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Abbas Needs Help Against Hamas

[Washington Post] Editorial - Each time Mahmoud Abbas has attempted to break the impasse between Fatah and the Islamic Hamas movement - the essential precondition for a resumption of the Middle East peace process - extremists backed by Syria and Iran have intervened to block any progress. On Saturday Abbas proposed that new elections be held for both his post and for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian legislature; armed attacks, including one on his own compound, began the next day. Abbas described how Hamas and its sponsors had paralyzed Palestinian government and made peace talks impossible. Khaled Mashaal, from a base in Damascus, has blocked political agreements between Hamas and Fatah, and has prevented the release of a captured Israeli soldier. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh flew to Tehran this month to accept tens of millions of dollars from the Iranian regime - and to announce that Hamas would never compromise with Israel. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made clear in a speech last month, a Palestinian government ready to recognize Israel and accept a two-state solution could advance rapidly toward that goal. For the process to start, Hamas' extreme leaders and their foreign sponsors have to be defeated or sidelined. Bargaining by Israel or the West with Syria or Iran is unlikely to be fruitful as long as the militants and their sponsors pay no price for their aggression. In Gaza, as in Lebanon, the moderates favored by the West need help that goes beyond offers to "engage" their enemies.
2006-12-20 01:00:00
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