Posted on 02/27/2007 9:22:41 AM PST by LibWhacker
Moscow (dpa) - Hamas politburo leader Khaled Mashaal called Tuesday for "fundamental change" in the Quartet of Mideast peace brokers and warned of "open battle" with Israel and Islamic hatred toward the United States unless Washington resumes aid funding.
"The Arab and Islamic world need a fundamental change in the politics of the Quartet," Mashaal said of the group of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, in remarks made during a Moscow visit and quoted by Interfax.
Mashaal added that the "Arab world demands" the international community react positively to an agreement Hamas struck earlier this month with rival faction Fatah in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, that promised to pave the way for a future Palestinian unity government.
Mashaal's trip to Moscow marked the second time a Hamas delegation had traveled to the Russian capital since the militant group, ostracized by the West, took control of the Palestinian legislature in elections last year.
The United States and European Union have labled Hamas a terrorist group.
The organization's founding charter is committed to the destruction of Israel, and the US-based Council on Foreign Relations estimates Hamas has killed "more than 500 people in terrorist attacks" since 1993.
Not backing from sharp rhetoric, Mashaal said during a press conference in Moscow Tuesday that the "refusal of Israel of our rights and the continuation of aggressive policies will lead the region to an open battle," Itar-Tass reported.
The Hamas leader added that Israeli-led construction near Jerusalem's Temple Mount would end in a "bloody battle."
After meeting with Mashaal Tuesday afternoon, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Mashaal's delegation had assured him it would take measures to stop shelling Israeli territories with Qassam rockets.
Both Lavrov and Mashaal also said Hamas would reject violence in achieving its goals.
"The meeting confirmed the correctness and justification of our approach ... in the need to actively work with representatives of (Hamas)," Lavrov said in remarks run by Interfax.
The Russian top diplomat also urged the United States and European Union to end what he called an economic "blockade" against the Palestinian territories.
Washington and Brussels cut what is estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars in direct aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas' parliamentary victory.
Both have said they will not resume monetary support of the Palestinian government until Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and fulfills past promises.
Mashaal demanded in tougher terms that Washington resume its aid funding: "The American administration's insistence on the continuation of the blockade will give birth to more hatred toward America not only ... on a Palestinian level but on an Arab, Islamic level."
While the West has taken a harder line with groups like Hamas and states that it claims sponsor terrorism, Russia has tried to regain Soviet-era influence in the Middle East by encouraging diplomatic cooperation with Hamas and countries including Syria and Iran.
Lavrov said last week after a Berlin meeting of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peace brokers - Russia, the United States, the EU and the United Nations - that "there is no talk of a boycott of the coalition government" of Hamas and Fatah.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has vowed to reserve judgment of the agreed-upon Palestinian unity government before it forms, and EU members including France have called it a step in the right direction.
Lavrov Tuesday said that the Hamas-Fatah coalition and the beginning of a functional government in the Palestinian territories would "open the path to the beginning of the peace process between Palestine and Israel," Itar-Tass reported.
Israel, however, has said it will not negotiate with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas if he joins an alliance with Hamas.
Uh-oh, scary... Don't want that... Better pay 'em. </sarc>
Do they hate... the Chinese... or the Indians... or the people of Brazil when they don't provide aid? We are just so special to them.
Whine whine whine.
Bring it on! The whole problem with the smelly bunch of goat-phockers is that they hide behind women's skirts and children. Come out in the open, cowards!!
That they believe such an approach would work on us is quite telling.
As if anyone owes them a cent. ef them.
extortion??
Give us money or we'll go to war with you!?
Send them AIDS.
That's right -- we paid for those MOABs, and the Pali squatter territories seems as good a place to use them as any.
Guess all that promised funding from his fellow Islamic goombahs didn't quite work out.
They'd better get their "virgins" ready! Allahu fubar!
Islamic hatred toward the United States unless Washington resumes aid funding.
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