to derail the peace process," Omari said. It was necessary to involve Hamas in the government because if it did not have the power it felt it deserved, it would resort to "military" means to acquire it, he said. "Any new arrangement that is going to be stable has to bring in Hamas in both the security sector and the political sector, but with the right conditions," he said. In the meantime, Omari said the international community must strengthen Abbas's new emergency government under Prime Minister Salaam Fayad to contain Hamas to Gaza. In addition, he said Hamas must be "squeezed a little" in order to send the message that "taking over by violence doesn't pay." Omari said that when negotiating over Gaza in the immediate future, when no PA unity government exists, the United States and Israel must speak to Abbas - not Hamas. "As for who you talk to right now, absolutely, completely, without any reservation, it has to be Abu Mazen [Abbas]," said Omari. "If you talk to Hamas right now it will be rewarding them in an unprecedented way for what happened in Gaza." Hamas's victory in Gaza has dispelled two common misconceptions, Omari said. The first was the belief that Hamas's role in Palestinian affairs could be minimized through military force. The second misconception Hamas's victory dispelled, according to Omari, was that Hamas could rule Gaza by itself. "We are already seeing some signs of their confusion," said Omari, who cited Hamas's promise to release BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, and their subsequent inability, or unwillingness, to do so as proof of such. "We are seeing that Hamas's 'good intentions' are going to hit reality and soon they will realize that they will have to change their approach," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 I don't follow his logic. If the Manson family took over a camp site in Death Valley, I don't think the act would necessitate negotiations. The is absolutely nothing in Gaza that any rational person would want. We just have to make sure that nobody important diplomats crash lands into Gaza. If somebody does, then it's time to ask Kurt Russell to dig his eyepatch out of his sock drawer. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2007-06-29 21:11 |
| #3 As for who you talk to right now, absolutely, completely, without any reservation, it has to be Abu Mazen [Abbas]," said Omari. "If you talk to Hamas right now it will be rewarding them in an unprecedented way for what happened in Gaza." I agree. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2007-06-29 12:46 |
| #2 New America Foundation: Board of Directors Eric A. Benhamou Chairman, 3Com Corporation & Palm Inc.; Chairman and CEO, Benhamou Global Ventures, LLC James Fallows Board Chairman, New America Foundation; National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly Roger W. Ferguson Jr. Chairman, Swiss Re America Holding Corporation Francis Fukuyama Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins University Ted Halstead President & CEO, New America Foundation Noosheen Hashemi President, HAND Foundation Laurene Powell Jobs President of the Board, College Track Kati Marton Author & Journalist Walter Russell Mead Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations Lenny Mendonca Chairmain, McKinsey Global Institute Steven Rattner Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group, LLC Eric Schmidt Chairman & CEO, Google, Inc. Bernard L. Schwartz Retired Chairman & CEO, Loral Space & Communications Ltd. Anne-Marie Slaughter Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University Laura D'Andrea Tyson Professor, Business Administration & Economics, Haas School of Business, UCLA Berkeley Christine Todd Whitman President, Whitman Strategy Group Daniel Yergin Chairman, Cambridge Energy Research Associates Fareed Zakaria Editor, Newsweek International Meet the New America. Same as the old America. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-06-29 10:25 |
| #1 "If Hamas feels that they have no stake in this peace process, they will and they can be major spoilers. All it takes is a few terror attacks in Israel to derail the peace process," How can you give someone a stake in something they consider treason to a sacred cause? And there have been scores of terror attacks in Israel and yet for years "the peace process" has resolutely marched on to nowhere. Is production of such nonsense how one becomes a senior fellow at a Washington think tank? Seems so. |
| Posted by: Baba Tutu 2007-06-29 00:55 |