(New York Times) Isabel Kershner - At the Palestinian unity talks that began on Tuesday in Cairo, the delegation representing Hamas is led by a man accused of plotting to overthrow the president of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political scientist at Birzeit University in the West Bank, said, "Hamas cannot change its politics in order to be part of the PLO," led by Abbas. At the same time, "the PLO cannot accept Hamas without it changing its policies, or it will lose its international recognition....What is most probably going to happen is much, much less than reconciliation, but some little bit of progress beyond the current reality." Shalom Harari, a former senior adviser on Palestinian affairs to Israel's Defense Ministry, said, "the maximum that can be achieved is an interim arrangement with some changes at the crossings - a mini reconciliation."
2017-10-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive