I’ve discussed the interest Egypt has in Palestinian peace and stability. And Egypt may cancel Palestinian talks because Hamas doesn’t want to play nice.
The Egyptians may postpone next week’s “national reconciliation” conference for the Palestinian factions following threats by Hamas to boycott the gathering, Palestinian Authority officials said Thursday.
In a separate development, the Hamas government decided Thursday to ban Fatah supporters from marking the fourth anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat. Hamas’s security forces arrested dozens of Fatah supporters in the southern Gaza Strip in the past few days to prevent them from preparing for the anniversary celebrations.
The PA officials told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas has informed the Egyptians that the movement has many reservations regarding the Egyptian initiative for solving the crisis between Hamas and Fatah.
Some of us have had some suspicion of the nature of President-elect Obama’s connections to people who are pro-Palestinian, and anti-Israel (not necessarily the same thing). If indeed he has such relationships, perhaps he should try his hand at getting Hamas and Fatah to get along. Of course, the larger problem here is Hamas, not that Fatah is full of choir boys. Obama’s Palestinian cheering section may have been diminished by his selection of Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff, who has served in the IDF, and has definitely been a supporter of Israel in the past.
Obama has talked very big, and his supporters even bigger, about how he will improve America’s standing in the world, and about his ability to talk to anyone and negotiate. I continue to pray for our young, and very inexperienced president, and I hope you are doing the same, even if you are pessimistic about the outcome. The stakes for Israel are life and death.
Gaza is basically an ammo dump for Hamas, these days. Things are going to get worse before they get better, if they ever do. Unfortunately, there are disturbing parallels between outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Obama. Olmert had some appearances of corruption that turned out to be true. At this point, I hope Obama did NOT solicit or receive significant campaign funds from offshore, or receive illegally large donations from people abusing his online donation system. There are other irregularities in how Obama got elected, and aspects of his background concerning which he has not been exactly forthcoming.
But if full proof of all that turned up now, and even if he was pressured into resigning by a vengeful media pretending fake indignation at having been fooled, BIDEN would be President. Lions, tigers and bears, oh my. While I fear Obama is a lightweight who will have no strength to resist Congressional Democrat craziness, I KNOW that Biden would be all for it, every bit. The man’s a walking/talking Saturday Night Live skit.
The USA does not need a debilitating presidency paralleling the catastrophe that Olmert has been for Israel.
At the same time, if Obama does believe his own press releases and is a victim of “lower the level of the oceans” megalo-messi-mania, he is going to be in for a rude awakening when and if he tries to get Hamas and Fatah to play nice together.
Pray that the world gives him time to find his sea-legs before shelling his ship.
