02-Feb-17: What's the US view of Iran's friendly-ties initiative and the nuclear-capable rockets it doesn't plan to use?

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif [Image Source] There's

probably a simple reason for why he's laughing in so many

published news photos

There's some elaborate dancing going on as the US, Iran and Hamas make efforts to explain their relations with each another.

From a disturbing Reuters report published this afternoon:

Iran has tested a cruise missile called "Sumar" that is capable of carrying nuclear weapons in addition to test-firing a medium-range ballistic missile on Sunday, German newspaper Die Welt reported Thursday, citing unspecified intelligence sources... The newspaper said the Sumar cruise missile was built in Iran and traveled around 600 km in its first known successful test. The missile is believed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons and may have a range of 2,000 to 3,000 km, the paper said, citing intelligence sources... [T]he biggest advantage from Iran's point of view, a security expert told Die Welt, was that cruise missiles are not mentioned in any United Nations resolutions that ban work on ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons... Iran confirmed on Wednesday that it had test-fired a new ballistic missile, but said the test did not breach the Islamic Republic's nuclear agreement with world powers or a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the pact.

A nuclear agreement? As we (and others) keep saying there is no nuclear agreement. That's because the astoundingly ineffective JCPOA was never signed by the Iranians - deliberately. See "09-Sep-15: Figuring out what people have figured out about Iran and its nuclear plans" where we explain ourselves. But that's the undoubted bottom line: despite all the reportorial and editorial claims to the contrary, there is no signed agreement with Iran on its nuclear weapons program. And there almost certainly never will be.

What did happen, as the Reuters piece recounts, is that massive sanctions on the Iranians were lifted in January 2016 under the JCPOA in exchange for their agreeing to curb - such an ambiguous term - the Iranian nuclear program.

But according to the terms of a 2015 U.N. resolution endorsing the JCPOA, Iran

is still called upon to refrain from work on ballistic missiles designed to deliver nuclear weapons for up to eight years. [Reuters]

Aren't they the same as cruise missiles? No.

Cruise missiles are harder to counter than ballistic missiles since they fly at lower altitudes and can evade enemy radar, confounding missile defense missiles and hitting targets deep inside an opponent's territory... [Reuters]

Also yesterday, President Trump’s national security adviser announced in Washington that the US is putting Iran "on notice" for its ballistic missile test and warning of new sanctions:

Calling Iran a “destabilizing influence” in the Middle East, National Security Adviser Mike Flynn declared Wednesday: “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” The pronouncement marked a pivot away from the Obama administration’s policy of diplomatic engagement, which led to a 2015 multinational nuclear deal that has been denounced repeatedly by President Donald Trump and his aides. Iran has warned that new U.S. sanctions could constitute a violation of the nuclear deal, setting up a scenario in which the agreement could unravel—something that hardliners in both countries would welcome. Administration officials, while providing few specifics, said Mr. Trump has begun a process of reviewing current U.S. policy and is “considering a whole range of options,” including tougher sanctions. Asked if military force also was one of the options, the officials didn’t rule it out... “The important thing is here is that we’re communicating that Iranian behavior needs to be rethought by Tehran,” one senior official said. “That is something Tehran needs to think through, because we are considering these things in a different perspective.” Mr. Flynn said the latest missile launch was a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the nuclear deal and “called upon” Iran to avoid any activity related to missiles designed to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. ["Trump White House Puts Iran ‘On Notice’ After Missile Launch", Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2017

Iran's propaganda machine didn't see things that way and had already pushed back by Wednesday evening via FARS (often called a "semi-official" news agency of the Iranian regime), asserting that Iran's

missile program is legal as per International Law, has nothing to do with the nuclear deal, and is non-negotiable...  [and that] Washington's latest cat-and-mouse games with Tehran... seeks pretexts to decrease international pressures and condemnations following their thoughtless decision to ban Muslims and Syrian refugees from travelling to the United States... Missile tests are Iran’s inalienable right to defend its security and interests. No country or international body can have any say in this regard... Over the past decade, Iran has made steady and gradual advances in its missile development, pursuing advancement of its strategic missile capabilities with incremental increases in range and payload technology. Iran is developing all these defense capabilities through international cooperation, legal purchases, and indigenous development. As per International Law, nothing is wrong with that. Nothing at all. ["A Risky Proposition: Is Iran Ready to Drop Missile Defense?", FARS News Agency, February 1, 2017] 

So to what extent do the Iranians now see themselves as having to comply with American wishes? The answer suggested by the FARS article is: not so much:

Whatever one thinks of Iran, it has no ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons – unlike the United States, Israel, and their NATO allies. But it is always under constant military threat... [E]very now and then, the bloodthirsty warmongers reveal the real reason for viewing an Iranian missile defense capacity as unacceptable: The war against Iran is a risky proposition. Iranian ballistic missiles and military capabilities would prevent the US from attacking Iran at will. What scares the US is Iranian armed forces that have combat experience and a fighting doctrine of their own, able to take advantage of local and geographic factors, and design their combat style outside the traditional American box. That is what’s intolerable. [FARS]

We might be hearing more in the coming days about how intolerable US policy seems to the Iranians. Iran was

among seven Muslim-majority countries whose citizens he barred from the U.S. in an executive order Friday the White House said is aimed at keeping terrorists from entering the country. [National Security Adviser] Flynn said agreements Iran has made with the Obama administration and the U.N. are “weak and ineffective.” “Instead of being thankful to the United States for these agreements, Iran is now feeling emboldened,” he said... The senior U.S. officials briefing reporters on Mr. Flynn’s comments said the president at the moment doesn’t want “to take any action that would foreclose options or unnecessarily contribute to a negative response.” They also sought to separate the nuclear deal from U.S. concerns about Iran’s other actions such as ballistic missile tests. Tehran has maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful power generation and research, and that its missiles are conventional and for defensive purposes. [Wall Street Journal again]

A few hours ago, Bahram Qassemi who speaks for Iran's Foreign Ministry told interested parties that Flynn’s claims are “baseless, repetitive and provocative”. His statements appear in a report on the oddly-named Iranian PressTV website [here]:

Qassemi further expressed regret that instead of expressing gratitude for the Iranian nation’s continued anti-terror struggles, the US administration keeps leveling groundless accusations and adopting unwise policies, which practically promote terrorist groups... [He] further slammed as “inappropriate and discriminatory” Washington’s recent ban on the entry of travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations as well as refugees into the US [and] stressed that the Islamic Republic's regional policies are transparent, expressing Tehran’s keenness to have friendly ties with all regional states based on mutual respect and non-interference in their domestic affairs. ["US claims on Iran missile tests baseless, provocative: Foreign Ministry", PressTV, February 2, 2017]

If you're wondering how "Friendly ties with all regional states" translates into action, the jihadists of Hamas might have an answer.

Sami Abu Zuhri who, in addition to being an advocate for the usefulness of human shields, a groper of women, a sexual molestor of visiting reporters, a fan of slashing praying Jews to death in their synagogues and a one-time smuggling "mule" [all explained here], is one of Hamas' official spokes-thugs. He visited Algeria last weekend and while there was quoted [here] saying Hamas is keen to build "strong relations with all Arab and Islamic states, including Iran". Without giving any details, he said “Efforts and contacts are underway to boost relations with Iran and we hope we will achieve something positive”.

From here in Jerusalem, something positive is not the most likely of the outcomes we're expecting to see.

01-Nov-16: Again, Pal Arab armed security officer in Arab-on-Israeli terror attack

The IDF's Focus security checkpoint near Beit El, scene of last night's shooting attack [Image Source]

When prominent voices in the Palestinian Authority regime go public with extravagant praise of murderous violence directed at Israelis and Jews (which they are increasingly doing and with less restraint than in the past) it should not surprise that the Palestinian street - the rank-and-file of ordinary Palestinian Arab folk, take note and respond.

Armed attacks on Israelis by members of the various PA security apparatuses, though rarely reported that way by the mainstream news media, are also a growing reality.

Back in January, a Palestinian Arab who was employed by the PA as a security officer (here he is in official uniform) and armed bodyguard for the Ramallah District Attorney, opened fire at an IDF checkpoint near Beit El in the West Bank. As Times of Israel recounted at the time, he drove up to an IDF security checkpoint (called "Focus") by car and got out, opening fire with his handgun. His targets, all of them IDF service personnel, suffered serious gun-fire injuries before one of them shot the assailant, Amjad Sakari, 35, dead. Two of the victims were described as being in serious condition with bullet wounds to the neck and thigh. All were rushed to Jerusalem hospitals for emergency care.

What happened next is instructive. The gunman's body, draped (as another Times of Israel report says) in a Palestinian flag, was brought from the Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus to Jamain, a village south of Nablus, for a martyr's burial. Throngs of participants in the funeral shouted "Death to Israel" as the religious functionary - presumably also on the payroll of the PA - who conducted the ritual intoned

"It is time for the machine gun, to shoot 500 people... Muhammad’s army will return"

The Palestinian Arab media, quoted by Times of Israel, reported on the participation of high-ranking PA and Fatah officials among the thousands attending Sakari's funeral. They included Nablus governor Akram Rajoub. No one suggests the "Death to Israel" messaging was repudiated by any of the participants. In fact, to illustrate the wall-to-wall support in Palestinian Arab society for this kind of undertaking, special praise from Hamas for the shooting attack came via one of its more notorious spokespeople, Sami Abu Zuhri in a press release.

Two weeks later, on February 14, 2016, another PA security man, this time a PA police officer acting with a companion, opened fire on a group of Border Police officers at Jerusalem's Damascus Gate:

The policeman and his companion, carrying automatic weapons, shot at a group of Border Police officers who were receiving their nightly briefing before beginning patrols in the Old City’s Damascus Gate area. The Israeli officers fired back, hitting one assailant instantly and setting off in pursuit of the second, who was still shooting at the officers, police said. The second attacker was soon hit and killed by police fire as well. There were no injuries among the Israeli officers or bystanders. Both attackers were residents of the West Bank, police said. The Palestinian policeman was named as Omar Ahmed Amru, and the other as Mansur Yasser Shawamra. ["One of shooters at Damascus Gate was Palestinian policeman", Times of Israel, February 15, 2016]

Which brings us to yesterday, and another lethal Arab-on-Israeli attack launched by a policeman in the service of the Palestinian Authority. This attack, too, earned praise from Hamas

“We welcome the heroic operation carried out by the martyr officer Muhammad Turkman. We consider [the attack] a strong message in the face of Israeli crimes.” [Times of Israel, October 31, 2016]

And it took place at the same security checkpoint as the one from January 2016:

Three Israeli soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, in a shooting attack when a Palestinian police officer opened fire on them at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, officials said. The gunman approached the Focus checkpoint, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, and opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle at the troops stationed there, the army said... The gunman was named as Muhammad Turkman, a police officer from Qabatiya... [The PA says] Turkman served in a “special forces unit... In a statement, the Hamas terrorist organization lauded the attack and encouraged other members of the Palestinian security services to carry out similar attacks ["Palestinian cop wounds 3 IDF soldiers in a shooting attack", October 31, 2016 | Judah Ari Gross in Times of Israel]

All of the injured IDF soldiers are around 20. All suffered gunshot injuries. One remains in serious condition at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus hospital. And since Ma'an News Agency gets lavish financial backing from several European countries, allow us to mention that its Arabic report of the attack at the Focus checkpoint (but not the English-language version) says Turkman, the shooter, was executed by the Israelis in cold blood.

Chief Palestinian "peace" negotiator Saeb Erekat
illustrating "the distance between the Israeli and Palestinian sides"
without, as far as we know, taking  actual credit for how wide and
growing it is [Image Source: Abir Sultan / Flash90]

How do the highest-level PA insiders, and especially the "peace-makers" among them, view wanton violence of the sort in which their security people engage?

For example: the PA regime's high-profile chief negotiator for "peace" (that's the word he and his team use), Saeb Erekat was quoted [here] in the PA's official mouthpiece news channel, a week and a half ago calling the murderous actions of terrorists "sacrifices... acts of heroism, [an] ongoing battle with the occupation".

This is the same peace-making Erekat who last year published recommendations for how the PA ought to go about achieving its strategic goals. They're worth thinking about. An excellent but little-noticed analysis by Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, a respected Israeli commentator ["The Palestinian Leadership’s Regression in the Peace Process"] lays them out. Peace-man Erekat called for

• Strategic cooperation with the terrorists of Hamas and of Palestinian Islamic Jihad by means of integrating them into the PLO’s institutions.
• The waging of an all-out “peaceful popular struggle” against Israel. "Peaceful" is defined by the Palestinian Arab leadership as referring to local terror attacks.
• The rejection of all proposals for a settlement of issues - whether temporary or even partial - with Israel
• A escalating legal battle against Israel in international organizations and courts arena aimed at constraining Israel’s ability to defend itself against Palestinian Arab terror.

The list goes on and is worth a few minutes' reading. [UPDATE: See also "03-Nov-16: Saeb Erekat's heroes"]

For some of the terror-encouraging quotes and speeches of Erekat's boss, PA president Mahmoud Abbas, we refer you to Palestinian Media Watch which devotes several departments [here] to his ongoing public acts of incitement.

Lest anyone out there believes Palestinian Arab public opinion is somehow immune to round-the-clock exhortations to violence, bigotry and murder like those coming from the highest-levels of the PA ruling clique, take a look at what ordinary Palestinian Arabs say to pollsters from their own Palestinian Arab community. Here's a good, recent starting point: "18-Oct-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think and feel now?"

20-Apr-16: After Monday's Jerusalem bus bombing, questions (again) about education, children and money

Handing out candies on an Arab street hours after a Jerusalem bus bombing
[Image Source]

The debris and wreckage has barely been cleared from southern Jerusalem's Moshe Baram Street in the aftermath of Monday's Egged Line 12 bus bombing and it's already possible to identify several clear lines of reaction.

Among Israelis, there's concern for the victims, several of whom are still hospitalized and wondering at what hit them and their loved ones: "11 still hospitalized, 1 critical, after Jerusalem bombing", Times of Israel, April 19, 2016; "Bus bomb survivor: I looked for my daughter, found her ‘all burned’", JTA, April 19, 2016; "Bus attack victim survived 2001 Sbarro's bombing", Israel National News, April 19, 2016. The current speculation, but not backed any official statements, is that the most severely injured of the victims now being treated intensively in a Jerusalem hospital, is the person who carried the bomb.

There's also growing Israeli anxiety at the prospect that bombings, and the hideous things that generally accompany them, are going to be come a larger part of our lives in the coming days and months. The Arab-on-Israeli violence of the past seven months has been rich in shootings, vehicle-rammings and stabbings with multiple murders and many maimings as a result, It's been clear from the outset that things will get more serious when the Arab leaders want them to.

From a page full of similar photos capturing the celebrations, marked by candies,
of Arabs in Jerusalem this past Monday [Image Source: Alquds News]

So how have the Arabs responded?

From the Islamist savages of Hamas in Gaza, they don't claim to have been behind it (though no one on the counter-terror side thinks bombings of this sort are beyond Hamas' capabilities or agenda), but they are perfectly comfortable with sitting back and watching it unfold. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, quoted here by Hamas, portentously described the attempt at a massacre of Jews as a “natural response to the Israeli crimes and in particular the executions and defiling of the Al-Aqsa Mosque”. Near-identical language is attributed to a Palestinian Arab "human rights" figure, speaking [here via an Iranian news site] seven months ago. We strongly believe statements of this sort ought to be believed. Nothing, given their education and cultural and ethical values, is more natural to terror-addicted Palestinian Arab "militants" than killing Israeli civilians in public places.

Hamas "welcomes the Jerusalem operation", while warning that exploding the bus is “just the beginning”. But in reality, it's just another chapter. The beginning was generations ago, and the interruptions have been few and short.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad called the terror attack "a qualitative development in form and substance of the blessed intifada" [here, via Khaled Abu Toameh].  Fatah, headed by the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the largest faction in today's PLO, called it [here in Arabic] a "Nabil Massoud martyrdom operation" though no one appears to have been martyred, and even though Fatah calls itself secular as opposed to the Islamists for whom martyrdom is a supreme religious value. But who are we to judge other people's theologies? Fatah called the bus bombing attack

"a new focal point in the history of the conflict with the occupation, and the beginning of a new phase of confrontation with him six months after the outbreak of the Jerusalem uprising... Martyrdom operations are the military option supported by all the Palestinian people and its different components... among our strategies to defend our people... It is a confirmation of the victory of the resistance option and the failure of the settlement project, a painful blow to (PA/Israel) security coordination,.." [Al Resalah (Arabic), April 19, 2016]

Video of the first dramatic minutes after the explosion were captured by Arik Abuloff, a firefighter of the Israel Fire and Rescue Service, via his helmet-mounted wearable video camera

Towards the end, we see Abuloff entering the destroyed hulks of the two buses, searching for victims and to see if the cause of the explosion could be identified. The official count of injured people is 21 , two of them seriously, and that the conflagration was caused by a bomb detonating on board one of the two buses, setting the adjacent bus on fire. A third bus near by, and a car, also went up in flames.

We mentioned Khaled Abu Toameh a moment ago. He has an overview of the Arab reaction to Monday's barbarism ["Celebrating Terrorism, Palestinian Style"], Khaled Abu Toameh on Gatestone Institute website, April 19, 2016] which, like most of his published analysis, is among the most valuable things a person wanting to understand the Arab perspective from an Arab cultural standpoint - but free of any addiction to jihadist thinking.

The Palestinian jubilation over yesterday's terror bombing in Jerusalem, the first of its kind since the suicide bombings during the Second Intifada more than a decade ago, is yet another reminder of the growing radicalization among Palestinians... The public statements of the Palestinian leaders and groups after the Jerusalem terror attack are yet another sign of how they continue to incite their people against Israel. These are the type of statements that prompt Palestinian men and women to grab a knife (or in this case an explosive device) and set out to kill the first Jew they run into... The major obstacle to peace with Israel remains the absence of education for peace with Israel. In fact, it is safe to say that there never was a real attempt on the part of Palestinian leaders and factions to prepare their people for peace with Israel. On the contrary, the message they send to their people remains extremely anti-Israel. [Abu Toameh, yesterday]

Caption in Arabic informs that these happy campers living in
Nahr al-Bared, a Lebanese "refugee" camp are celebrating the news of
a bus filled with Jews being bombed in Jerusalem [Image Source]

In his customarily mild way, Abu Toameh notes that the public manifestations he mentioned call into doubt

the Palestinian leadership's and people's willingness to move toward peace and coexistence with Israel... Within hours of the attack, Palestinian factions seemed to be competing with each other over who would issue the most supportive statement of the terror explosion... Palestinian factions rushed to issue statements applauding the "heroic operation" and urging Palestinians to pursue the path of armed struggle against Israel. The Palestinian jubilation over the terror attack, the first of its kind since the suicide bombings during the Second Intifada more than a decade ago, is yet another reminder of the growing radicalization among Palestinians. This radicalization is mostly attributed to the ongoing anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination by various Palestinian factions and leaders... Hamas leader, Hussar Badran, also praised the terror attack. He said his movement was determined to pursue the resistance to "expel the occupation from our Palestinian lands." When Hamas leaders talk about "expelling the occupation from the Palestinian lands," they mean that Israel should be eliminated and replaced with an Islamist empire. [Abu Toameh, yesterday]

That last point is little appreciated or understood outside of the neighbourhood where we live. Occupation is a code word for these people.

Again: "The major obstacle to peace with Israel remains the absence of education for peace with Israel". Education means not only, but mainly, children. 

It's a constant wonder to us that the very-well-funded children's rights industry, a classification that includes multi-million dollar/euro global behemoths like UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, Save the Children, Arab Council for Childhood Development and others remain unmoved, and uncriticized, in the face of their complete failure to address what Abu Toameh has just mentioned. The news media look the other way, the funders keep giving without pausing to think what they are enabling, and the managements go merrily down the path of ignoring - and therefore de facto supporting - a process we have called the Palestinian Arab weaponization of their own children.

What will it take for this scandal to be addressed in a responsible and child-sensitive, education-focused way? Why does nothing constructive continue to get done about it for decade after decade? Anyone seriously suggesting these things are unknown is blowing smoke. They're known, and they're ignored.

Are you paying attention, UNICEF?

19-Jan-15: EU will appeal court decision to take Hamas off the terrorist list

Hamas front man, groper, smuggler of banknotes and promoter of
axe-murder attacks Abu Zuhri explains that Europeans are taking
immoral steps [Image Source]

The Council of the European Union decided today (Monday) that the EU is going to appeal a December 17 decision by the General Court of the European Union that says Hamas ought to be removed from the official EU blacklist for technical reasons only a lawyer or politician could love.

The short-term effect, according to this source, is that Hamas’s European assets, which had been in a state of temporary freeze for the past three weeks, are going to remain frozen till the judgement is handed down.

Hamas is not happy with being frozen:

"The European Union’s insistence on keeping Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations is an immoral step, and reflects the EU’s total bias in favor of the Israeli occupation,” 

says Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman and one-time mule, quoted by Aljazeera.

Meanwhile, nothing is certain and until that European court hears the appeal, the question of whether or not Hamas is a terrorist organization in the eyes of Official Europe remains (astonishingly) open.

It's quite something to hear a crude thug like Abu Zuhri mouth the words "immoral step" without having reporters laugh directly into his face. The man has some background which, in a civilized context, would have ensured he was given plenty of free time alone to entertain himself:

• He was arrested by Palestinian Authority security forces in Gaza (before Hamas seized control by force) in 2007 for placing his hand on the thigh of a person sitting next to him in a car. He admitted the charges. The person was a woman, which in sociopathic societies of a certain kind means the consequences are mild.
• A July 2014 video [here] captures him speaking to a Hamas-friendly TV presenter, arguing that the Hamas strategy of pushing its people to endanger their lives, their homes and their children by being human shields is "effective". This is one of the myriad reasons why Hamas is globally outlawed as a terrorist entity. 
• He was investigated, and then suspended, by the Hamas leadership a month ago [source] for sexually harassing a foreign reporter. The reporter was again a female, so that the damage, if any, to his standing was liveable in the specific context of the society in which operates and whose sexual and moral values tend to the extremely flexible (depending natuirally on specifically who is doing what to whom).
• And a month before that, in November 2014, Abu Zuhri publicly (as spokesperson for the thugs of Hamas) praised the terrorist killing of unarmed worshipers at prayer in a Har Nof, Jerusalem, synagogue. Hamas, said this especially loathsome man, called for more "operations" like it. 

Quite a piece of work.

16-Aug-07: Quick, let's talk to these moderates

Despite a sudden shortage of manure in its Gazan domain, things are not entirely bad in Hamas-land. Diplomatically, you could say the world is waking up to the possibilities of a constructive engagement with the forward-looking nation-building statesmen of the Hamas Movement.

Just consider these events of the past week:

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi called for negotiating with Hamas to help the movement "develop politically."

The Norwegian government annnounced it intends to maintain contact with Hamas at the envoy level. This in response to earlier mistaken reports that Norway had cut off ties with Hamas after the June massacres of Fatah forces in Gaza.

The British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee released a non-partisan report on Monday recommending that Westminster lawmakers "urgently consider ways of engaging politically with moderate elements within Hamas."

The UK committee appealed to former prime minister Tony Blair to join the effort to reunite Hamas with Abbas's Fatah faction. "The international community must bear in mind that Hamas came to power as a result of a democratic and free election," helpfully adds Dr. Mohamed Al-Madhoun, who heads the bureau of Hamas strong-man Ismail Haniya. (His words are echoed by many otherwise respectable, democracy-loving politicians in western countries like this British labor spokesperson quoted in the pages of the Guardian.)

(In the interests of balance, let's add that a senior un-named Palestinian Arab official in Ramallah says he is "disgusted" to hear that some Europeans were calling for negotiations with Hamas. "Those in Italy and Britain who want to talk to Hamas are undermining moderate Palestinians and emboldening the radicals. We hope that the Europeans will wake up and refrain from committing such a huge mistake.")

From Gaza, already awake, Hamas expressed its wish for a dialogue with the west in response to Prodi's call. "Such a statement by Prodi and other Western officials reflects the West's understanding that the policy of ignoring Hamas has failed," senior Hamas spokesman and part-time mule Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press statement.

Fair enough. Let's assume Abu Zuhri is right and that isolating Hamas has failed. If so, it may be time to take another look at what Hamas stands for - at the issues it believes divide Palestinian Arabs from us Israelis, and the possible basis for two people to live together in future in harmony and constructive neighborliness.

The following are the words of the official Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan. Hamdan's name may be less than a household word in Europe. But Google supplies more than 18,000 links to the man and his words, speaking in the name of Hamas and expressing what are clearly mainstream Hamas viewpoints.

Hamdan's statements below aired a week ago on Al-Kawthar TV (despite the unfamiliar name, a genuine and influential media entity - you can watch its live video stream here).

Interviewer: Do you consider all the Jews in Palestine to be combatants who have plundered the land? We've witnessed martyrdom operations that targeted buses and restaurants.

Osama Hamdan: First of all, let me clarify something very important. What is the ruling regarding those who live in Palestine, in the so-called Israel, and who are aggressors and plunderers of the land? The way we see it, they all came to Palestine from abroad, whether before the declaration of the Zionist entity or after it. If you were to conduct statistics within the Zionist entity, you would find that all these people have their origins in other countries - they came from Europe, Eastern Europe, from America, South America, or other places.

Interviewer: In other words, there were no Palestinian Jews?

Osama Hamdan: No, there were no Palestinian Jews. When the British Mandate began in 1917, there was only one settlement on Palestinian land, which included several dozen Jews, who were living there in violation of the law at the time. I would like to mention that under the Ottoman state - regardless of the many reservations we have about it - there was a law that prohibited the Jews from staying in Palestine for over a month. Their passports and personal documents were taken away from them, and they were given an Ottoman permit at the border, which allowed them to stay for a month on Palestinian land. The only group that can be called Jewish was the one in Nablus. They still live there to this day. The Palestinians regard them as part of the makeup of Palestinian society, and they number no more than several hundred. As for those who immigrated from various countries - they are not Jews.
Anyone who comes to live in a war zone is a combatant, regardless of whether he wears a uniform.
Secondly, neither Hamas nor the Palestinian resistance force intentionally killed civilians.
You mentioned the buses. What's an easier target - a bus, which is protected by various security measures, or a school [or] a theater, or a stadium, for example? These civilian targets - in which the killing of women and children is intentional - were not targeted by the resistance.
Why were buses targeted? Because they are the means of transport used by the soldiers as well. The Zionist soldiers, who go from their homes to their bases and back, use public transportation, because it is free or almost free. In my opinion, the occupation soldiers also have a security motive in using public transport: They shield themselves behind the so-called 'civilians' within the Zionist entity.
Therefore, the way I see it, they need to stop using public transportation, or else society should prevent them from using it, because it is the soldiers who are targeted. Just to prove it, in the dozens of operations that were carried out, the Zionists never announced, for example, that 20 children were killed, or that 50 women were killed. On the contrary, if you were to examine who was killed in martyrdom operations that targeted buses, you would find that 70% were occupation soldiers, and they may even have been in uniform at the time of the operation.
We are making the preparations for a confrontation.... The final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity off the face of the Earth. This goal necessitates the development of the capabilities of the resistance, until this entity is wiped out."

This important speech is online, in streaming video, courtesy of MEMRI TV. View the clip here.

It only remains for us non-European non-politicians to point out that every word of the Hamas representative above is a knowing lie, pumped out like those before it to an ill-informed global audience.

Hate-filled nonsense like Hamdan's, together with the naive and foolish pronouncements of parliamentarians and politicians in countries far from the scene, fuel the massacres in restaurants and the deliberate and willful targeting of innocent civilians - especially women and children - like our daughter.