Palestinian Unity Deal Troubles Isreal, U.S.

Ahmed Abuhamda, Nicholas Casey "Palestinian Agreement on Unity Government Troubles Israel, U.S." Leadership from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank tentatively agreed this week to unify, giving them more leverage in the bargaining process which the U.S. is mediating between Israel and Palestine. Alignment of Hamas, an openly, violently anti-Semitic organization makes the outlook for a peace deal with Israel much less likely. In fact, Netanyahu, Israel's PM commented Wednesday to the effect that there were two roads; one in which Palestine looked towards cooperation with Israel and the other looking towards Hamas. This will strain John Kerry's ability to achieve the historic peace deal that he so badly wants in the Obama Foreign Policy legacy. Incredibly odd, at least I thought, was the glossing over of Israeli sponsored terrorism. In a seven hundred-plus word article in the Wall Street Journal, just one sentence is offered to Palestinian defense. "Shortly after the announcement of a reconciliation agreement, Hamas said rockets from Israel hit Northern Gaza, wounding seven people." I understand this to mean that the rockets were a use of hard power to condemn the agreement. Understanding that both sides are actively participating in Religious war should make it absurd for the United States to take such a Zionist (pro-Israel) stance, despite their clearly shared Judeo-Christian Western identification with Israel. How can shared ethnic background make it impossible to condemn blatant violations of Human Rights? Huntington argued that one of the quintessential differences between The West and the Islamic World was the value of our traditional, Western human rights (Freedoms of Speech and Press, Assembly and the like, but also a different value of life). If this is truly the case, it would be understandable to dismiss Hamas terrorism against Jews as a policy of a culture that we, as Westerners, do not understand or relate to. Though it may upend our sensibilities, as educated, compassionate westerners we should be able to rationalize from the perspective of the Arab World. With this in mind, we should condemn and reject any self-identified western institution -- state or organization -- that violates clear-cut, western, human rights. When it comes to American Policy with Israel, we ignore their aggression, usually calling it defensiveness, and routinely point to Gaza and Palestine as the root cause -- not how it should work. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304518704579519592526567868 Mitch Wood