TODAY'S COMMENTARY: Israel, Palestinians OK negotiating plan.Mr Abbas, aren’t you Forgetting the other half of your Palestinian brothers and sisters?

(Photo: Reuters)

TOPICAL ISSUE-per Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer reporting from Annapolis, Md, Tuesday, November 27, 2007: Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed today to immediately resume long-stalled talks toward a deal by the end of next year that would create an independent Palestinian state, using a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference to launch their first negotiations in seven years. In a joint statement read by President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to start discussions on the core issues of the conflict next month and accepted the United States as arbiter of interim steps.

COMMENTARY: I am a very optimistic person, but I must admit that in the case of the Israeli and attending Palestinian un-elected leadership reaching an agreement that will address all the major issues that divide them is impossible without the participation of Hamas, the Western shunned, legitimate and democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian peoples. The hypocritical message is” We support democracy, as long as you elected the leaders we want or the party we back.” It is simply mind boggling as to why the Bush administration would call a meeting of some 50 representatives from Middle Eastern states and exclude Hamas. Sure Hamas will not renounce terrorism or agree to recognize Israel-at this point in time. But if I recall, the US talked with its most formidable enemy during the Cold War period, that being the Soviet Union-some 40 years or so. Mr Bush seems to ignore former Secretary of State James Baker’s wise statement and prudent advice that “one should always talk to one’s enemies. It doesn’t mean one has to give anything away, or appear weak by talking.” And last but not least, in my strongest opinion, if Mr Abbas, the attending unelected Palestinian leader, truly cares about his peoples as a whole, he would have insisted that Hamas be at the conference table; irregardless of their political and ideology differences. After all, aren’t they all Palestinians? You decide.

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