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Should the U.S. Insist Hamas Accept Israel's Right to Exist?

[McClatchy-Tribune/Charlotte Observer] Lawrence J. Haas - Assume the following: A terrorist group gains control of Canada's Parliament and commits itself to America's destruction, crossing the border to launch a series of suicide bombings of shopping centers, pizza parlors and cafes that leave hundreds dead from Michigan to Montana. The group, which refuses to acknowledge America's right to exist, receives its funding, arms, training and other support from Iran, which seeks to "wipe America off the map." The group also works with like-minded terrorists in Mexico that, when not trying to topple the government there, are crossing America's southern border to cause murder and mayhem. The world community, worried about instability in North America, calls on Washington to negotiate with Canada's terrorists even as they refuse to accept America as a sovereign nation. Absurd? Of course! America would never negotiate with such an adversary. Nor should it ask the same of Israel, which faces a real-life adversary of the kind described above in Hamas. Hamas is an international outlaw. It seeks the destruction of a sovereign nation, respecting neither the borders between states nor the international system that blessed Israel's creation. We do not negotiate with terrorists that seek our demise. We should not ask others to do so. The writer is visiting senior fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in Washington.
2007-01-16 01:00:00
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