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The Hamas "Peace" Gambit

[Washington Post] Charles Krauthammer - The New York Times conducted a five-hour interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal at his Damascus headquarters. Hamas is offering a peace plan with a two-state solution. Except the offer is not a peace but a truce that expires after 10 years. Meaning that after Israel has fatally weakened itself by settling millions of hostile Arab refugees in its midst, and after a decade of Hamas arming itself within a Palestinian state that narrows Israel to eight miles wide - Hamas restarts the war against a country it remains pledged to eradicate. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is reluctant to agree to a Palestinian state before he knows what kind of state it will be. That elementary prudence should be shared by anyone who's been sentient the last three years. The Palestinians already have a state, an independent territory with not an Israeli settler or soldier living on it. It's called Gaza - a terror base, Islamist in nature, Iranian-allied, militant and aggressive, that has fired more than 10,000 rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli civilians. If this is what a West Bank state is going to be, it would be madness for Israel or America to accept such a two-state solution. Which is why Netanyahu insists that the PA first build institutions - social, economic and military - to anchor a state that could actually carry out its responsibilities to keep the peace.
2009-05-08 06:00:00
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