Word: palestinians
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...Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas found out the hard way that applause and accolades for being "a man of peace" at the United Nations don't automatically win him friends back home. Just hours after Abbas raised hopes for restarting the Middle East peace process by vowing on Thursday at the U.N. General Assembly that a new Palestinian government would recognize Israel, his future coalition partners, the Islamist militants of Hamas, killed the deal...
...Hamas senior advisor, Ahmed Yousef, bluntly said: "There won't be a national unity government [with Abbas] if Hamas is asked to recognize Israel." Hamas now leads the Palestinian government; it won the majority of votes in last January's elections, and the beleaguered president cannot get a new cabinet approved by the legislature without the support of the militants...
...Abbas perhaps should have been more cautious. But his words were directed toward the White House, say Palestinian advisers close to him. Prior to his speech, Abbas was warned by the Bush Administration - his only protector these days - that he would risk trouble with the U.S. if he drew too close to a Hamas that refuses to recognize Israel. So, to please the White House, Abbas made a promise at the U.N. he could not keep...
...action, the U.S. may be breeding more extremism than progress. There's also the delicate matter of accepting democracy's outcome when it goes against U.S. preferences. Although the Administration has done that in Iraq - supporting an elected government closer to Iran than it is to Washington - in the Palestinian territories it initially did just the opposite, seeking to overthrow the newly elected Hamas government though a financial blockade. Bush's suggestion Tuesday that "the world is waiting to see whether the Hamas government will follow through on its promises [of ending corruption and improving the lives of the Palestinian...
...President Bush did his best at the U.N. to paint the U.S. as a friend of the Arab world's huddled masses. But events in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon all have dampened prospects that those huddled masses will accept the President as their champion...