By Stan Goodenough
Aug 15, 2007
The Palestinian Arab terrorist organization Hamas has expressed satisfaction with recent calls by European politicians to open dialogue with it despite its vitriolic hatred of, and commitment to destroying, Israel.
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said Tuesday he believed that because Hamas' existence is a fact the group should be integrated into the land-for-peace process.
His call comes hard on the heels of a British parliamentary committee's appeasement-saturated recommendation that the United Kingdom should immediately begin holding talks with "moderate" elements it holds are present inside the Palestinian Arab terrorist Hamas organization, the Lebanese Hizb'allah, and the inter-Arab Muslim Brotherhood.
They indicate an accelerating impetus towards trying to reconcile the Islamist terrorist group Hamas with the more secular terrorist group Fatah led by Mahmoud Abbas.
Hamas violently seized power of the Gaza Strip from Abbas last month.
Israeli officials have reacted with alarm and anger to Europe's agitations.
The country's ambassador to England, Zvi Hefetz, said the calls to dialogue with Hamas risk "damaging the peace [sic ] process just as a few green shoots [of hope] are beginning to show."
His boss, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, slammed these recommendations.
"This is wrong. This is a mistake. Big mistake. Huge," she railed. "Any compromise with terror, any compromise with these extremists" could undermine the new Palestinian Authority set up by its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.
Europe, which is overwhelmingly pro-Arab and deeply antisemitic, is not likely to be overly concerned by Israel's remonstrations, and the Israeli trend is to back down and mute its protests if a sympathetic ear is not found