McCain, Boehner, Rubio, coached by Ellison and sworn to by Napolitano will be denying this shortly and framing anyone who mentions it as dangerous. via Gaza PM praises Hamas leader’s meeting with Morsy | Egypt Independent.
Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh praised
Egypt’s role in serving the Palestinian cause and said that Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsy’s meeting with Hamas leaders on Thursday was “a
fruit of the Egyptian revolution.”
Morsy met with a Hamas delegation headed
by Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, in the presidential
palace on Thursday. Hamas described the meeting as “historic,” adding
that it was a warm meeting.
Haniyeh said in a Friday sermon that the
Arab revolutions would liberate Palestine from the Israeli occupation,
stressing that Israel has no future on Palestinian lands.
He added that a high level of Islamic
awareness in the region was behind the revolutions, which would achieve
the desires of the people.
Haniyeh announced on Thursday that he would meet with Morsy next week.
Morsy and Meshaal on Thursday discussed
Egypt’s efforts to support the Palestinian cause, the Palestinian
reconciliation process and the establishment of an independent
Palestinian state, as well as ways of supporting the people of the Gaza
Strip.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was
also in Cairo on a separate trip and met with Morsy Wednesday, amid
reports that members of Hamas and Fatah would soon conduct their own
meeting.
“If you are Abbas, you are very concerned about the strengthening and emboldening of Hamas,”
said David Schenker, director of the Program on Arab Politics at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He emphasized that the
meeting between Morsi and Meshaal marked the first meeting between Hamas, the militant offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and an Egyptian head of state.
Symbolically, he said, it raises Meshaal to the level of president.
Though Meshaal is the political leader of
Hamas, he leads from exile in Doha, Qatar, while Prime Minister Ismail
Haniyeh heads the Hamas administration in Gaza. Haniyeh is expected to
meet with Morsi next week.
Schenker said one of the roles Morsi had
prior to the fall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was to
serve as liaison between the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the
Palestinian branch of Hamas. “For the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood there
is no institutional prejudice whatsoever against Hamas,” he said. “The
atmospherics within these meetings must be shocking to members of Fatah,
and not welcome.”
Both Schenker and Gerald M. Steinberg, a
political science professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said it
was widely believed that a Morsi presidency would mean a dramatic change
in Egyptian-Palestinian relations, particularly given the close
relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
Schenker said it remains unlikely that Morsi would put extreme pressure on Hamas to make concessions to Fatah.
“These guys are in the same club, and they share a similar worldview vis-à-vis Israel and to a lesser extent vis-à-vis the U.S.,” Schenker said.
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