Mashaal, You break it, you buy it!

Aside from the fact that this makes the distinction between "moderates" & "extremists" pretty much meaningless (which it always was), this can only be seen as a clever manoeuver with complex motivations. You might call it a strategic retreat or an attempt to undermine Abbas from the inside. One advantage is that they will excape the responsibility for governing while maintaining influence & concentrating on terrorism & building up military capabilities. At the same time, they can present a "public face" of being reasonable. They have Saudi & Egyptian support, which of course tells you how "moderate" these regimes are. And they maintain Iranian support - which of course neither the Saudis nor the Egyptians oppose. It shows that the idea of some Arab concensus against Iran is a bad joke. The same thing is happening in Lebanon where the anti-Syrian forces are getting screwed by everyone, including the US. Should this succeed, our gov't. will be forced to do some incredible intellectual gymnastics to explain away the obvious failure of their policy towards Abbas. Abbas, on the other hand, can easily see the writing on the wall - if he refuses (and he has good reasons to refuse) he looks unreasonable & even more of a pawn of the Americans. If he accepts, negotiations may break down but far worse, he will be infiltrated out of office. You can see by such behavior on the Palestinian side that Israeli & American policy is based on wishful thinking & false analysis.

They are a bunch of useless nobodies who have killed their own and destroyed what little there was of Gaza. They have put the Palestinian people through months of starvation and suffering and for what? Now they see the grass is actually greener on the other side. Running a piece of wasteland is harder than it looks, especially when you don't have any money, direction, goals and are full of hate for your neighbours. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Only if Hamas Disarms and dissolves its military wing(s). Additonaly Fatah should do the same and then Hamas and Fatah transform into pure political parties. Otherwise it is all hot air

...the flagrant lack of maturity of Islamist "leaders" and the systemic hyper-inflated ego characterizing the terrorist groups. First , like a spoilt brat, one throws a tantrum and takeover Gaza ( a coup to say the least ) , then , realizing that one is not supported by the street people, that one is rightfully stigmatized by the international scene and the Arab countries, one finally realises that one has taken the wrong step. It has taken only 6 months to brain deprived Mashaal and lobotomized Hanniyeh to realize what was obvious from day one. Mashaal and Hanniyeh are nobody, they do not represent anyone but themselves and their Islamist Ego. Their Jihad is not against us, but against the Palestinian and , as planned from day one, they could only fail. This is now demonstrated and confirms the lack of political maturity the so called :Gaza government. Abbas should now make sure that the religious police , the obscurantism associated traditionally with Islamism is also eradicated.

Abbas...Meshaal...Rantissi and C°... All that puppets of Iran, Syria or the Arab League aiming to dismantle the Jewish state.... And now...Balad !

Will Mashaal send another one

Olmert transferred 25 armored vehicles to the PA to be shared by Hamas and Abbas to kill Jews. Olmert does not care since his son Shaul Olmert is in NY and his other son is in Paris. His 17 year old daughter also lives in NY

Is this hamas, fatah smoke and mirrors stunt supposed to make a difference ? Nothing about seizing all the weapons and military hardware in Gaza ? The large arsenal just stays with Hamas along with their army trained and ready to attack Israel while fatah gets more weapons and millions more from the US.. What a gravy train corrupt racket the U.S. runs for the Palestinians. The good terrorists fake a pass hand over to the corrupt Abbas terrorists and Israel gets the warm fuzzies ? I used to think Israeli's were wise but it look like they traded their brains for a fake US peace pottage.

That Hamas "organization" is critically wounded and needs to salvage little what is left in terms of political capital. Israel and the western governements need to keep up the pressure until their utter failure serve to illustrate their complete failure in governing themselves. The same applies to Fatah. No hard earned western money for terrorists.

It looks like HAMAS is really hurting if they come groveling back to Abbas to forgive them for their massacre and try to cede Gaza control to save their sorry butts. It is high time that Abbas realizes that HAMAS and Gaza are more or a liability than an asset. They don't help the peace process. They hurt the economic conditions, freedom of movement, and quality of life. HAMAS and Gaza are like a limb plagued with incurable cancer and demands to be surgically removed and discarded. It is in WB and Abbas' best interest to cut ties with HAMAS and Gaza and let Israel finish off the HAMAS, PRC, IJ, and El Aqsa terrorists while pursuing peace accords with Abbas and WB. Gaza is really hurting with smuggling being thwarted, money, gas, electricity, and hopefully water being cut off until the terrorists are wiped out.