DAR AL HARB: DHIMMIS, EN MASSE, ANXIOUS TO DANCE TO THE TUNE SET FORTH BY THEIR MASTERS

Mecca pact doesn't spare Israel
Fatah, Hamas agreement leaves out Western peace demand
BY STEVEN ERLANGER,
The New York Times

JERUSALEM - The agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, between Fatah and Hamas on how to form a unity government was greeted with relief by many Palestinians on Friday as their best hope for an end to the fighting among them that has killed nearly 100 Palestinians since December.

But it poses a challenge for the Bush administration, which, along with Israel and several European countries, wants the new government to meet three benchmarks for relations:
recognize the right of Israel to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Without the three - and the Mecca accord does not accept them - an international boycott on the Palestinians would continue.

The administration will have to work hard to keep unity among its partners in the quartet - the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations - on the three conditions.

Russia has already demurred, welcoming the accord and saying that once the new government is formed it "should be combined with lifting a blockade of the Palestinian territories which has inflicted suffering and hardship to the people."

The French also welcomed the deal, but the European Union spokeswoman, Emma Udwin, was cautious, saying that all parties agreed "to take the time to consider, to see what the agreement is and how it is going to be implemented" before deciding whether to lift the embargo.

The United States will also be reluctant to dismiss the Saudis' accomplishments as brokers of the accord, given Washington's interest in creating a broader moderate Arab coalition, including Egypt, Jordan and the Persian Gulf countries, to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions and regional reach.

Already, Hamas has appealed for talks with the Europeans. Western nations "cannot ignore this agreement and impose their own conditions," said Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas government spokesman.

The accord for the new government does not promise to stop attacks on Israel and Israelis, though one of the documents it referenced urges Palestinians to "focus" attacks on Israeli-occupied areas outside the 1967 boundary lines.

As for recognizing Israel, Nizar Rayyan, a Hamas spokesman, was explicit. "We will never recognize Israel," he told Reuters in Gaza. "There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination."


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