Russia is trying to argue that their high-level contacts with the most radical branches of Hamas are aimed at moderating the unrepentant terrorists. As proof of their good will, they’re even demanding that Hamas renounce the whole “Jew killing” thing:
A senior Russian diplomat said on Sunday that Moscow expects Hamas to make a clear pledge to recognize Israel, a news agency reported. Alexander Kalugin, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s special envoy to the Middle East, said that Hamas should outline approaches to recognition of Israel in its action plan. “The main thing is that they should clearly speak on the issue of recognizing the state of Israel,” Kalugin said, according to the Interfax news agency. Hamas leader Khalaad Mashaal will head a delegation set to arrive in Moscow on March 3, the Islamic militant group said in a statement posted on its Web site on Friday.
This is a transparent lie, and the Russians know that it’s a transparent lie. Egypt has been pulling this trick for five years. Under the guise of trying to arrange a ceasefire, constant Egyptian contacts served to both legitimize and strengthen Hamas – so much so that many pretty smart people think that it was this single regional dynamic that convinced Hamas that the world would accept a terrorist government. Hamas figured – correctly it turns out – that if the world was willing to let Egypt mouth only the barest pretenses when treating terrorists like an elected government, then certainly if they really were an elected government their legitimacy could only increase.
During the Cold War, there were rumors that Israel had targeted some of their nuclear weapons towards Moscow. If it ever came to pass that the Jewish State was on the verge of being destroyed by Soviet created tanks, planes, and mortars, Israel’s leaders were not about to let the enables of the certain ensuing genocide go unpunished. Whatever the condition of Israel’s current foreign policy, it’s reasonably clear that Russia’s hasn’t changed much in the last decades.
