[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Well, Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Well, Condi, you're right. But they're our terrorist organization, so the with us or with the terrorists doesn't apply.

[Michael Goldsberry]

"We will not negotiate with terrorists!"

[Random Nonsense]

1. A lot of people think that Abbas can be trusted. Well, I don't.

2. Hamas, even if they were elected, is still a terrorist group.

This is just part of their step-by-step plans. Tomorrow they will get Bethlehem and Qalqilya. Next month they want Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Soon enough, bye, bye Israel.

The PA + Hamas can't be trusted.

You can see the disengagement plan's vid here: "A Stab in the Heart"

[Sabramerican]

Punishment for bombing an American convoy and killing Americans.

Americans won't visit you for 18 months

But after 18 months.........presents.

_{Last update - 01:04 23/06/2005}

U.S. breaks diplomatic boycott with visit to Gaza Strip

_{By Amos Harel}

The United States broke an 18-month boycott this week with visits by American diplomats to the Gaza Strip. The boycott was imposed in the wake of a terror attack perpetrated against a U.S. diplomatic convoy in October 2003 when three American security guards were killed as a roadside bomb exploded south of the Erez crossing.

To date, the Palestinian Authority has yet to arrest the individuals involved in the attack, despite repeated American demands for it to do so.

Over the past week, however, a number of American diplomats, as well as security personnel, have visited the Gaza Strip. The diplomats and security personnel traveled to the Strip to prepare the ground for the visit of James Wolfensohn, the Quartet's envoy charged with overseeing the Israeli pullout who is expected in Gaza soon.

Meanwhile, both Israeli and Palestinian security sources confirmed yesterday that the PA had not taken any new steps whatsoever with regard to the perpetrators of the October 2003 attack, despite the fact that the identity of those responsible is believed to be known. The perpetrators of the attack are thought to be members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a faction that broke away from Fatah and is led by Jamal Abu-Samhadne.

The suspension of the boycott regarding visits to the Strip came hand-in-hand with another step yesterday on the part of the United States. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent federal government agency, yesterday handed over four oxygen generators to hospitals in the Strip.

The generators, valued in total at some $500,000, produce a mixture of air with a high concentration of oxygen for medical purposes. Hospitals in the Gaza Strip suffer from a chronic shortage of oxygen canisters.

The donation was handed over to the PA at the initiative of the government's coordinator in the territories, Major General Yosef Mishlav.

Since the October 2003 terror attack, the United States has kept a tight rein on the scope of its direct aid to the Strip, including assistance in the medical field.

The generators will be set up at the hospital in Beit Hanun, in the north of the Strip, at Dura Hospital in Gaza City, at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis and at Tel Sultan Hospital in Rafah. They were transported yesterday to Gaza through the Karni crossing.

Mishlav, meanwhile, paid a visit to the Karni crossing yesterday to oversee the Civil Administration's preparations ahead of the disengagement. Israel plans to speed up the delivery of goods to the Strip over the coming period in light of concerns that during the disengagement, such operations could be impeded.

The Karni crossing's opening hours have been extended recently.

[onedoug]

I've been waiting a long time to go to Israel. However, I am suspending all such plans however the Israelis finally thow out that bum Sharon and get a collective pair.

[dervish]

"We'll deal with the Palestinian Authority. I think that's our best approach. They have an elected government through President Abbas. He is someone who won with 62 percent of the vote. And he won..."

Here is the beginning of the problem -- assuming there was a real and fair election with all of the armed intimidation among the Palestinians. The election which Abbas won had one candidate. Its result was pre-determined.

Per Mr Sharansky:

"Telling the Jerusalem Post last January 10 that this election was not "truly free," he explained: "Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear. This is not the case in the Palestinian Authority....there was no other candidate [than Abbas]..."

He went on to say it was a "shame" that, as Post reporter Herb Keinon paraphrased him, "the world uses the same words for completely different types of processes in different governmental systems, thereby making moral equivalencies that don't exist." Sharansky added in his own words: "This election can be the beginning of the democratic process only if we don't have illusions that democracy is already there, and that all we have to do now is give them independence. If that is what we do, then we will find that we have given independence not to a democratic state, but to a terrorist state."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17286