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There is a whole Arab world that isn't mentioned in the news that is victimized by terrorists and religious fanatics, says former U.S. president Bill Clinton. It's also a world where there are many people dedicated to building a lasting peace, Clinton said during a speech in Montreal on Tuesday. Even the recent election of Hamas doesn't mean Palestinians support the violence and terrorism often linked to the extremist group, Clinton said. Palestinians don't want violence and Shariah law, he said. "Palestinians elected Hamas because they promised to make the buses run on time," Clinton told about 5,000 people who...

By inviting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to visit Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin has thrust himself into the Palestinian debate. While Putin doesn’t consider Hamas a terrorist organization, as the U.S. does, it still begs the question as to whether Hamas’ stunning electoral victory is good or bad for Israel, good or bad for peace? Initial hysteria in some quarters over Hamas democratically winning electoral power has eased. It caught the world by surprise — except for Israel, where many had anticipated a Hamas win. In Israel and elsewhere, there is uncertainty about what it will mean to prospects of...

The outgoing Palestinian parliament gave Mahmoud Abbas sweeping new powers Monday, just days before Hamas was to take control of the legislature. Legal expert Issam Abdeen said the new legislation would allow Abbas to "cancel any law approved by the new parliament on the pretext it is unconstitutional." Hamas spokesman Said Siyam said parliament had no right to make last-minute changes, and that Hamas would overturn the old parliament's decisions after the new legislature convenes Saturday. "The parliament has no mandate and no authority to issue any new legislation," he said, calling Monday's action "not legitimate."

President George W. Bush’s most recent reminder that the U.S. needs to fight the worldwide terrorism of the Islamists, ignored a major target and victim of this terrorism – Israel. In a February 9 speech at the National Guard Memorial Building, in Washington DC, the President noted many of the countries that have been the victims of Islamist terrorist attacks. As he had done repeatedly several times before, he mentioned: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Spain and England.  Conspicuously absent from the list is Israel. Yet, Israel was the first target of the Islamist terrorism, decades before this war...

Here in Gaza, we are holding our breath, waiting to see what the unprecedented victory of Hamas in our legislative elections will mean for us. The territory is quiet. Even the militants have taken a break from launching rockets or occupying government buildings. Ironically, the subdued atmosphere is a clear sign of the violent turmoil inside each and every Palestinian. But this unease is not focused on what attacks or retaliations might occur between Hamas and its avowed enemy, Israel. Instead, what I hear my neighbors and colleagues discussing is: How will Hamas govern without the support of international donors?...

In Britt Hume's News show, Mr. Hume reported that former President Jimmy Carter is asking the U.S. Administration to "give Hammas a chance" because he is sure that the militant group "will renounce terrorism" (and become peaceful) once it forms a government. Furthermore, Jimmy Carter demands that we do not cut economic aid to the Hamas regime because the Palestinians will suffer for it.

Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections last week is widely seen as discrediting President Bush's desire to spread democracy. Actually, the electoral triumph of this pro-terrorist, anti-Western movement offers more evidence for the failure of the cynical approach that the United States pursued before Bush came into office — a pseudo-realistic policy of using supposedly benign dictators to repress Islamic extremists. That, after all, was the rationale behind the Oslo process: Israel and the U.S. would support Yasser Arafat in the hope that he would deliver peace and crack down on the crazies. Fat chance. Instead, his Fatah party gave...

Two top Egyptian officials called on Hamas to recognize Israel, disarm and honor past peace deals Wednesday, the latest sign Arab governments are pushing the militant group to moderate after its surprise election victory. Separately, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official said that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has told Egyptian officials he would hold off on asking Hamas to form the next Palestinian government until Hamas renounces violence.The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, cited Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as saying that Abbas had made the decision after a meeting...

U.S. State Department to investigate failure to foresee Hamas victory By DPA The United States is examining why it was caught off guard by Hamas' victory in Palestinian legislative elections last week, the U.S. State Department said Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged earlier this week that she was surprised by Hamas's defeat of the Fatah party, which had dominated Palestinian politics for years. "She's asked her staff to look into that. Why is it that we didn't see this coming?" US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. The United States designates Hamas, formally known as the Islamic...

“I vow by the One who raised the seven layers to Heaven (i.e. Allah) and who has beheaded tyrants that the leader of America has been thoroughly humiliated. Our heroes have defended this place. They have entered legend. Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.”

Since Hamas's landslide victory, a debate has ensued over whether Israel ought to continue to remit taxes it has been collecting on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, even though the PA will now be controlled by a terrorist organization openly committed to Israel's destruction. For just the payment scheduled for this month, some NIS 200 million has been collected, and for now the government seems to have decided not to transfer the funds to the PA. Unmentioned in our public discourse, however, are the vast funds owed by the PA to Israel. This situation antedates all recent upheavals. No sooner...

Jimmy Carter goes gaga in Gaza By Doug Powers Posted: January 30, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern It's often been said that Jimmy Carter is a much better ex-president than he was president. If that was the case, it's no longer true - and that's hard to do. Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States and current special ambassador to Everywhere, has spent the better part of a few decades practicing conflict resolution on the world. Jimmy has attempted to mediate settlements from the Israeli-Palestinian fight to the Jessica Simpson-Nick Lachey marriage, and traveled to all unmopped corners of...

Now Fatah Demands a State from the Jordan to the Mediterranean 16:16 Jan 31, '06 / 2 Shevat 5766 By Scott Shiloh The military wing of the Fatah party, the Al-Aksa Brigades, in a post-election effort to outflank the Hamas, says it will step up its terror offensive against Israel. The group will attempt to drum up public support for more violence against Israel by emphasizing the need to “liberate all of historic Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” As political leaders in Israel and around the world lament the fall of the Fatah and the rise...

Rice Admits U.S. Underestimated Hamas Strength By STEVEN R. WEISMAN LONDON, Jan. 29 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East. "I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse." ....... Indeed, Hamas's victory has set...

A year ago this time, it appeared as if freedom, at long last, was working its miracles in the stubborn sands of the Arab world. The Purple Thumb Revolution was sweeping through Iraq; Palestinians had given Mahmoud Abbas a resounding democratic mandate; and the Cedar Revolution was primed to push Syria’s puppets out of Lebanon. With a mix of worry and wonder, Fouad Ajami played Middle East meteorologist and concluded, “Now, the Arabs, grasping for a new world, and the Americans, who have helped usher in this unprecedented moment, together ride this storm wave of freedom.” Last week, the storm...

When asked by the media for his thoughts on the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former President Jimmy Carter replied that while they have a terrorist past, at least they're not corrupt. One of the complaints by many in the Middle East was the corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Arafat himself squirreled away millions of dollars from aid packages that were intended to help the Palestinian people. However, Carter's comment appears to dismiss the years of death and destruction perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish State. And now the fundamental-Islamic group Hamas triumphed...

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty." -- Plato Please world, spare me the shocking reactions and earthshaking headline stuff. I don't think the average Israeli man or woman in the street was very surprised, nor was your average international diplomat. Surely, President George Bush and members of the US and Israeli governments should wipe that astonished look off of their faces. After all, for more than a decade, Israeli prime ministers, US presidents, and members of the National Security Council, the US Department of State,...

Now that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, the West is hoist with its own petard. On the one hand, Hamas is a terrorist group that unabashedly targets Israeli civilians and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. On the other hand, it just won what observers deem to have been a reasonably fair election, and so enjoys the legitimacy that comes from the ballot box. Every foreign ministry now confronts a dilemma: Nudge it to moderation or give up on it as irredeemably extremist? Meet with Hamas members or avoid them? Continue to donate to the Palestinian...

When asked by the media for his thoughts on the Hamas triumph in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, former President Jimmy Carter replied that while they have a terrorist past, at least they're not corrupt. One of the complaints by many in the Middle East was the corruption within the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party. Arafat himself squirreled away millions of dollars from aid packages that were intended to help the Palestinian people. However, Carter's comment appears to dismiss the years of death and destruction perpetrated by Hamas on the Jewish State. One of the first statements made by...

The Palestinian people have delivered a resounding vote against peace —calling, in their election, for a continuation of the savage and sanguinary war against Israel. This sharp reversal in the peace process should not go without a vigorous response from Washington.

The Bush administration's promotion of democracy forms the core of US foreign policy. It was the pillar of President George W. Bush's second inaugural address a year ago and, officials say, will be reiterated in his State of the Union address tomorrow night. But having assisted Hamas - listed as a terrorist group by the US - to power through elections Washington insisted should take place, the Bush administration is now in a dilemma in the "war on terror". Does it cut off institutional aid to the Palestinians and thus choke the democratic evolution? And, more broadly, does the US...

Hamas' conservative brand of Islam stirs worry among Palestinians By Dion Nissenbaum Knight Ridder Newspapers JIFNA, West Bank - For more than 40 years, Michel Tabash has made a living selling whiskey, beer, vodka and wine at his small family restaurant nestled in this Christian town between olive groves and a Palestinian refugee camp. The restaurant has survived war, Israeli occupation and the economy-draining Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which forced the family to shutter its doors for nearly four years. Now, 18 months after reopening, Tabash is worried that he may be forced out of business again - this time...

Hamas, Like Fatah, Wants All of 'Palestine' By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com International Editor January 27, 2006 (CNSNews.com) - A Hamas leader said late Thursday that the terrorist group's victory in the Palestinian legislative elections would "complete the liberation of other parts of Palestine." Ismail Haniyeh, addressing a victory press conference, did not elaborate, but his pledge echoes the covenant adopted by Hamas at its founding in 1988. "The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim," reads article 15 of the Hamas Charter. "In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it...

Saudi Arabia could bail the Palestinian Authority out of an impending fiscal crisis following the landslide victory of Hamas if it transfers the $100 million to the Palestinian Authority that it pledged to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas when he visited there in late December. In addition to bailing out the PA, the money would also give Israel and the world more time to ponder how to deal with the PA following Wednesday's Hamas victory. According to western diplomatic sources, Saudi Arabia pledged the money to Abbas because the European Union refused to transfer payment of some $60 million in November...

The good news from the occupied territories is that Hamas won the elections. As opposed to what the chorus of national intimidation - speaking in one voice from Benjamin Netanyahu to Ami Ayalon - is saying, the political change in Palestine could be good news. Not that the victory of an extremist religious organization is not without dangers and problems, and that a secular, moderate and uncorrupt movement would have been preferable. But, in its absence, one can find quite a few points of light in the Hamas victory. First, these are very authentic results, achieved through elections that were...

The US won't deal with Hamas ministers in a future Palestinian Authority government, but will also not cut off ties with the PA as a result of Hamas's inclusion, diplomatic officials said Monday. According to the officials, the US formula for dealing with a PA government following Wednesday's elections would be based on the "Lebanese model." In Lebanon, the officials said, the US continues to have strong ties with the government in Beirut even though Hizbullah is part of it. It does not, however, have any contact with the one Hizbullah minister. The officials said that since Hamas was on...

Saudi Arabia could bail the Palestinian Authority out of an impending fiscal crisis following the landslide victory of Hamas if it transfers the $100 million to the Palestinian Authority that it pledged to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas when he visited there in late December. In addition to bailing out the PA, the money would also give Israel and the world more time to ponder how to deal with the PA following Wednesday's Hamas victory. According to western diplomatic sources, Saudi Arabia pledged the money to Abbas because the European Union refused to transfer payment of some $60 million in November...

EDITORIAL: Why Hamas must not be recognizedPrime minister-elect Stephen Harper responded exactly as he should have to last week’s shocking victory of the terrorist group Hamas in the Palestinian elections. He said Canada “supports a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine. But for a nation to be truly democratic, that nation must renounce the use of terrorism.� Precisely. It is Harper’s now-defunct Alliance party that Canadians have to thank for this sensible view. The Alliance succeeded in pressuring the previous Liberal government in 2002 to declare Hamas a terrorist organization. Prior to that, the Liberals couldn’t bring themselves do it,...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The European Union could not fund a Hamas-run Palestinian Authority if it did not renounce violence and recognise Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Israel on Sunday. It was the most explicit threat to cut aid from Europe, the biggest donor to the Palestinians, since Islamic militant group Hamas won a shock victory in parliamentary elections last week. The United States has also threatened to block funding. Hamas, expected to form the new government, denounces Western threats to cut aid as blackmail and has rejected calls to disarm and end its formal commitment to destroy Israel....

Column One: The anatomy of Hamas's victory Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 26, 2006 Yesterday we awoke to a new reality: Hamas is the official leader of the Palestinian Authority and - thanks to the US and Israeli governments - the official representative of Arab Jerusalemites. If before Wednesday's poll Hamas concentrated its efforts in conducting its terror war against Israel and indoctrinating Palestinian society to support jihad, now the terror group will continue with its previous activities as the official, popularly elected government of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas's rise to political leadership and the significance of its ascendancy...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Following their resounding election victory, the Islamic militants of Hamas met the question of whether they will change their stripes with a loud "no": no recognition of Israel, no negotiations, no renunciation of terror.

NOW that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, the West is hoist with its own petard. On the one hand, Hamas is a terrorist group that unabashedly targets Israeli civilians and calls for the elimination of the Jewish state. On the other hand, it just won what observers deem to have been a reasonably fair election, and so enjoys the legitimacy that comes from the ballot box. Every foreign ministry now confronts a dilemma: nudge Hamas to moderation or give up on it as irredeemably extremist? Meet Hamas members or avoid them? Continue to donate to the Palestinian Authority...

The American administration has an excellent excuse: It is prohibited by law from providing aid to a government that includes members from a terror organization, so the Palestinian government that will include Hamas members will not enjoy American aid. It's an excuse, since it is possible to aid such a government in indirect ways, if that's what the donor wants. Money can be moved to non-government organizations, to pay off the Palestinian Authority debts to Israel by paying companies like the Electric Corp. directly; in short, just as President Bush decided in 2003 to suspend the law that prohibits direct...

WESTERN reactions to the outcome of the Palestinian election last week came in two varieties: highly negative and decidedly undecided.....Well, put me in a third camp: I think the sweeping Hamas victory is by far the best result that could have been hoped for. I say that not because Hamas is anything other than a blood-drenched terrorist group, but because its lopsided win is an unambiguous reality check into the nature of Palestinian society. And if there is one thing that the West badly needs, it is more realism and less delusion about the Palestinians.

Fatah, Israel and Hamas—Bush Doesn’t Have A Clue Sam Hamod, Ph.D. January 27, 2006 President Bush has shown his global ignorance once again. Though an intelligent former president on the ground, Jimmy Carter, said this was a fair election and that aid to Palestine should be continued—GW still doesn’t get it. Hamas’ rise to power is not that of a "terrorist group," but a group that represents the Palestinian people who are sick and tired of the Israel and American continually focusing on the "process talks," but never getting any decisions that fair to Palestinians, and people who are sick...

Over four years ago, the world was flabbergasted to watch ululating Palestinians rejoice and cheer for the death of thousands of Americans in 9/11. Despite that the Americans did not hold grudges against them and kept pouring into their coffers one billion dollars a year. The Palestinians rely on two external sources of income: Israeli-collected taxes on Palestinian goods and aid that comes primarily from USA and Europe . They depend on these handouts, without which they won't be able to survive. The election results of last week show that the anti American and pro terrorist sentiment among the Palestinians...

THE day before Iran's ninth presidential elections last June, President Bush sent a discouraging message to potential voters. Iran's electoral process "ignores the basic requirements of democracy," Mr. Bush declared, and these elections would be "sadly consistent" with the country's "oppressive record." For Iranians, there was no mistaking the American president's point: he was tacitly sanctioning the call that some Iranian exiles and activists had issued for an election boycott, based on exactly this logic. An American administration that had called on other Middle Eastern populaces to vote in flawed elections greeted the Iranian electoral process with nothing but open...

The neoconservatives who dreamed up the Bush Doctrine -- promoting "democracy" would be the U.S. mission in the Middle East -- may be about to hold yet another "Seconds Thoughts" conference. Certainly, Israel must be having second thoughts on the folly of having yielded to U.S. pressure and allowed Hamas to participate in elections. For Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and employs suicide-bomb attacks on civilians, has just won a sweeping political and moral victory in Palestine. Freedom and democracy are on the march, says President Bush. Perhaps. But there is no doubt Islamism is on...

After the first TV reports that their party would win the Canadian election, Conservative campaign workers began smashing windows in the Parliament Buildings, and in government offices around Ottawa. They roved through the corridors, beating up clerks and civil servants suspected of having Liberal Party connexions. From St John’s to Victoria, both winning and losing Conservative candidates took to the streets, leading heavily armed supporters in ski-masks, followed by millions of happy, cheering, banner-waving CPC voters, dressed in toques and scarves. Merchants and homeowners raced to get Liberal and NDP signs out of view, as the Tory hordes marched through...

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- The worshipers overflowed the mosque on Manger Square, covering the rain-slick stones with rows of prayer rugs and parked cars. At the center, surrounded by kneeling men, stood a showy symbol of their triumphant week: a van bristling with the green banners of Hamas. Here in the cradle of Christianity, the radical Palestinian movement that favors creation of an Islamic state won every parliamentary seat on Wednesday's ballot except those reserved for Christian candidates -- a lopsided victory duplicated in such secular strongholds as Jerusalem and Ramallah on the organization's way to a majority in the...

Under no conditions should Israel talk to the PA particularly now that Hamas is the party in power. It doesn’t matter if Hamas or Fatah change their charters. It doesn’t matter if they agree to forgo violence. It doesn’t matter what else they might agree to. What matters is that they don’t want peace but victory. While the world carries on like there is a peace process, in reality there is a war process only. To test this thesis I suggest you look for any evidence that suggests we have moved closer to peace rather then to war since the...

LONDON: Mahmoud Zahar, the joint leader of Hamas which has been voted to power in last week's Palestinian election, has ruled out recognising Israel. "We are not going to recognize Israel," Zahar said in an interview published in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday, putting paid to suggestions that Hamas may alter its 1988 charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. But he added: "We can reach out to them with a long-term hudna (truce)." In the interview given in Gaza city, Zahar also called on the world to recognise Hamas. "The outside world must not fear us," he...

Remember the good old days, when Democrats and their friends in the MSM would regularly bash Republican administrations for doing business with less-than-democratic, even unsavory foreign governments and their leaders? From the Shah of Iran, to Marcos in the Phillipines, Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile and a variety of strong men, authoritarians and tinpots in between, liberals lambasted Republican presidents for "coddling dictators" and doing nothing to promote freedom and democracy. It seems the MSM has overhauled its ordre du jour [to use a phrase one might hear in, oh, Davos, Switzerland]. At least when it comes to those...

Feb. 6, 2006 issue - The results of last week's Palestinian elections certainly were a shock to the political system. While everyone expected Hamas to do very well, no polls predicted that the Islamist party would win a majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council. But despite all the hand-wringing over whether Palestinians have suddenly taken a more extremist turn, a closer look at the numbers reveals a more complex picture. For one thing, Hamas received only 45 percent of the popular vote. The nature of the electoral system, which magnified the existing fragmentation of Hamas's opposition, is...

How should Israel respond? Yisrael Medad, Dore Gold, Shlomo Avineri, Uzi Arad and others comment. Gershon Baskin: Hamas's victory is bad for Israel and bad for Palestine, but it is the voice of the people of Palestine. They have made their choice, and it was not just a choice of protest against Fatah, the PA and corruption. The vote reflects an attitude that negotiations produced nothing and violence brought about Israel's disengagement from Gaza. There is no guarantee that Hamas will go through a process of moderation, although new voices are being heard there. Israel cannot enter into any dialogue...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- The leadership of Hamas, the paramilitary organization that was unexpectedly swept to power in the Palestinian elections last week, appears to have modulated its rhetoric. But is it ready to rule?     The Islamic resistance group will have to put together a new government even as it faces a possible cascade of crises:     •Can Hamas unite and control the deliberately fragmented security forces created by the now-deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat?     •How will it fund the nearly $1.6 billion annual budget without assistance from the already disenchanted World Bank and wary Western donors?     •What kind of...

Hamas’ victory sets precedent for Arab democracy By Nadim Ladki ‘It is truly the first peaceful change of power of such fundamental proportions in the Arab history’ HAMAS’S stunning Palestinian election victory this week signals that democratic change is possible in the Arab world, even if the United States might not be pleased with the outcome of an idea it has championed. The Islamist movement is poised to form the next Palestinian government after winning 76 seats in the 132-member parliament to end Fatah’s 40 years of political dominance in an electoral power shift that has no precedent in modern...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- A confidential Saudi report prepared just weeks before the Palestinian elections predicted a Hamas victory in Gaza and the West Bank and puts the blame on the United States: "By failing to strengthen (President Mahmoud )Abbas's position, the U.S. has paved the way for a Hamas victory," states a document prepared by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project. "Moreover, the U.S administration's faith in the power of elections to transform people makes it oblivious to the possibility that the democratic process is often a double-edged sword which can have unintended consequences," goes on to say...

If the government of Israel gives the rabbis of Israel the opportunity to act for peace within the inter-religious field, perhaps we will be granted peace with Islam, which is so needed for this holy land. The entire world will be grateful to us for that. ____ Is peace possible with Islam? The question that I wish to pose is the opposite: Is peace possible without Islam? Ever since the beginnings of Zionism, the best of Israeli thought has dealt with the question of how to live in peace with the reality in a country surrounded by another nation -...

[JURIST] A senior Hamas official speaking in Jerusalem has said that introducing Islamic sharia [Wikipedia backgrounder] as “a source of law” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be "the No. 1 thing we will do" when Hamas takes up its seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council [official website] after the its shock victory [JURIST report] in Palestinian parliamentary elections earlier this week. Sheik Mohammed Abu Teir, who ran as the number two candidate on the Hamas ticket and who previously spent some 25 years in Israeli jails told a Canadian reporter “[s]haria has a soul in it and...