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.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS