In what appears to be a bit of mischief-making, Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV carries this story on its English-language website. I’m not aware of anything to suddenly cause the Saudi government to start supporting Hamas, as the article alleges. I suspect it is more the case that the network, which does support Hamas, is trying to create a new ‘reality’. That it comes at the expense of Saudi Arabia is just an added feature, to keep the bosses happy.
Saudi king avoids meeting Abbas
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has snubbed the Palestinian president, skipping a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas on a visit to Jordan.
An Abbas official said “the meeting was postponed due to lack of time as both leaders had busy schedules”, but Al Jazeera’s David Chater, reporting from Jordan, said it was a deliberate and undiplomatic snub.
Abbas was kept waiting at a palace room for a telephone call that never came.
Instead, the Saudi monarch, who brokered a power-sharing deal between Abbas’s Fatah faction and rivals Hamas in February, urged both sides to talk to each other, saying the infighting was benefiting only the Israelis.
It would be a bitter pill for Abbas to swallow, just days after he dissolved the unity government set up under the Saudi deal and accused Hamas of attempting to assassinate him.
He had said then that he would not enter into talks with the group after it seized Gaza and humiliated Abbas by occupying his presidential compound there.
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June:29:2007 - 08:50
The Saudi government SHOULD support Hamas. They were given a majority in the Palestinian government in free and open elections. The West’s reaction to this has been nothing short of supporting an open coup against the elected government in Palestine.
The Palestinian people have a right to decide who rules them. Abbas has as much support in Palestine as Condi Rice does. It is really a shame that the West has failed to try to find a way to work with a government that was elected in the very same elections that THEY pushed for.
Why push for elections and then refuse to deal with the people elected? The current strategy of the West in supporting Abbas, a man with little or no popular support amoungst the Palestinian people, is as much of a folly as thinking that all Iraqis would greet American invaders with rice and rose water.
It is a massive mistake that is going to have long, regional consequences. It is amazing the pre-conditions put on the Hamas government, like recognising the right of Israel to exist when the Israelis do not accept the right of a Palestinian state with part of Jerusalem as capital.
Expecting Hamas to hault violence even as Israel violence continues unabaited! When, in the history of man kind, has the occupied ever been held responsible for the safety of the occupiers?
The Western/American approach to the Palestinian issue is flawed at it’s very base and doomed to fail. Sending Tony “Let’s Invade Iraq/Let Israel destroy Hizb’Allah” Blair to the area is just another perfect example of how America and the West just dont have a clue.
This has failed before it has even begun.
June:29:2007 - 09:52
By what right do you suppose the international community obligated to support a government whose primary policy runs against what the international community considers to be legal and moral?
If the Palestinian people made a mistake in electing Hamas, then the Palestinians are going to live with the consequences. That includes the disdain of the world’s moderates, the lack of funding from people who strongly oppose Hamas’ threat to destroy Israel and refusal to recognize it as a legitimate state.
You know that saying about ‘having one’s cake and eating it, too?’ It applies. If the Palestinians want global support, they need to change their government. If they want to stand on some rejectionist principle, they can pay the price for taking that stand.
Sure, Hamas was elected. So what?
The other guy’s voting decisions don’t obligate me or any government to like that decision; most especially it doesn’t obligate anyone outside the Palestinian community to give money to a government whose policies are antithetical to our sense of propriety.
It’s a legitimate government, but it’s one that has little credibility or influence outside a very narrow, anti-Israel group. Even within the Palestinian community, as those who support Abbas are happy to explain, Hamas’ policies are not right. Egypt, Jordan, and the KSA, among others, do not want to support Hamas. They see that government as a hindrance to peace in the region. Are stupid people somehow entitled to support for being stupid? Humanitarian aid will be given, but that’s it.
The Israelis do accept the idea of a separate state of Palestine. The issue of Jerusalem, as you well know, is contentious and is, according to the UN, a matter to be negotiated. Some Israelis are ready to do that. Some are not. Some Palestinians are ready to do that. Hamas is not. You can play the ‘Israel as obstructionist’ card if you like, but I think it’s pretty clear that the biggest obstruction is Hamas’ inability to accept a fact that has been a fact on the ground and in international law for 50 years. Israel is a state and it has a right to exist. The rest of the world, even if it doesn’t uniformly give diplomatic recognition to Israel, accepts that fact. Let Hamas get realistic and there might be some hope for that government. Until it does, it will remain a pariah.
June:29:2007 - 13:51
I think that the international community MUST recognise the free and open elections. What would America have said if Europe decided to stop working with the USA after he was elected the first time?
The attack on the freely elected government in Palestine has been nothing short of a Western backed coup of a democratically elected government. It is one thing to not support the government, one thing to stop or reduce aid, another thing to arm and train armed groups whose intentions are to overthrow the freely elected government of a people.
That is exactly what the West and it’s client dictators have done. They have armed and trained a group that attempted to use armed force to subvert the freely elected government in Palestine. It just seems in this case they were unable to do so.
Basically what you are saying is that the Palestinians must elect a corrupt and useless government into power if they want any hope of having an end to the situation? What I say is the Hamas is the freely elected government of the Palestinian people and must be given the opportunity to govern.
As I have said before, this treatment of Hamas in the end is going to backfire. It is going to cause MORE support for Hamas, not less. I have always maintained that the popular allure of Islamist parties would dampen if given the opportunity to rule. It is one thing to be popular when you are always the outsider and able to complain, another thing when you are in the government and must provide.
Yes, Hamas was elected, no you don’t have to like them, but it is also wrong to push for an armed coup to overthrow them. You talking about having your cake and eating it too, it sounds like the fools that the West and America made of themselves for demanding elections, saying that they were free and open, then pushing for an armed coup when they didn’t like the results.
Elections are like that, sometimes people you like get elected, sometimes they don’t. It doesn’t give you the right to try and have them thrown from power by military coup or starve the people who voted for them.
Those who support Abbas? What all 15-20 of them? Abbas has NO popular support to speak of so why even talk about him? It was him and the corruption and cronyism of his party that cause Hamas to win in the first place. He is part of the problem, certainly not part of the solution.
The fact that Jordan, Egypt and Saudi do not support Hamas is actually a point in their favour for me. Of course the corrupt dictators in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi are not going to like an incorruptible religious party who wins open and free elections. It is their worst nightmare. They see in Palestine what they fear in their own lands. The people getting sick enough of the corruption to actually make a change in the status quo. Of course they hate Hamas, they’d be stupid not to.
As to credibility, whom are you referring to? Hamas has more credibility in the Middle East, amoungst the average person, than any country’s government does. Hamas is more popular in Jordan than King Abd’Allah is, more popular in Egypt than Mubarak is and certainly more popular in Saudi Arabia than the royal family is. This “credibility” you are talking about is solely restricted to the people in power, corrupt murderers, who fear for the rank and privilege.
The average person on the streets is donating money in mosques every Friday for the support of Hamas. Many Saudis are sending loads of cash to Hamas. It is their governments that are out of step with popular opinion, not the othe way around.
As to the Israelis accepting the right of a Palestinian state, I guess it depends on what you call a state. Lets look at the last offer given to the Palestinians and see if you would accept it for our own country.
The Palestinians would have no control over their borders. They would have no control over their own natural resources, Israel would maintain the rights to such things as water even though they are located in Palestinian lands. Palestinians would have no control over their own airspace. Israelis would retain the right, at any time of their choosing, to enter Palestinian lands and conduct military operations. The Palestinians would not have the right to raise a national army and any security force would be restricted to light weaponry, they would not have the right to buy or maintain heavy weaponry and armour.
The Israelis would not leave all of the West Bank, rather they would retain large chunks of land in return for smaller amounts of much less quality elsewhere. The Israelis would not allow the Palestinians to have East Jerusalem as their capital and would not allow any right of return, whether real or symbolic.
It is clear that this is not a state in any real or meaningful sense of the word. You wouldn’t live in a state like that, why ask the Palestinians to do so?
The Hamas “official” line is no recognition, but many leaders have quietly let it be known that they would be willing to move on that issue if Israel move on issues as well. Of course Israel isn’t interested.
If Israel was really interested in peace they would have taken the offer of the Arab League of full diplomatic and economic peace with ALL Arab countries in return for a return to pre-1967 borders. Instead they turned it down. If Israel wanted peace they would have taken the offer.
But if you look at it, why should they take the offer? They have the settlements and these settlements are growing in leaps and bounds, they are relatively safe because of the Berlin style wall they are imprisoning the Palestinians in and the US will continue to bank roll the whole operation. They are continuing to manufacture “facts on the ground” that will continue to make their position better and better whilst hurting the Palestinians.
Why should Israel make peace? They shouldn’t (from an Israeli standpoint) and they wont. They will hold out as long as they can in the hopes that some Quisling like Abbas, very unpopular with the Palestinian people, will make some deal that will sell out the right of return, sell out Jerusalem, sell out the best land in the West Bank. Even a weak tool like Arafat wouldn’t do this.
Like he said during the last round of negotiations, that to sign the agreement on offer was to sign his own death warrant. Palestinians will not accept the Bantustan vassal state that is the only offer Israel will give. 90% of Palestinians would support the Arab League offer of pre-1967, even the Hamas “rejectionists” as you call them. But it doesnt matter as Israel has no intentions of going back to anything near 1967 borders.
June:29:2007 - 17:08
Abu Sinan: You are mistaken. Both the US and the EU recognize the results of the election. They also agree that the elections were fair.
What you seem to have a hard time realizing is that just as the Palestinians made a choice about what kind of government they wanted by electing Hamas, the US, the EU, the other Arab states, and even Israel are also free to exercise their free choice. Their choice is to have nothing to do with Hamas. With a few exceptions, these entities are not trying to do away with Hamas through violence. But they see no need, no obligation to give anything to Hamas to make its political life easier. Why should they? What Hamas stands for, what it wants, is not what the international community wants.
I think one of the real shames of the Arab states is that they have refused–with the exception of Jordan–to permit Palestinians living in the camps within their borders to become citizens of those states. Instead, they have cynically used the Palestinians’ misery to keep lit the futile torch of ‘the right of return’. That is simply not going to happen, at least not in this universe.
The Palestinians are not going to get a better offer than what King Abdullah has put forth and the Arab League has supported. That does not include a ‘right of return’, but instead a right to have their plight acknowledged and addressed. That is going to mean financial compensation, not farms that have been under parking lots for the past 35 years. To think otherwise is to live in dreams.
It is possible for both Israel and the Palestinians to have their capitals in Jerusalem. It is not possible for either of them to have Jerusalem all to themselves. They will have to share it. Even better, IMO, is for neither of them to have it, but for it instead to become an international religious city, with its municipal governance shared on a rotating basis among the three religions that hold it sacred: No state capital, only a mayor’s office.
If the Palestinians can get their act(s) together, and at least return to the status quo of 2002, there is a real chance for peace. But both the Palestinians and the Israelis are going to have to start living in the real world, not their dreams.
Yes, that means closing down most of the Israeli settlements. It means that the Palestinians are going to have to take the best deal available, not the best deal they can think of. The world, including the US, will support a realistic solution. Intransigence for the sake of being stubborn or brave or ‘divinely inspired’ isn’t going to work for either side anymore. The rest of the world–including the Arab world–is sick to death of the Palestinians being their own worst enemy, constantly being baled out by one side or another. This time around, the world is going to let the Palestinians live in their own swill until they get smart.