Hamas Gives a Reminder

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
cfr.org..
02 August '12..

What are the beliefs of the terrorist group Hamas and how likely is it any peace can be negotiated with Hamas? Hamas is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the advent of an MB government in Egypt–with which American officials at the level of the Secretaries of Defense and State are now dealing happily–may lead some analysts to suggest that we, and Israel, should overcome our refusal to deal with Hamas.

So we can be grateful that Hamas supplied us with a useful reminder of who it is and what it believes. The Arab news site Maan today reports that Hamas has denounced the visit to Auschwitz of a Palestinian Authority official named Ziad al-Bandak, who is an aide to PA president Mahmoud Abbas.

“It was an unjustified and unhelpful visit that served only the Zionist occupation,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas….Barhoum further called Bandak’s visit to Auschwitz, a camp where the Nazis killed 1.5 million people, most of them Jews but also other Polish citizens, during World War Two, as “a marketing of a false Zionist alleged tragedy.”

The Hamas Charter, the group’s constitutional or founding document, is a vicious anti-Semitic screed, but once in a while it is suggested that that’s an old document that does not really represent the organization’s views any more. That’s false, as this incident shows: hatred of Jews, including Holocaust denial, remains central to the Hamas belief system. It is a terrorist group, not a potential negotiating partner. Its hold on Gaza must be ended, not accommodated.

Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2012/08/02/a-reminder-from-hamas/

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.
.