“Hamas should be engaged in talks”

In an open letter, the fourteen signatories of the letter said that the United States and Israel must change their policy towards Hamas and engage the Palestinian movement if progress is to be made on peace in the Middle East.

The signatories include former Israeli Foreign Minister Ben-Ami and the UN’s former envoy to the Middle East Quartet, Alvaro de Soto, have stated that a peace settlement “without Hamas will not be possible.”

The group said that the three-year policy under which Hamas has been ostracized by the international community had backfired and needed to be changed.

“There can be no meaningful peace process that involves negotiating with the representatives of one part of the Palestinians while simultaneously trying to destroy the other”, wrote the signatories.

The letter comes ahead of a visit to the region by George Mitchell, the newly appointed US envoy to the Middle East, and Javier Solana, the European Union’s envoy.

On Wednesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that talking to Hamas was the “right thing to do”.

The democratically-elected Hamas government, sacked by Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas, has been excluded from the US-mediated peace talks between Palestinians and Israel.

Hamas says excluding the legal government, elected by a majority of votes, from the peace process does not create a positive atmosphere to achieve success in the talks.

#Don’t you know that Egypt is the second largest recipient of American aid on earth? In order for money to come through, Egypt has to toe the American and Jewish line and do its bidding…… or…. swoosh nothing!
..And on whose side is the American government? You know, don’t you?

#Don’t tell me that you are unaware that Gaza was bombed with the blessings of Sir Husna Mubarak the dictator, puppet and stooge of the Zionist entity and America?…. that sold his people down the tubes! and Mubarak keeps power through American money…ask the people of Egypt, they’ll tell you!

#Georgie Bush himself said that the Gaza election … was free and fair. Then why did’nt he honour the election?… because it did not suit Georgie’s agenda!

Cum’on Lyndall don’t try to shield the mass murders and blood letting in Gaza. I am sure that your conscience is telling you something else!

There have been many genocides in history, with half or more of a population wiped out.
Half of the Chinese were slaughtered by the Mongols, 50-70% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama in the genocide committed by the Germans.
Up to 90% of original inhabitants (there were anywhere between 30-50 million of them) of Mexico died within a century of the arrival of the Spaniards. (Most died from diseases introduced by the Spaniards).

A genocide that has been under reported until recently, is the genocide of the Bamileke in Cameroon, which started in the late 1950s and continued until the 1970s. French colonel Jean Lamberton was the strategist behind the genocidal policy in Cameroon. I don’t know whether half of the Bamileke were killed, but the numbers are big – as many as 1 million Bamileke and Bassa were killed.

First recorded genocide (if the Old Testament can be regarded as 100% true) was the extermination of the Amalekites by the Hewbrews. As the Jewish Encyclopedia puts it, “David waged a sacred war of extermination against the Amalekites”.

Some of the genocides in history are described in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

I never mentioned the word imperialist or suggested that Israelis leave the state of Israel and give the land back – though they should leave the occupied territories. I just pointed out that Israel’s actions stem from a Zionist policy which right from its beginnings has wanted to rid the land previously known as Palestine, of the arabs.

You don’t dispute that fact, yet try and counter with a facile ridiculous argument that has no value and sits at odds with Israel’s claim to the land in the first place. Don’t Zionist’s believe their claim lies in the fact that Jews were there 2000 years ago?

Israel needs to be accountable for its policies and find peace by changing them. They are, after all, the ones with all the power.

Rachel

Zionism is about the return of Israel to the Jews. You don’t believe the state of Israel should exist? Should the Turks also return Turkey to the Christians? And the Muslims return North Africa to the animists? Or is it only Israel which is “imperialist”?

Leonard

Gaza does not only have one border. If Egypt opened its border – the aid could come through Egypt (a Muslim country). Ever TRIED to think why Egypt does not want Hamas either?

Theodore Herzl – founder of Zionism: ‘We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across the border by procuring employment for it in transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country… Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly’

Dr. Eder – member of the Zionist Commission: ‘there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the numbers of the race are sufficiently increased.’ 1921

“Joseph Weitz – director of the Jewish National Land Fund wrote in December 19, 1940: ‘It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country…The Zionist enterprise so far…has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with ‘land buying’ — but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe’.

The history of Israel in its earliest inception has been one of bloody suppression of the local arab peoples. Their claims that their actions are defensive are rubbish. They have been the aggressor in many subversive ways, not least of which are the so called security checkpoints which are really designed to strip Palestinians of freedom of movement and dignity, and sometimes even their lives.

I was born in Israel, and for years I felt that anyone who verbally attacked Israel and their actions was launching a personal attack on me as a Jew. It took me many many years and a lot of pain, to realise that the State of Israel is one founded in blood and flawed in its ideology of a country for Jews only. Such a state would immediately require ethnic cleansing of some form.

My views don’t stem from my joining a political group in opposition to Israel or anything like that, but in a personal journey in which I re-educated myself. I believe Zionism is one of the true evils perpetrated on the Jewish people and the humanity in general.

David , keep up the good work. it seems a fashion these days to steal every sense of dignity from a Jew by calling Jews anything to demean them, besides the actual word “Jew”.

Thanks for that link. I have a Muslim acquaintance who refuses to believe that Female Genital Mutilation happens in Egypt AT ALL! I sent it to him!

And that is another instruction that the “obedient to God” did not listen to.

The Prophet forbad any mutilation of the body. So why is it happening?