Palestinian Civil War Non-Watch
Israel Matsav has another Palestinian civil war watch post up:
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this evening that a 'Palestinian' journalist from the Gaza Strip was kidnapped on Monday from his radio station by a group of maskedgunmen terrorists, who released him after several hours, unharmed.
Our views on this are well-documented. Every couple of months, the Palestinians tease us with a civil war - and just like the parts of Oslo where they promised to stop publishing textbooks calling Jews pigs and apes, they inevitably fail to deliver. Now it is true that Abbas is saying that the unity government is off the table because of the whole "Hamas won't pretend that they don't want to destroy Israel" thing. But it's not like Abbas is confronting Hamas or anything - quite the opposite, he's settling for being huffy and passive aggressive:
Abbas aides had said the president was expected to travel to Gaza on Tuesday for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Later, a senior Abbas aide who declined to be identified told Reuters: "Of course he is not going to Gaza. There is a problem with Hamas, they keep reneging on the agreements."
The irony of Fatah getting pissed off because Palestinian terrorists keep reneging on agreements is something we leave as an exercise for the reader. But it's gotta be frustrating for a relatively smart guy like Abbas to watch Hamas be too stupid to go through the motions of even pretending to consider recognizing Israel. We are honestly shocked he hasn't just snapped at them.
But we've just been burned too many times on these civil war watches to fall for this trick again (it's like Iran moving toward suspending uranium enrichment - come on). In the final analysis, we just don't think that the Palestinians have the drive or commitment to go through with a real civil war. If they had that kind of attention span, they'd have a state by now. But Hamas is expressing hope for reconciliation:
One senior Hamas official said the group believed it had a deal with Abbas before he attended meetings at the United Nations last week, adding dialogue should resolve the impasse.
Dialogue, huh? How's that working out for the Pope? Oh, Hamas called the Pope a Nazi and called him "ignorant and stupid"? And they published cartoons implying he's the stooge of conspiratorial Danes and Americans? That's awful strong for people who are counting on dialogue to help them get a not-openly-terrorist fig leaf. And yet hope springs eternal:
PA government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Tuesday that a meeting between PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was cancelled due to "difficulties and differences of opinions" but he expressed confidence that negotiations would continue. "We will overcome the problems. We haven't hit a dead end... I think we have a political agenda that is acceptable to the chairman and would be acceptable to Europe and the Arab states," Hamad expounded. "There is a problem accepting the Saudi initiative, but we will not prevent the chairman from formulating an agreement with Israel. We don't want to stand in his way," he added.
The "problem" with the initiative is that it only calls for a de facto destruction of Israel. While that's happening, Hamas would have to pretend that they're not out to destroy the Jewish State. And they are so pathological that they can't stomach even faking not wanting to wipe out all the Jews between the river and the sea.
The Jerusalem Post is reporting this evening that a 'Palestinian' journalist from the Gaza Strip was kidnapped on Monday from his radio station by a group of masked
Our views on this are well-documented. Every couple of months, the Palestinians tease us with a civil war - and just like the parts of Oslo where they promised to stop publishing textbooks calling Jews pigs and apes, they inevitably fail to deliver. Now it is true that Abbas is saying that the unity government is off the table because of the whole "Hamas won't pretend that they don't want to destroy Israel" thing. But it's not like Abbas is confronting Hamas or anything - quite the opposite, he's settling for being huffy and passive aggressive:
Abbas aides had said the president was expected to travel to Gaza on Tuesday for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Later, a senior Abbas aide who declined to be identified told Reuters: "Of course he is not going to Gaza. There is a problem with Hamas, they keep reneging on the agreements."
The irony of Fatah getting pissed off because Palestinian terrorists keep reneging on agreements is something we leave as an exercise for the reader. But it's gotta be frustrating for a relatively smart guy like Abbas to watch Hamas be too stupid to go through the motions of even pretending to consider recognizing Israel. We are honestly shocked he hasn't just snapped at them.
But we've just been burned too many times on these civil war watches to fall for this trick again (it's like Iran moving toward suspending uranium enrichment - come on). In the final analysis, we just don't think that the Palestinians have the drive or commitment to go through with a real civil war. If they had that kind of attention span, they'd have a state by now. But Hamas is expressing hope for reconciliation:
One senior Hamas official said the group believed it had a deal with Abbas before he attended meetings at the United Nations last week, adding dialogue should resolve the impasse.
Dialogue, huh? How's that working out for the Pope? Oh, Hamas called the Pope a Nazi and called him "ignorant and stupid"? And they published cartoons implying he's the stooge of conspiratorial Danes and Americans? That's awful strong for people who are counting on dialogue to help them get a not-openly-terrorist fig leaf. And yet hope springs eternal:
PA government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Tuesday that a meeting between PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was cancelled due to "difficulties and differences of opinions" but he expressed confidence that negotiations would continue. "We will overcome the problems. We haven't hit a dead end... I think we have a political agenda that is acceptable to the chairman and would be acceptable to Europe and the Arab states," Hamad expounded. "There is a problem accepting the Saudi initiative, but we will not prevent the chairman from formulating an agreement with Israel. We don't want to stand in his way," he added.
The "problem" with the initiative is that it only calls for a de facto destruction of Israel. While that's happening, Hamas would have to pretend that they're not out to destroy the Jewish State. And they are so pathological that they can't stomach even faking not wanting to wipe out all the Jews between the river and the sea.
