If only Colin Powell had spoken up like this about Iraq before he helped invade it.
AP Washington
'Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday the international diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East should find some way to talk to Hamas.
'"I don't think you can just cast them into outer darkness and try to find a solution to the problems of the region without taking to account the standing that Hamas has in the Palestinian community," Powell said in a radio interview.
'He said Hamas, which controls Gaza, is not going away and enjoys considerable support among the Palestinian people.
'"They won an election that we insisted upon having," Powell said.'
AN ADMISSION FROM THE ZIONIST SIDE
From the Jewish Telegraph Agency (Baltimore Jewish Times) July 17:
‘Israel and the Quartet’s strategy has been to isolate Hamas, considered a terrorist group ["Considered" by whom?], and support Abbas. If Palestinian standards of living can be raised under Abbas’ regime while Hamas is unable to deliver in Gaza, then more Palestinians likely will support Fatah and its position of acceptance of a peaceful two-state solution to the conflict, the reasoning goes.’
Does that not sum up my accusations in my previous post? Here’s more of the JTA article:
‘A group of 10 European foreign ministers recently wrote an open letter to Blair calling the Quartet’s "road map" peace plan a failure, urging Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians and recommending the establishment of an international force to deal with the conflict.
‘Clara Marina, a research fellow at London’s Centre for European Reform, said the letter to Blair demonstrates a widely held view among European leaders that the Quartet’s policy of isolating Hamas has been responsible, at least in part, for the current suffering among the Palestinians, and even Hamas’ military takeover of the Gaza Strip. . . . By all accounts, Gaza is teetering on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. Some human rights groups lay the blame on Israel, saying the Jewish state put Gaza in an economic stranglehold by closing its border crossings. [”Some” lay the blame on Israel? Who doesn’t?]
‘In their letter to Blair, the foreign ministers urged the former British leader “to pressure Israel to arrange for the transfer of all taxes due, the release of the thousands of prisoners who do not have blood on their hands," as well as “a freeze in new settlements and the evacuation of unauthorized settlements."’
