Despite US warnings to Abbas, the PA president submits to Saudi demands and forms a joint Hamas-Fatah run government that stops short of recognizing Israel. As I have stated before, this changes the whole dynamics to the conflict, if in fact, Fatah is moving closer to the talking points of the Hamas. The Saudi accord can already be understood as a Hamas victory, for its refusal to bend to the Quartet’s demands that state implicitly, it must recognize Israel, renounce violence and adhere to all existing agreements signed by the PLO. If any doubt still remains over the Hamas’ official position concerning Israel’s existence, its spokesman, Nizar Rayyan, effectively removes it:
“We will never recognize Israel,” “There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination.”
When it’s all said and done, both sides of the Palestinian movement are pretty much the same in how they view Israel. Like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both envision a world without Zionism, it’s just that the Hamas are more fanatical about their intentions than Fatah. While Fatah can be as lethal of a movement as Hamas, it lacks (at least overtly) the utopian trappings of that Islamist movement, which is the Palestinian branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. According to an Israeli official known to me:
“It has been sad several times during recent days by some governmental officials that it doesn’t matter for Israel who will be the members of the unity government – it is an internal matter of the Palestinians, but the government as a whole should accept the three preconditions. If not – it will be impossible to restart official negotiations.”
President Ahmadinejad’s real views are summarized on this website: ahmadinejadquotes.blogspot.com