The worldwide festival of hypocrisy over the Israeli election is utterly flabbergasting. The same Arab nations that keep calling on Israel to deal with terrorists like Hamas and Hezbullah are now insisting that a Likud government will lead the Middle East into nothing but trouble and war.
The Palestinians and Arab countries fear the establishment of an Israeli government which will not include the Kadima party, senior Palestinian Authority officials told Ynet on Sunday after discussing the matter with many sources in the Arab world.
Arab newspapers are also warning of Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu’s “government of war”, which will not put the peace process at the top of its priorities.
Hezbullah regularly utters threats against Israel, and against Jews the world over, and yet, the Arab world doesn’t seem to have a problem with the group sitting pretty in the government of Lebanon.
Hamas absolutely doesn’t have the peace process at the top of its priorities.
A Qassam rocket exploded Sunday morning in an open area near the border fence in the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council. There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Palestinian gunmen have continued firing rockets from Gaza even after the three-week Israeli offensive in the Strip, despite the talks for a renewed truce between Israel and Hamas.
On Saturday night, a rocket hit southern Ashkelon at around 10:20 pm after an air raid siren sounded in the city’s southern industrial zone. There were no injuries and no damage was caused.
Friday saw some 10 mortar shells fired at the western Negev communities. Some of them landed on Palestinian territory. Military sources estimated that the barrage was the first stage of a combined terror attack, which failed. An IDF force operating near the Kissufim crossing fired back at the gunmen.
And yet, you aren’t hearing worldwide condemnations of Hamas. In fact, you’re hearing worldwide insistence that Israel deal with Hamas, as well as worldwide capitulation by the cravens who are dealing with Hamas.
European nations have opened a direct dialogue with Hamas as the US intensifies the search for Middle East peace under Barack Obama.
In the first meeting of its kind, two French senators travelled to Damascus two weeks ago to meet the leader of the Palestinian Islamist faction, Khaled Meshal, The Independent has learned. Two British MPs met three weeks ago in Beirut with the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Usamah Hamdan. “Far more people are talking to Hamas than anyone might think,†said a senior European diplomat. “It is the beginning of something new – although we are not negotiating.â€
Mr Hamdan said yesterday that since the end of last year, MPs from Sweden, the Netherlands and three other western European nations, which he declined to identify, had consulted with Hamas representatives.
“They believe they made a mistake by blacklisting Hamas,†he said, referring to the EU decision in 2003 to add the political wing of the movement to its list of terrorist organisations. “Now they know they have to talk to Hamas.â€
They have to talk to Hamas, but the Europeans don’t want to deal with Likud. Why is that, I wonder? How is it that they’re willing to open negotiations with a murderous group of terrorists who have declared their intent to destroy Israel, yet the EU would rather not deal with the democratically-elected leader of the party that gave back the Sinai to Egypt back when nobody ever thought Israel would give back an inch of land? The logic of the world escapes me. Kadima is the party that led Israel into two wars in the last two years, but the Likud is the party that everyone says is the party of war.
Back to the Arab world:
According to the source, the Arab world understands that a right-wing government means diplomatic paralysis, and this may bring an end to the Arab peace initiative and increase the chances for another wave of violence in the region.
Really? Diplomatic paralysis? You mean like the negotiations on Gilad Shalit that Hamas has been conducting for three years?
As always, Israeli Double Standard Time is in full view, but only those not affected by it are able to see it for what it truly is. The staggering hypocrisy of the world regarding Israel continues.