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Hamas "Just Waiting for Abbas to Die" as Palestinian Unity Deal Falters
(JNS.org) Yaakov Lappin - Hamas' latest effort to join a Palestinian unity government is little more than a facade, and the terror group's top immediate objective is to seize control of the West Bank and turn it into a second Gaza, according to the assessments of defense experts. "Hamas is just waiting for Abbas to die, or that he agrees to elections, to try and take over the West Bank," said Dr. Ely Karmon, a senior scholar at Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT). "And Hamas is again talking about close ties with Iran and Hizbullah." Dr. Col. (res.) Moshe Elad, former head of security coordination between the IDF and the PA, said IDF-PA coordination is "the insurance policy" that the PA has for its survival in the West Bank, since "Hamas is very strong there....It's a threat that exists all of the time....Abbas knows that the five to six battalions the PA has cannot keep him in power over time on their own. He needs Israel." Elad has counted more than 25 unification attempts between Hamas and the PA since 2007.