In typical newspaper-ese, Janine Zacharia reports in the Washington Post:
Israel has sought to isolate Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and has urged allies to do the same. But how to deal with Hamas as a political reality has largely eluded the international community since the Islamist group chose to participate in Palestinian elections, and won, in 2006. A year later, Hamas fought a bloody battle with rival Fatah and seized exclusive control of Gaza. Since then, Hamas leaders have expressed some openness to a two-state solution while maintaining the group’s charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel.
“[H]ow to deal with Hamas … largely eluded?”
Why not, “But the will to isolate, undermine and destroy Hamas has been absent from the international community?”
Barry Rubin points out that the administration’s latest plan for funding Gaza and, thus, Hamas is counterproductive if the “international community” wants peace:
This is truly amazing. There is no mention of even the Quartet conditions: nothing said about Hamas abandoning terrorism or accepting Israel’s existence or returning to recognition of the Palestinian Authority’s rule as the legitimate government. The statement is unconditional, absolutely unconditional. Only the “humanitarian” consideration counts, as if the U.S. government is a community organizer organizing a food stamp program.
And how does Zacharia write that leaders of Hamas have “expressed some openness to a state solution” with a straight face? After Israel loosened its blockade, Mahmoud al-Zahar was quoted:
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud a-Zahar called for West Bank residents to fire rockets into Israel, Israel Radio reported Sunday.
“There is no escaping from these rockets in the West Bank,” Zahar said to the east Jerusalem newspaper al-Quds. “Why should they only be in the Gaza Strip?”
What Hamas leaders say when they suggest in certain scripted moments that they might, if conditions are absolutely right and the planets are in alignment, accept a ceasefire Jewish state for ten years. But what they say in their unguarded moments is much more telling. One would assume that a newspaper reporter would know what statements are significant and which are merely BS designed to mislead a gullible public.
Crossposted on Yourish.
