New Palestinian govt won't recognize Israel: Hamas (Reuters)

[Eugene]

New Palestinian govt won't recognize Israel: Hamas

2 hours, 2 minutes ago

GAZA (Reuters) - The Palestinian unity government which will be formed under an agreement
reached in Saudi Arabia will not recognize Israel, a political adviser to Hamas Prime
Minister Ismail Haniyeh said on Saturday.

"The issue of recognition was not addressed at all (in Mecca)," Ahmed Youssef said. "In the
platform of the new government there will be no sign of recognition (of Israel), regardless
of the pressures the United States and the Quartet would exert," he said.

Youssef said Haniyeh hoped to form the new government before a meeting of the Quartet of
Middle East mediators on February 21 and urged the Quartet to lift sanctions on the
Palestinians.

"The pretext by the Quartet to continue the boycott of Hamas members in the government
should end because they are wrong policies that will only push toward more tension and
possibly toward more conflict in the Palestinian territories," he said.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070210/ts_nm/palestinians_hamas_dc_2

[papau]

1. So the West should fund a government dedicated not to two states - but to death and ending the

Jewish state of Israel?

[madrchsod]

2. saudia arab is america`s best friends

israel is america`s best friends....i`m confused

[pampango]

3. If (and it is a big "if") Hamas does "respect" agreements made

with Israel, as they pledged to do, that is a good step and aid to the Palestinians should start to flow again. Obviously, if it turns out that agreement was made under "duress" in Saudi Arabia and will not be adhered to once everyone is back in Gaza, then nothing has changed other than SA has been burned as an intermediary. Unfortunately, the Palestinian civil war will heat up again. Let us hope that does not happen.

(In saying this, I realize that if the agreements does not hold everyone will blame everyone else for its breakdown and the spin meisters from each side will have another field day.)

[Tom Joad]

4. Israel has never recognized a Palestinian state.

http://www.almubadara.org/new/edetails.php?id=1172
Interview of Jeff Halper, A professor of anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and peace activist for over 30 years, Halper co-founded the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) in 1997, after the Oslo peace process collapsed. The organization exposes the injustice of the occupation and asserts the crucial role of international civil society to end it.

Excerpt:

Israeli government recently takes the unilateral policy to Palestine. Why has it been imposed?

Halper:Israel has never recognized and acknowledged that Palestinian people are living in this country. The Zionism has always denied another people and their rights. Until today, the idea is that the whole country, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, is our country, exclusively only for Jewish.

The Oslo peace process was the game. They never really negotiated with Palestinians. In the Oslo peace accords, it demanded the Palestinians to recognize Israel in 78 percent of the country, but it never recognized the rights of Palestinians. Israel seemed to be negotiating, but doubled the settlements in that period. It didn't see any connection between negotiations and what was doing on the ground. That's why the second intifada came out, because Palestinians said ‘What is this? We are sitting for seven years to talk to you, now there were twice the settlements than the beginning of the peace process.’

We think, as Israelis, that Jews and Arabs should live together. Palestinians have rights of self-determination just like we have. We have to fight also for their rights. One of our slogans is ‘we refuse to be their enemies.’

We are against the Israeli policy of the occupation and the displacement. If you create an apartheid situation, if you lock another people into the prison, in the end, you cannot develop a healthy, normal and prosper society. The occupation, conflict, terrorism, settlements, all affects the Israeli society and economy. As long as the occupation continues, Israel itself cannot be free.