15 August 2007Donald Macintyre and Anne Penketh
Israel attempted to damp down calls for moves to end the isolation of Hamas yesterday by warning that it would be a "huge mistake" to try to reconcile it with its rival Fatah.
Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister, denounced calls for talks with Hamas by warning that "any compromise with terror, any compromise with these extremists" could undermine the new emergency government set up in the West Bank by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas.
Ms Livni's reaction was at the highest level yet to calls mainly within Europe for the international community, including the EU, to end the boycott imposed on Hamas since it took office 17 months ago.
The British all-party Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee said this week that the boycott had failed to deliver results. It urged Gordon Brown's government to find ways of engaging with "moderate elements" in Hamas and called on Mr Abbas to begin reconciliation efforts with the Islamic faction.
The committee's conclusions were further bolstered by the Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi. The former president of the European Commission suggested conflicts in the Middle East could not be resolved without talking to all parties and said Hamas could not become a "taboo word". Last night, however, he telephoned Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in an apparent climbdown after the latest comments were welcomed by a Hamas spokesman.
Ms Livni, a key figure in Israel's contacts with the new Abbas-established administration, said: "I know that it looks tempting and I know that the international community is eager to see a kind of understanding between Hamas and Fatah." But she warned at a news conference with her visiting Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso: "This is wrong. This is a mistake. Big mistake. Huge."
Israel has made clear it wants to bolster the standing in the West Bank of Mr Abbas and his Prime Minister, Salam Fayad, at the expense of the Hamas administration, and has started to release some of $800m (£400m) it owes the Palestinian Authority.
It has also floated discussion of the "principles" of Palestinian statehood and of easing roadblocks and closures in the West Bank to improve the Palestinians' dire economic prospects there. But amid reports that the new Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, is reluctant to take risks with security, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians' chief negotiator, has said he is "really disappointed" at indications from Israel that it is not yet ready to do that.
Ms Livni nevertheless insisted yesterday as Mr Aso also declared his support for Mr Abbas's West Bank administration that "the idea is that now there is a chance in the dialogue between Israel and the new Palestinian government. We can reach something. It's there."
Mike Gapes, the select committee chairman, said the MPs' report did not neglect Mr Abbas. "Of course, everyone wants to strengthen Abu Mazen," he said, referring to the President by his nom de guerre. "But in the context of a two-state solution, you can't do that without engaging Hamas," he said. "I'm not saying we sign up to everything Hamas stands for, but it's like Northern Ireland, you need to engage with the pragmatic ones."
The report said: "The Government has made the case that Israel cannot be expected to enter into peace negotiations with a political group that does not recognise its existence. We are sympathetic to that view. However, the Quartet principles have not stopped Russia from engaging with Hamas."
Israeli troops and aircraft killed six Palestinians yesterday, including two civilians in attacks on the southern Gaza Strip. The dead included the 70-year-old mother of a Hamas militant. Both were killed as they emerged from their home. Palestinian medics said a second civilian, Ibrahim al-Shami, 40, was shot dead by soldiers when he went on to the roof of his house.
Two members of Hamas's executive force were killed in internal fighting with members of the Dogmush clan, linked with the group which kidnapped Alan Johnston in March.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2864197.ece
