Israelis warn EU to shun Hamas

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 23/06/05

The EU's apparent readiness to meet the Palestinian group Hamas has been branded "racist" by one of Israel's leading politicians, as an emerging diplomatic rift threatens the EU's role in the Middle East peace process.

Bitter recriminations have followed recent reports that EU officials have informed their US counterparts that they will hold low-level meetings with the group, designated a terrorist organisation according to the EU's own rules.

Yuval Steinitz, the head of the foreign affairs and defence committee of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), decried such a move as "racist" and "unacceptable".

"If Europe will speak with Hamas it will be conceived as an extremely hostile act against Israel that cannot be accepted," said Steinitz, a close ally of former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I never heard that Europe is considering speaking to global jihad organisations like al-Qaeda," he told European Voice. "I would be extremely careful after the dark Jewish experience in Europe, not to make this terrible racist distinction between those murderers who are purposely targeting Europeans or Christian civilians and those who are targeting Jews or Israelis."

But with Hamas representatives now in municipal government and likely to do well in the upcoming legislative elections, the EU is presented with a difficult choice between offending Israel and the US, who want to see the organisation sidelined, or ignoring democratically elected Palestinians.

Faced with the possibility of Hamas members being elected to the Palestinian parliament, the US and Israel are pressing the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to bar the organisation from running.

But for the moment the EU is trying to play down the difficulties.

"Hamas is on the terrorist list and that is not going to change," said one EU diplomat, "there are a number of preconditions before the EU considers Hamas as an interlocutor."

It is likely that any senior level talks would require Hamas to renounce its armed struggle.

"I hope we can find a pragmatic solution to this question," said the diplomat.

Israeli politicians on all sides of political spectrum have been vociferous in their opposition to any EU contact with Hamas.

According to Ran Cohen, a Left-wing Knesset member for the Yahad faction and former trade minister, any contacts would mean legitimising the organisation.

"Whether you like it or not, to open negotiations with terrorist organisations is the legalisation of [that] organisation and the legalisation of [its] terrorist actions, this is a fact you cannot escape from," he said.

Ilan Shalgi, a member of the Knesset for the secular Shinui party, echoed these sentiments: "the Right and Left agree and I am from the centre, I agree."

But the most vehement criticism comes from the Israeli Right and the Likud government, some of whose members suspect Hamas and other groups of using the current lull in violence to re-arm and prepare for a third Intifada, or uprising.

According to Steinitz, "instead of the beginning of dismantling these networks it is the beginning of the recovery of the organisations that are collecting weapons, smuggling weapons, producing weapons, drafting people and preparing for the next round of violence".

"This is extremely clear, this is what is now under preparation," he said.

One of Israel's leading politicians has attacked EU plans to meet the Palestinian group Hamas. According to the EU's own rules, Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation and the apparent readiness to meet Hamas could threaten the EU's role in the Middle East Peace Process.