Word: roadmaps
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...hudna is a source of alarm rather than comfort for the Israelis. They insist, with American backing, that the roadmap requires not an agreement by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade to refrain from terror attacks, but instead the systematic dismantling of these groups. Israel is insisting on nothing less than an all-out "war on terror" by the PA, but Abbas is both unable and unwilling to use force against the militants for fear of starting a Palestinian civil war he would likely lose. Instead, the PA hopes to draw these groups into...
...that there's no pressure on Hamas: Although the movement's stature has been enhanced by the "roadmap" process - it is clear to ordinary Palestinians now that the PA is forced to seek the consent of the Islamists before embarking on a cease-fire - the group faces two sources of pressure: Arab governments, and Palestinian public opinion. Still widely viewed in the Arab world as a legitimate resistance movement to Israeli occupation, Hamas's welfare networks have been extensively funded from abroad (and the movement's terrorists obviously draw from the same coffers). Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in particular, have...
...Political calculations, rather than a belief in the roadmap process, appears to have prompted Hamas to adopt a three-month hudna, an Islamic term for a tactical cease-fire. On condition that Israel refrains from assassinating its leaders, and possibly other demands such as a release of prisoners, Hamas will undertake to refrain from attacks on Israelis for a three-month period. But they will reserve the right to resume such attacks if Israel strikes at them. That way, they're staying on the right side of Palestinian and Arab public opinion, in the belief that ordinary Palestinians will blame...
...goes ahead, Hamas's hudna will clear the way for implementation of the first steps of Phase 1 of the roadmap, in which a cease-fire allows the Palestinian Authority to resume security control in Gaza and the West Bank city of Bethlehem. But the truce introduces an even sharper dispute on the next security steps. Israel, and the Bush administration, have warned that the roadmap requires not a tactical cease-fire by Hamas, but the systematic disarming and dismantling of the organization and other groups that have waged terror attacks...
...Sharon believes implementation of the roadmap depends on the PA waging a "war on terror," but Hamas has has no intention of disarming and Abbas has no intention of using force against Hamas or any other Palestinian militant group - because he knows that armed with little more than the roadmap and the support of Israel and the U.S., he's unlikely to win a Palestinian civil war. Abbas has almost no independent political base, and his ability to deliver depends to a considerable degree on the extent to which he is able to win Yasser Arafat's backing - that...