Obama visit pointless – Hamas

The Hamas-led Government in the Gaza Strip has voiced total opposition to the visit of United States President Barak Obama to Israel and the West Bank next month, saying that a return to the negotiation table was unacceptable and the only way forward was through ‘resistance’.

References to Israel as the Zionist occupier leaves no doubt that Hamas will continue its policy of not recognising Israel’s existence and claiming all Israeli territory for Palestine.

Spokesman Yusuf Rizqah said two decades of negotiations had produced nothing.

“The Palestinian people are fed up with these meetings which only result in lost ground because of settlement activity, whether in the West Bank or Jerusalem,” Rizqah said.   

He accused the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank of being weak and prone to blackmail as it was receiving substantial funds from the US.

In fact no one - whether in Jerusalem, Ramallah or Washington – believes Obama’s visit will achieve any significant breakthroughs. Some minor extensions to the land on the West Bank actually under the control of the PA and the release of a few political prisoners are the best that can be reasonably expected.

Suggestions out of Washington that there could be at least a partial freeze on settlement construction are a dead duck. Under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu new settlements and extensions to existing ones have been routinely sanctioned regardless of protests by the US and European leaders. Even if a partial freeze were on the table, it would be rejected by the Palestinians who want nothing less than a total halt and a timetable for rollbacks.

Adding to the difficulties is the current state of distraction in both Israel and the West Bank. Netanyahu, who lost ground in the recent Israeli elections, is still trying to cobble together a coalition that, depending on its membership, could be anything between centrist and far right, while PA President Mahmud Abbas is facing increasing criticism of his leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, recognised as the one legitimate voice of Palestinians throughout the world. 

In a sad commentary on the situation one Israeli commentator believed Netanyahu would put forward proposals for a partial settlement in the sure knowledge they would be rejected, simply to stave off international criticism of his actions.

From this it appears Hamas’s policy of resistance – meaning armed resistance – is likely to hold sway in the foreseeable future.