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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas Leader's Tunisia Visit Angers Palestinian Officials |
| 2012-01-08 |
| [An Nahar] A visit by Gazoo's Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader has angered the official Paleostinian representatives in Tunisia who say they were ignored during the talks with the new government, a Paleostinian source said Saturday. Ismail Haniya, prime minister in the Hamas-ruled Gazoo Strip, visited Tunis Thursday to meet with the new moderate Islamist-led administration while he was on a tour of the region. But that did not sit well with representatives of the Paleostinian Authority led by president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... "The Paleostinians are furious. Neither the government nor the foreign ministry, nor the (Islamist) Ennahda party informed them of the dates and program of Haniya's visit, as they should have," the Paleostinian source told Agence La Belle France Presse. Another source told the Arabic language newspaper Le Maghreb that the lack of communication could hamper reconciliation efforts going on between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party. Haniya was welcomed with much fanfare on his arrival in Tunis, where he was met by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali and the head of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi. Some Tunisian media also questioned the purpose of Haniya's visit, whether it was to talk with the government or the Islamist party. Questioned by AFP, a government source said the Hamas leader "was invited by Tunisia and by the Ennahda party." Haniya's six-country tour marked his first travel abroad since Hamas, seen as terrorist group by Western powers, took power in Gazoo in 2007. According to his office it was aimed at raising funds to rebuild Gazoo City, devastated by an Israeli offensive three years ago. But the Hamas takeover of Gazoo politically divided the Paleostinian territories, with Abbas's Fatah left largely ruling the West Bank and recognized internationally as the official Paleostinian authority. In April, following years of bitter rivalry, the two factions signed a reconciliation deal whose implementation has since stalled. Last month, Abbas met Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Cairo and the two agreed on a process that could pave the way for the Islamist group to join a reformed Paleostine Liberation Organization (PLO) and for long-delayed Paleostinian elections. Tunis was the headquarters of the exiled PLO under Yasser Arafat before the 1993 Oslo accords with Israel granted Paleostinian autonomy in the Gazoo Strip and parts of the West Bank. |
| Posted by:Fred |