Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal said yesterday that he welcomed talks with the movement’s Fatah rivals but would not “beg,” according to a statement posted on a Hamas website. “We open our doors to a national dialogue and a solution to internal conflicts because we believe in the importance and the necessity and the need of the Palestinian people for this, but we will not beg,” Meshaal said.| So it's really more of a monologue. Just like always. |
Hamas has repeatedly said that the meeting — aimed at reviving peace negotiations with Israel, which have been dormant since 2000 — is a US and Israeli ploy to normalize relations with Arab states. “(US President George W.) Bush is not trustworthy, and he wants to save himself from his failure in Iraq... There is no political horizon, the only real horizon is in unity between Hamas and Fatah,” Meshaal said.
The organizers of the conference “want nothing but normalization with the Arabs, and they will do nothing but increase Arab and internal divisions to prepare for new assaults against Iran and Syria, and Lebanon and Gaza.” His comments came a day after Abbas met Hamas members in the West Bank for the first time since the Islamists seized power in Gaza after routing his forces in a week of bloody street battles in June.