The new Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, has accused the US and Europe of hypocrisy in threatening to slash aid to the occupied territories unless Hamas meets Western demands, while failing to hold Israel to a similar standard.
Hamas leaders describe pressure to recognize Israel, respect accords and renounce violence as "cheap blackmail" aimed at corralling them into a "peace process" they describe as a trap. Haniyeh said that Israel had been allowed to repudiate peace accords and to lay the ground to unilaterally redraw its borders, without sanction from foreign powers.
"They are not asking anything of Israel, that they recognize the 1967 borders or even the choice of the Palestinian people [in January's election]. They should be making the same demands of them that they make of us. There is a double standard," Haniyeh said.
The "Quartet" of peace mediators -- Washington, Moscow, Brussels and the UN -- laid down the conditions to be met by "all members of a future Palestinian government" shortly after Hamas's landslide election victory.
But Haniyeh said Israel would fail to meet these requirements if they were applied to its dealings with the Palestinians.
While the Quartet demands the Palestinian government publicly embraces the Oslo peace accords and the "roadmap" peace process, Hamas says Israel has been permitted to shun both.
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who has been in a coma for two months, called the Oslo accords "null and void." His administration attached 14 "reservations" to the roadmap and later declared the process "frozen" on the grounds that there was no partner for peace despite Palestinian pleas for negotiation. Israel used inaction on the roadmap to justify unilateral moves, including settlement expansion as part of its plan to annex large parts of the West Bank.
The Quartet said that neither side should take action that prejudges final status talks, but has not threatened sanctions against Israel.
The Quartet wants each Palestinian cabinet minister to personally commit to recognition of Israel when some members of Sharon's coalition governments campaigned against the creation of a Palestinian state and even advocated the ethnic cleansing of Arabs.
The charter of Likud, the main ruling party until last autumn, effectively denies a Palestinian state by calling for "persistence in settling and developing all parts of the Land of Israel" -- which includes the occupied territories -- "and annexing them."
"America sees with only one eye and hears with only one ear," said Salah Bardawil, Hamas' leader in the new Palestinian parliament.
"There was never any pressure on Israel when it ignored agreements. The PLO recognized Israel and what did it get for it? Now we are being asked to recognize Israel when it is annexing half of the West Bank behind the isolation wall," he said.
There is a deep wariness about engaging with a "peace process" that many Palestinians regard as a labyrinth in which they are forced to meet a series of tests while Israel expands its main West Bank colonies and lays the ground for a border deep inside the occupied territories.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of