Abbas Warns No Hamas Members Who Don’t Recognize Israel in Unity Government: First Step to Fiction?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Sunday that no Hamas member who does not recognize the Jewish state will serve in the government. He made his comments to a 12-person delegation of Israelis from the political left who formerly served as members of parliament or the cabinet. Some see Abbas’s statement as an answer to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s declaration that reconciliation means “recognize the state of Israel, dismantle Hamas’s military wing and cut ties with Iran that calls for Israel’s destruction.” But while Abbas reportedly spoke of the importance of a unified government and unified security forces, many believe a “unified” security force that includes Hamas fighters will provide cover for Hamas’s continued terrorism. Analysts believe that with the Gaza-based Islamists drawing even closer to Iran, there is no reason to believe that Hamas will surrender either its weapons or its determination to destroy Israel to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority. It has also been suggested that Abbas’s statement about excluding from the government those who do not recognize Israel sets up the Hizbullah paradigm for repetition in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In Lebanon, the Hizbullah terrorist organization, an Iranian terror proxy, has virtual control of the Lebanese government and Lebanese army under the fiction of separate “political” and “military” personas. The United States and other Western governments turn a blind eye to the Hizbullah’s power and influence while continuing to provide aid in contravention of American law which prohibits funding entities on the State Department terrorist list.