Monday January 23, 2006

I've Been Thinking:

Over the weekend the London Arabic paper al Shark al Awsat ran an interview with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Geit. The content shocked me.

The interview quotes Egypt's foreign minister as saying that after the Palestinian election this week Hamas will recognize Israel. He said this in light of the cease fire that has been in place over the past few months asking: "with whom was the agreement - a ghost."

I understand his point.
Hamas already had an agreement with Israel so it will be easy for them to normalize relations once they have power in the Palestinian government.
The problem is that Hamas has not even hinted at this.
Actually just the opposite, there have been consistent and constant messages from Hamas as to how they will cut off all relations with Israel.
There have even been Hamas religious leaders forbidding their worshippers from voting because the end result will be to force relations and compromise with Israel.

We'll see, it's only a matter of days.