|
Trending Topics
|
Source: http://www.thestar.com/article/573793
Welcome to the New Middle East
[Toronto Star] Martin Regg Cohn - As vital as it is to engage the Palestinians, it is no less crucial to enlist the Israelis in a confidence-building process. I covered the Israeli disengagements from the territories in the mid-1990s. Back then, Hamas was disavowing the Oslo Peace Process as a sellout and sabotaging it with suicide bombers. In my interviews with the top Hamas leadership - Mahmoud Zahar, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and Sheikh Ahmad Yassin - there was never talk of two-state solutions or one-state solutions. Rather, their solution was to send the Jews back where they came from. If the Israelis have taken a hard line now against Hamas, scores of suicide bombings and thousands of missiles later, it is because Hamas responded to the withdrawal from Gaza with an unprovoked assault. Hamas still refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist (no mere bargaining tactic). And it remains a vexing interlocutor for other Arab partners - notably the Palestinian Authority, the Saudis and Egyptians.