This week's comedic relief brought to you by Shira Herzog of the Globe and Mail

Get ready....

Hamas must be inside the tent for a realistic Palestinian-Israeli deal

SHIRA HERZOG

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

This week's international donors conference on Gaza again exposed the contradiction haunting the Israeli-Palestinian relationship since Hamas's victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election and its subsequent takeover of Gaza: The gathering committed to rebuilding Gaza didn't include that area's de facto ruler.

Like others at the meeting, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon insisted that aid wouldn't be channelled through Hamas. Indeed, giving Hamas the dollars promised would amount to rewarding the terrorist organization's incessant shower of rocket fire on Israeli towns. But there's a fallacy in continuing to ignore the reality of its rule in Gaza.

Shira, bubby, the reality of the rule of HAMAS is that it's election accurately reflects the desire of the people to have a PERPETUAL RELIGIOUS WAR OF THE PEOPLES between themselves and the JEWS, NOT ISRAEL - THE JEWS (they can get their hands on). There will be no deal. If by deal you mean PEACE. There is a chance there will be a construct called a temporary cease fire, maybe, but I doubt that as well.

In official Israeli and Western circles, there's been a dearth of creative thinking. Even after Israel's latest military incursion, leading figures such as Tzipi Livni, Israel's outgoing foreign minister, still argue that, ultimately, Israel will have to destroy Hamas. The hard-line Avigdor Lieberman, who's hoping to be her successor in a Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, is outspokenly committed to this unrealistic goal.

If soft hearted avoiders of reality like Tzipi who endured a 'peace' conference at which she was ignored by the arabs becuase she was BOTH a jew and a jewess recgonizes that HAMAS has to be detroyed, perhaps you had better readjust your view of the situation, since Livni sees the Kadima voters quite clearly.

Israel's recent action in Gaza re-established its own deterrent capacity and dealt Hamas a serious military blow - but the attendant loss of life and property also demonstrated the unacceptable cost of more aggressive moves. Hamas is there to stay and prevails by sheer survival - by demonstrating its steadfastness against Israel's power. Its leverage is reinforced when compared with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas's failure to stop expansion - let alone evacuation - of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

If HAMAS is there to stay, then there will be war, again and again and again, until all of us, including you, tire so badly of it that Israel finally WILL make all of Gaza look like RIchmond in 1865, and the final story will be Egypt blockading it's border, and/or transporting Gaza's millions to the KSA. That's the reality. HAMAS cannot make peace. To quote someone...GOD WILLS IT. Now where have I heard that before?

The alternative - simply accepting the fact of Hamas's rule and dealing with its leaders - is equally facile. No one should talk to Hamas as long as it won't forswear violence and continues to turn Gaza into an armed camp. But, realistically, no one else can stop the rocket fire on Israeli towns or release the Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who's been held captive for nearly three years.

Since they will never forswear the death of Israel why did you even TYPE ANYTHING?
Maybe to prove you are a nice person with peace at heart for all. SOmetimes peace is not the answer. Cannot be the answer. And we must recognize this FACT no matter what we want. In Israel today there can be no peace. HAMAS and Iran ENSURE THIS.

Moreover, a plan to rebuild Gaza won't be effective without a broader plan for dealing with Hamas. Mr. Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad can deposit funds in Gaza's banks, but they can't rebuild business or infrastructure alone. In any event, in the absence of a ceasefire, as long as Israel closes Gaza's crossings to construction materials, rehabilitation efforts don't stand a chance.

There is no point in rebuilding Gaza at all with the hearts of the Palestinian peoples themselves set on the end of Israel. Those hearts must accept that if they want their children to have any kind of life in this world, it is going to be with Israel as a neighbor. If this cannot overcome the Quranic necessities displayed by HAMAS and the Muslim Brotherhood to all the world, then either one side has to die or the other. IN THE END.

The next few weeks may yield the ingredients for a different approach. If the talks between Hamas and Mr. Abbas's Fatah now under way in Cairo lead to a Palestinian unity government and an Egyptian-mediated Israel-Hamas ceasefire (including the release of Staff Sergeant Shalit) is achieved, a new status quo will be created. Israel remains firmly opposed to anything it perceives as legitimization of Hamas. But, in fact, such a new platform would serve the interests of anyone committed to the fast-eroding prospect of a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Getting a broad Palestinian consensus on two states is critical - and getting it without Hamas is impossible.

I'll make you a bet. HAMAS will eventually vanquish FATAH (more easily if there is a unity govt) because the views of HAMAS more closely fit the desire of the arabs to kill the jews, and the Quranic injunctions will give HAMAS a much clearer conscience as their more religious genocidal freaks toss FATAH's mafia type genocidal freaks off the roofs in Jenin, Nablus, and Ramallah, just as they did in Gaza. Without a change in the hearts of the Palestinians there will be no Palestinian state, unless of course the jews want to die.

Hamas won't recognize Israel in terms of either a ceasefire or a unity government, thereby falling short of conditions still adhered to by Israel and the Quartet (the U.S, the European Union, Russia and the UN). But today's complexities may lead Western governments to fall back on the proven diplomatic tool of constructive ambiguity and distinguish between a unity government as the source of Palestinian authority and Hamas as an organization.

Bringing Hamas into the tent just that much would support what's most realistic, given Israeli political realities and chronic Palestinian disarray - management of the conflict that falls short of concluding a comprehensive agreement. That's because the international parties realize that, without a ceasefire or intra-Palestinian deal, another round of fighting in Gaza can't be ruled out.

As long as HAMAS exists, another round of war is GUARANTEED. That is all there is.