Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the UN vote that created the state of Israel. It did not go unmarked by Hamas:-

"Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews." (from the Jerusalem Post via Norm)

...or in still more emphatic form here, from a source evidently close to the horse's mouth:-

'Hamas affirmed that Palestine is an Arab, Islamic country since time immemorial and Jews have no right whatsoever in the land of Palestine, and stressed that Palestine is an inseparable whole that is not for partitioning.'

Not exactly nuanced, is it?

These people want Hamas to be involved in 'dialogue and reconciliation' and granted the freedom to acquire more lethal firepower so they can kill Israeli civilians. Whether the reconciliation takes place on the basis of the Fatah line or the Hamas line (see above) doesn't seem to matter particularly.

You may like to note that CAFOD and Oxfam, though a lot closer than they should be to Christian Aid on this issue, are at least not signatories to this deplorable document. Oxfam has stated:-

'For its part, Hamas has failed to stop armed Palestinian groups from undertaking indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel. These attacks are unacceptable and must end.'

It's bad enough that this credits Hamas with wanting to stop the rocket attacks; if anything still worse that the statement that the attacks are 'unacceptable' is immediately cancelled out by the demand that Israel end its blockade of Gaza, and thus 'accept' not just these attacks, but also attacks using the far more deadly weaponry which the attackers could then acquire; but it's still more change than you'll get out of Christian Aid at present.