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Hamas' Latest Gambit

[New York Jewish Week] Stewart Ain - Hamas' offer Monday of a 10-year truce with Israel provided it retreat to its pre-1967 borders and grant the right of return to Palestinian refugees was seen in Israel as nothing more than an attempt to grab headlines. "They don't want to be frozen out," said Asher Susser, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He pointed out that Hamas' top political leader, Khalid Meshal, made the offer in an interview with the New York Times. Susser said Hamas had made the offer many times before. It is "being repeated now because it is the eve of the Netanyahu visit to the United States" on May 18. Avraham Sela, an expert on Hamas and a professor in Hebrew University's department of international relations, said President Obama's promotion of a two-state solution has put undue pressure on Israel "without much talk of what is expected or demanded from the other side." At the same time, he said the Palestinian Authority "is hardly surviving," being artificially resuscitated by the Israeli Army deployed in the West Bank. "It would take just a few months for Hamas to take over [if the army left]," Sela said. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, pointed out that Meshal's claim that there would be a 10-year truce if Israel agreed to its demands "does not mean it would end all acts of resistance and that there would not continue to be a build-up of arms. We should learn not to be fooled by declarations designed for Western consumption and to pressure Israel."
2009-05-08 06:00:00
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