No parsing of words can deny this fact. Unless and until HAMAS and the PLO explicitly and conclusively recognize Israel’s right to exist, negotiations to create a two-state solution are pointless.
HAMAS Charter redux: Can a leopard change its spots?
One of Israel’s key demands of Palestinians is that the Jewish state be recognized as legitimate. This month the Palestinian terrorist group HAMAS published a revised charter that purports to show the organization has moderated because it dropped the call for Israel’s destruction contained in its original 1988 charter. The new charter contains flowery language about democracy and civil rights “for all,” and makes no mention of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though in the 1988 document it defined itself as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite these superficial changes the fundamental goals of HAMAS have not changed.
For decades the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and HAMAS (an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement) have played a good cop-bad cop routine on the world stage, with PLO as the “good cop” and HAMAS as the bad. While the PLO has engaged in endless negotiations to “resolve the Palestinian issue,” HAMAS has conducted a virtually non-stop campaign of terror. The West’s efforts to broker a solution highlight the absurd fantasy of this political dance, for how could the PLO ever broker any kind of agreement with Israel while HAMAS plainly rejects all peace efforts? And how are we to take the PLO seriously when its operatives raise their children to be suicide bombers?
