Hamas has reported that they are willing to deal “positively” with Obama’s Middle East Peace Plan “but only in exchange for a long-term truce.”
So let’s break this down:
1) This says that Hamas is going to engage in peace talks with the maximum its willing to do is a long-term truce. Does anyone else see the problem with this? I was under the impresion that on engaged in peace talks in order to obtain peace. I guess Hamas’ leadership is unaware of this fact.
2) One has to wonder, what could possibly possess Israel to consider giving up land and dealing with a terrorist organization in peace talks when that organization isn’t even offering peace. Let’s be clear here, if all you’re talking about is a long-term truce (hudna), peace is not on the table. This is a game of saying “we’re willing to acknowledge tha tde facto you exist, but are unwilling to recognizethe fact that you’re here because we don’t believe you have the right to be.”  This a way for Hamas to achieve a semi-long term secession of battles without giving up its right to resistance (muqawama).
Underhanded? Duplicitous? More than a tad.
Grand Muffti
8/13/2009
Muffti hates to be a stickler (and probably pretty naive), but isn’t the long term truce a PREcondition (according to the sentence) of ‘dealing’, not of a final peace agreement?
LB
8/14/2009
Muffti, no – He said that Hamas now accepts a two-state solution “but only in exchange for a long-term truce” with Israel.
I think that’s pretty clear that they will not accept anything more than a long-term truce (i.e. peace).