[Spectator-UK] Melanie Phillips - The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee has reiterated its view that Britain should start talking to Hamas. Yet talking to Hamas remains a seriously bad option. There is all the difference in the world between "engaging" with former terrorists and "engaging" with people who are still strapping on the suicide bomb belts and assembling the rocketry to attack Israel. No, this is not like talking to the IRA because the IRA was beaten into a permanent stalemate; that's why it asked to join the political process because it decided that it was only by renouncing violence that it could achieve its aims. History tells us that every time states have "engaged" with still active terrorists, terrorism gets much, much worse.
2009-07-31 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive