Hamas puppetmasters? Palestinians push Obama, Clinton to “bully” Israelis

The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas requested that the Obama Administration and the U.S. State Department lean on the Israeli government to get them to halt the eviction of a Hamas lawmaker from Jerusalem.

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One of the top Palestinian negotiators, Saeb Erekat, who visited Washington, delivered a letter from President Abbas to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. According to Xinhua news service, Abbas' letter urged the Obama administration to intervene on behalf of Hamas lawmaker Mohammed Abu Tair. An Israeli court judge had ruled last Wednesday to evict Abu Tair from his Jerusalem home and return him to Ramallah in the Palestinian occupied West Bank. Israeli authorities had first detained Abu Tair in June for entering East Jerusalem after his residency permit was revoked following the 2006 parliament elections in which Hamas won a number of government positions. In addition, an Israeli intelligence source said that two Hamas lawmakers and a former Hamas minister were being sought in order to be deported from Israel. The men are allegedly hiding somewhere in Jerusalem in fear of being deported as well. According to officials with the U.S. State Department, Abbas wrote to Clinton that the eviction of the Jerusalem residents "adds more obstacles to the efforts in reviving the peace process." But the Israeli security chiefs claim they are merely taking precautions given Hamas' continuing threats and past terror attacks on the Jewish people. "The Israelis are doing what any sane and caring government would do: protecting its citizens and visitors from individuals tied to terrorist groups," said political strategist Mike Baker on Sunday. "The Palestinians know that in Obama and Clinton they have friends who have a history of siding with the Palestinians. In fact. Hillary Clinton made a name for herself when she supported Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). And President Obama is a close friend of a Palestinian supporter who is now a professor at Columbia University in New York," said Baker. In a World Net Daily story by Aaron Klein that accused Obama of accepting donations from Palestinians, then Sen. Barack Obama's campaign contended it returned $33,500 in illegal contributions from Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza, but the donors told Aaron Klein of WND they never received any money from the Obama campaign. President Abbas threatened Israel and the U.S. with ending the Palestinian National Authority if peace talks collapse again. He told viewers of the Palestinian Satellite Television Network, or PSTN, during the live televised interview that he had informed the Israelis many time that if the peace talks fail, he would dissolve the Palestinian Authority. Abbas also claimed during the interview that the Obama administration had informed him that it will continue its talks with Israel over freezing settlement and resuming the stalled peace talks. "I won't accept to keep the negotiations with Israel, if the latter resumes construction of settlements," said Abbas. "The U.S. told me that it will keep talking to Israel and it can't say whether these talks had succeeded or failed."