Monday, January 22, 2007

a worthy read!

Canada making enemies, Hamas warns
Palestinian minister shunned by MacKay
MARK MACKINNON 22/01/07 Globe and Mail

.... The hatred for Israel runs deep in Mr. Zahar, who was among the founding members of Hamas 20 years ago and is now seen as the leader of its radical wing. At one point, he pulled a photograph out of his wallet of his oldest son, Khaled, who was killed in 2003 during an Israeli assassination attempt against Mr. Zahar. “Killed in my house. He is my son. What justified that?”

Angrily, he said that if Mr. MacKay did not see the logic of Hamas's position, he needed a lesson on the history of the region.

Speaking in practised, if occasionally imprecise English, he said that Hamas members were not terrorists, but freedom fighters against the 40-year-old Israeli occupation, no different from the French Resistance to Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

He said it was Canada and the West that needed to change and reach out to the Islamic world now for the sake of future generations.

“Canadians have to change their extremist government, or else they're going to lose their credibility as a neutral state,” he warned. “You cannot create a new enemy without a price.”



Canada making enemies, Hamas warns
Palestinian minister shunned by MacKay

MARK MACKINNON 22/01/07 Globe and Mail

GAZA CITY —
Canada risks making itself an enemy of the Palestinian people and of the broader Islamist movement by boycotting Hamas and openly siding with Israel, Palestinian foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar said Sunday after he was shunned by visiting Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.

During an hour-long interview that he said was a replacement for the meeting Mr. MacKay denied him, Mr. Zahar alternated between saying he was anxious to open a dialogue with Canada and saying he looked forward to the moment that Canadians voted the “extremist” Conservative government out of office.

Had Mr. MacKay travelled to Gaza City to meet with him, Mr. Zahar said, he would have found an open door. However, Mr. Zahar said he would have challenged the minister to explain why Canada led the world in suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won legislative elections a year ago. The United States and the European Union, which like Canada consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization, also stopped giving aid, leaving the already cash-poor government bankrupt and unable to pay full salaries to its 170,000 civil servants for most of the past year.

“I would ask him very simply: What is the moral basis for these sanctions and boycott?” Mr. Zahar said, adding that the sanctions have primarily hurt ordinary Palestinians while leaving the Hamas government standing.

Canada has forbidden its diplomats from dealing with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Mr. Zahar said that Canada was not acting in its national interests by joining the boycott, but rather serving those of Israel and the United States.

“What is Israel providing you? Nothing. What are you achieving from such policies? What have you gained? Nothing, except the hatred of innocent people. If you would like to be the tail of the American dog, it's up to you. Or you can be a leading country, a linkage,” he said.

“For the sake of the future — one, two or three decades from now — the only way to help everybody, everywhere is to co-operate with the Islamic movements and Arabic countries because they are not your enemy.”

Addressing the absent Mr. MacKay, he added: “The question is very simple: Why do you refuse to meet us? As a human being, as a man, what is preventing you from meeting us? We are not eating human flesh.”

He said the Canadian government should listen to its ambassadors in the region, who he suggested would understand well that Hamas represents the Palestinian public.

Mr. MacKay met with his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, Sunday and will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Monday. On Friday, he met with the moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who is not a member of Hamas and whom Mr. Zahar dismissed as part of the “old era” of Palestinian politics that ended with Hamas's election victory.

Hamas and Mr. Abbas's secular Fatah movement are locked in a power struggle that has frequently devolved into violence, leaving dozens of Palestinians dead. Talks aimed at forming a government of national unity involving both factions have thus far proved fruitless.

When told that Mr. MacKay would likely have responded to his questions by insisting that Hamas still needs to meet the three conditions of the international community — denouncing violence, recognizing Israel and respecting the agreements signed by the previous Palestinian government — the 62-year-old former surgeon turned hostile.

“What borders of Israel should we recognize? The border that includes the Golan Heights? The borders it occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem? What type of Israel should we recognize? What is the constitution of Israel? And what is our border?”

Later in the interview, he suggested that there should be a single Islamic state stretching across the Middle East, adding that there was plenty of space in Canada to establish a Jewish homeland.

The hatred for Israel runs deep in Mr. Zahar, who was among the founding members of Hamas 20 years ago and is now seen as the leader of its radical wing. At one point, he pulled a photograph out of his wallet of his oldest son, Khaled, who was killed in 2003 during an Israeli assassination attempt against Mr. Zahar. “Killed in my house. He is my son. What justified that?”

Angrily, he said that if Mr. MacKay did not see the logic of Hamas's position, he needed a lesson on the history of the region.

Speaking in practised, if occasionally imprecise English, he said that Hamas members were not terrorists, but freedom fighters against the 40-year-old Israeli occupation, no different from the French Resistance to Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

He said it was Canada and the West that needed to change and reach out to the Islamic world now for the sake of future generations.

“Canadians have to change their extremist government, or else they're going to lose their credibility as a neutral state,” he warned. “You cannot create a new enemy without a price.”

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