Mischaracterization of Hezbollah a flaw in the Stanley Foundation's peace strategy

In his Des Moines Register op ed, "Change Mideast policy — It's rooted in delusion," MICHAEL KRAIG, director of policy analysis and dialogue at the Stanley Foundation, advocates a hugs and kisses approach to get Hezbollah to abandon its negative behaviors.

An integrative approach in Lebanon would recognize Hezbollah's valuable social and political role in southern Lebanon while still opposing its destabilizing, dangerous and unsustainable anti-Israeli actions. It would encourage truly equitable talks among all Lebanese factions on the future institutional makeup of the national government, including Hezbollah as an equal and legitimate actor at the table.

Mr. Kraig, how about identifying Hezbollah for what it is: an organization on the US State Department's list of international terrorists.

Global “Jewish Targets”: Renewing Hezbollah’s Jihad Genocide?June 21st, 2008 by Andrew Bostom

Hezbollah’s “Spiritual” Purveyors of Jihad Genocide

According to US and Canadian intelligence agencies the Shi’ite jihad terror organization Hezbollah, supported by its patron Iran, is poised, once again, to launch a lethal attack against “Jewish targets” far removed from the battlegrounds of the Middle East.

Although no substantive evidence has emerged identifying a specific target, both Canada and Latin America have been suggested as possible targets—the latter being where, in Buenos Aires, Hezbollah struck twice during the 1990s, killing 29 at the Israeli embassy in 1992, and murdering at least 85 more in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center.

The ostensible reason given for this renewed jihad terror activity is “revenge” for the February (2008) assassination of Hezbollah’s murderous terror master Imad Mugniyah, killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria. Hezbollah blames Israel for this assassination, an allegation rejected by Israeli officials.

Ultimately, however, Hezbollah’s chronic, annihilationist jihad against Israel reflects a rigid adherence to both classical jihad theory, and the ugliest elements of Islamic theology regarding Jews.

The distinguished Shi’ite theologian al-Amili (d.1622) wrote the following (p.213) about jihad war in the Jami-i-Abbasi, his seminal Persian manual of Shi’a Law:

“Islamic Holy war [jihad] against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax.”

And the Jews stubborn malevolence—portrayed in the darkest colors by Islam’s sacred texts—is their defining worldly characteristic. Examples of this archetypal Jew hatred from the Koran, and hadith (traditions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad), amplified by the early Muslim biographies of Muhammad, include:

· Koranic verses labeling Jews as malevolent enemies of Islam (5:82); disobedient slayers of their own prophets who suffered justifiable abasement (2:61), including, for some, transformation into apes and swine (5:60);

· the canonical hadith (Sahih Muslim Book 026, Number 5431), and accounts provided by early Muslim biographers of Muhammad (such as Ibn Saad, below), that the Jews caused Muhammad’s protracted, excruciating death from poisoning:

“The Jews discussed about poisons and became united in one poison. She [a Khaybar Jewess, Zaynab Bint al-Harith] poisoned the goat putting more poison in the forelegs.. Allah’s Apostle took the foreleg, a piece of which he put into his mouth…Allah’s Apostle sent for Zaynab [and]…handed her over to [those] who put her to death…Allah’s Apostle lived after this three years, till in consequence of his pain he passed away. During his illness he used to say: I did not cease to find the effect of the poisoned morsel I took at Khaybar…”

Hezbollah’s name, “The Party of Allah”, derives from Koran 5:56—“And whoever takes Allah and His messenger and those who believe for a guardian, then surely the party of Allah are they that shall be triumphant.” In a public statement issued February 15/16, 1986, Hezbollah stressed its indelible links to Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini (“We obey the orders of one leader wise and just…”) and conceived of itself as a “nation” linked to Muslims worldwide by “…a strong ideological and political bond, namely Islam.”

Expressed in the political language of the Koran, Hezbollah’s ideology encompasses, (as per the slogan adorning the party emblem, “The Party of Allah is Sure to Triumph” ) at least three major objectives: transforming Lebanon into a Shari’a state; destroying Israel; establishing regional, followed by international Islamic hegemony, i.e., bringing the region, then the world under Shari’a law.

…we do not constitute an organized party in Lebanon. Nor are we a tight political cadre. We are an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. This is why whatever touches or strikes Muslims, in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and everywhere reverberates throughout the Muslim umma of which we are an integral part. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading jurist (wilayat al-faqih)

As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation (marja’ al-taqlid). Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated and is accessible to all.

No one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry out the Holy war (Jihad), each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist.

…our struggle [against Israel] will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.

Demonizing Israel and Jews—via motifs in the Koran and hadith—Hezbollah views the jihad against the “Zionist entity” as an annihilationist war intrinsic to broader conflicts: the struggle between the Islamic world and the non-Muslim world, and the historical struggle between Islam and Judaism.


The most senior clerical authority for Hezbollah, Husayn Fadlalah has stated, “We find in the Koran that the Jews are the most aggressive towards the Muslims…because of their aggressive resistance to the unity of the faith.”

Fadlallah repeatedly refers to anti-Jewish archetypes in the Koran, hadith, and sira: the corrupt, treacherous and aggressive nature of the Jews; their reputation as killers of prophets, who spread corruption on earth; and the notion that the Jews engaged in conspiratorial efforts against the Muslim prophet. Fadlallah argues, ultimately, “Either we destroy Israel or Israel destroys us.”

Muhammad Hassan Nasrallah, current Secretary General of Hezbollah, and a protége of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, presently Iran’s highest ranking political and religious authority (i.e., its “Guardian Jurisprudent”), has reiterated these antisemitic and annihilationist views with particular vehemence.

Invoking motifs from Islam’s foundational texts, Nasrallah has characterized Jews as the “grandsons of apes and pigs,” and as “Allah’s most cowardly and greedy creatures.”

He elaborates these themes into an annihilationist animus against all Jews, not merely Israelis.

Anyone who reads the Koran and the holy writings of the monotheistic religions sees what they did to the prophets, and what acts of madness and slaughter the Jews carried out throughout history…

Anyone who reads these texts cannot think of co-existence with them, of peace with them, or about accepting their presence, not only in Palestine of 1948 but even in a small village in Palestine, because they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment…There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.

If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew.

Notice, I do not say the Israeli…[I]f they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.

The Shi’ite jihadist organization Hezbollah thus proclaims with triumphant exuberance its visceral opposition to Judaism and the existence of Israel, stressing the eternal conflict between the Jews and Islam.

Eradicating Israel, and terrorizing, perhaps even destroying Jewish communities worldwide, represents an early stage of Hezballah’s Pan-Islamic ambitions, and its jihad against the rest of the non-Muslim world.

Blithely ignoring this reality, and allowing places such as Toronto, Canada, or Dearborn, Michigan to become hubs for Hezbollah fund-raising and organizing is both morally repugnant, and destructive to our must fundamental Western values expressed with such eloquence in George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to…enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

All Articles Copyright © 2007-2008 Dr. Andrew Bostom | All Rights Reserved

Part III: Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism

Part III of a discussion about
“The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History,” by Andrew Bostom. In this segment, we reference Robert Kaplan's review of Bostom's book for how Bostom treats the subject of Islamic antisemitism differently than does Bernard Lewis. Kaplan is a professor of history at Cornell University.

Writes Kaplan: (excerpted)

Bostom's book is part of an ongoing debate about the comparative situation of Jews under the crescent and the cross. In this debate Bostom is in sharp disagreement with Bernard Lewis, the well known and much quoted authority on the history of Islam.

One source of difference lies in the fact that compared with Lewis's [Bostom's] writing includes considerably more detail of the anti-Jewish elements in Islamic religion, culture and history.

By quoting the words of Jews who lived under the Muslims and non-Moslems visiting their lands, Bostom's text conveys emotions of sympathy and indignation regarding the oppressed condition of Jews which Lewis's academic, non-emotional style largely omits.

The structure of Lewis's and Bostom's arguments are also quite different.

Employing a genetic approach, Bostom shows that Islam's holy books, the Koran, the hadith and the sira all have sharply negative things to say about Jews, that these have been emphasized and reinforced by Moslem thinkers, jurists and preachers throughout the history of Islam, and that the attitudes and ideas engendered by them have directly influenced the actions of Moslem rulers, clergy and mobs both in their oppression of Jews as dhimmis and their aggressive excesses against Jews which have included pogroms, forced conversion, pillage and expulsion.

The status of dhimmi to which Jews and Christians are relegated under Islamic law is one entailing serious suffering and indignity in the best of circumstances. Frequently circumstances were far from the best.

Lewis puts Islam's record regarding Jews in a favorable light mainly with the generalizations he makes rather than the particular facts he marshals.

Lewis writes "dhimmitude was a minor inconvenience Jews learned to live with ...under Muslim rule the status of dhimmi was long accepted with gratitude by Jews." In making this improbable claim he gives no evidence or explanation.

How does Lewis reach the conclusion that anti-Semitism is unknown to classical Islam? He defines "anti-Semitism" as hatred of Jews according to Christian doctrine, not simply hatred of Jews. In doing so he distorts the ordinary meaning of "antisemitism" which in contemporary English means hatred of Jews.

This said, Lewis's writing about Muslim and Jews should not be dismissed. Key to his thinking is the idea, which seems reasonable enough, that in recent years Arab Moslem hatred of Jews has become especially widespread and intense.


The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism provides a broad history of the darker side of the Jewish experience in the lands of Islam and the ideas and beliefs which guided Moslem attitudes towards Jews. In this the book brings to light a little known and largely misunderstood area of history and provides an important corrective to the skewed interpretation common among scholars of Islam who, for whatever reason, feel they must put a positive spin on what is essentially negative history.

Part II: Leagacy of Islamic Antisemitism

A continuation, part II, of a discussion about “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History,” by Andrew Bostom. Part I may be accessed on the blogsite.

Looking at Bostom’s book in context, it appears that it comes as an outgrowth of discussions about the nature of Islam. More precisely, critics have pointed to the oppression of non-Muslims, historically, in Islamic-ruled societies, as apparently mandated by Islam. (The contemporary problem, of course, is that SOME Muslim fundamentalists – even MANY, and maybe most, but NOT ALL Muslim fundamentalists – and certainly NOT ALL Muslims -- choose to act upon Islamic mandates in a violent, anti-democratic manner.)

Stated positively, certain non-Muslims were honored as “People of the Book [the Bible]” and were protected as minorities. Stated negatively, non-Muslims were required to display submission to Muslims by assuming specified restrictions – or to convert, or die. The term for protected/submissive minority was: dhimmi.

It is instructive, and fascinating, to follow a debate about the treatment of non-Muslims ruled by Islam, (follow the link back to previous links , for the full flavor of the debate ) such as the following, important rejoinder by the author who writes under the name of Bat Ye’or. She coined the term dhimmitude in 1983 and authored a text about the treatment of Christians and Jews under Islam (1985).

Bat Ye’or: The treatment of the Jews by the Prophet has become the standard by which the classical Muslim jurists formulated their policy toward non-Muslims, as embodied in the Shari'a and in the jihad’s rules.

Hence, when non-Muslims (primarily Hindus and Christians) were killed in Bali [2002], Amrozi, the Indonesian terrorist,[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amrozi_bin_Nurhasyim] invoked the fate of the Jews in the oasis of Khaybar…. Although many of the Jews of Khaybar were killed in an unprovoked jihad campaign by Muhammad, those vanquished Khaybar Jews who surrendered were not killed, but were dispossessed and became exploited dhimmi tributaries, until, within a decade later, they were expelled by the "Rightly Guided" Caliph Umar.



So how did Bostom get involved with all this? Bostom was involved in the debate about the Islamic imperative toward jihad, and in 2005 authored “The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims”

Bostom says, however, it was not until he came across an Islamic anti-Jewish aphorism embedded in, of all places, a 17th century anti-Hindu tract, that his curiosity was piqued as to the provenance of anti-Jewish hatred in Islam:

Bostom: Nearing completion of my first book compendium, The Legacy of Jihad, in early 2005, specifically the section about jihad on the Indian subcontinent, I came across a remarkable comment by the Indian Sufi theologian Sirhindi (d. 1624). …In the midst of an anti-Hindu tract… Sirhindi observes, “Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam.”

The biographical information I could glean about Sirhindi provided….no evidence he was ever in direct contact with Jews, so his very hateful remark suggested to me that the attitudes it reflected must have a theological basis in Islam...

Resource: An Extended interview with Andrew Bostom
Next: Popularly accepted contentions taken on by Bostom.

part I: Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism by Andrew Bostom

An important book. “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History,” by Andrew Bostom, has just been published. Based on extensive research and translations of materials never before available in English, the book will likely reconfigure (if not reverse) prevailing scholarly opinion on the topic.

For an introduction to the material, read Bostom’s article online entitled: Misunderstanding Islamic Anti-Semitism

An objective review of Bostom’s book -- a cautious acceptance of its findings -- has been contributed by Raymond Ibrahim, editor of "The Al Qaeda Reader" first-time translations of religious texts and propaganda.

In brief, Ibrahim says, the findings are valid. Most academia is still in denial about what Bostom presents. The findings have current implications about anti-Semitism in the Muslim world; "still, one should not conflate Islam's mandates with the beliefs of the average "Muslim"; nor should all of these texts be construed as representative of all Muslims."

Here, below, is Ibrahim’s review in its entirety. It is a good place to start. In subsequent postings I will provide more information about the content of Bostom's book.

Is there such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism? That is the implicit question that Andrew Bostom's new book, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism," tackles. The regrettable answer that presents itself is not based on conjecture, political correctness, anachronisms or wishful thinking — increasingly the domains and paradigms of modern academia — but rather primary texts that speak for themselves. Dr. Bostom, whom I have met and who evinces a passion for the subject of his book, still manages to approach it objectively. A medical doctor by profession, he applies the scientific method and bases his conclusions on the data — as all scholars used to.

And his data is significant: This consists of approximately 700, double-column pages of mostly primary text material, loosely divided into two genres: 1) Islamic law's stance toward the Jew, as delineated by Muslims (lest the charge of "bias" be made) and 2) historical texts documenting Jewish life under Islamic rule.

What does one learn from this approach? The historical documents make clear that, from day one, Jews and Christians have been systematically treated as second-class citizens, "dhimmis," in the regions conquered by Islam. Thus even if there were some sort of Andalusian "golden age" — as academics are fond of reminiscing and insisting — that's exactly all it was, an "age," an "aberration." [Bostom concludes, emphatically, that there is more myth than truth in the Golden Age, as far as treatment of non-Muslims is concerned. --Mark]

How else to explain the many documents, across the centuries and from all around the Islamic world, that demonstrate the substandard treatment and contempt Jews were made to live with, centuries before the Arab-Israeli conflict? The book debunks the popular thesis that Islamic enmity for Jews is a Western import.

The two main factors behind Western anti-Semitism — "Christian" hostility and racial theories — can have no influence on the Arab-Islamic world, which does not identify with Christianity. Nor can it, in any form of racial hierarchy, look down on its fellow Semites as inferior. If Nazis made Jews wear special insignias identifying them, so did some Muslims — 1,200 years earlier.

What, then, is the primary impetus behind Islam's antipathy for Jews? This is where Dr. Bostom's theological documents are key. We come to discover that, far from being a by-product of Western anti-Semitism or the creation of Israel, animosity toward the Jews has a firm doctrinal base tracing back to Islam's most authoritative texts. Koranic verse after verse, hadith after hadith, castigate, condemn and curse the Jews; they are called "corrupters," "exploiters," "distorters," "prophet-killers," and, most infamously, "pigs and monkeys." Such slanderous words are contained in the Koran (the eternal words of Allah) and the Hadith (the words of Islam's prophet). Thus, Muslim hostility for Jews clearly has little to do with circumstance or politics.

In short, were Israel to disappear tomorrow — indeed, had it never been founded — Jews would still, according to the eternal words of Islam, be deemed "corrupters," "exploiters," "pigs," "swine," et.al., who, along with Christians, must live in submission to Islam. (It is amazing that this latter point is seen as being lenient on Jews; "polytheists"— like Hindus and Buddhists, for example — must either convert or be put to the sword.)

This is what ultimately makes Islam's position toward the "Other" troubling. While so-called Christian anti-Semitism does exist, it has absolutely no doctrinal backing in the New Testament, and so cannot truly be linked to Christianity. Jesus and his apostles never issued edicts commanding Christians to subjugate Jews — or anyone else, for that matter. One cannot say this about Muhammad. Nearly 200 pages of the book document Muhammad's animus — often manifested in bloody detail by his biographers — toward the Jews.

The juridical decrees and exegeses of Islam's most celebrated theologians also confirm the Jews' reprobate status within Islam. Nor is this limited to the past. Today's closest equivalent to a Muslim "pope," Sheikh Tantawi, after besmirching Jews with all the usual epithets — "monkeys," "swine" — concludes that "[A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not."

The value of Dr. Bostom's book is that it is a vast collection of important documents — what historians have traditionally prioritized — all of which make clear that enmity for Jews has a firm grounding in the Islamic tradition, with its own rationale and motifs. More troubling, it is not just history, but immutable theology, which transcends time and space and needs to apply today no less than yesterday.

Still, one should not conflate Islam's mandates with the beliefs of the average "Muslim"; nor should all of these texts be construed as representative of all Muslims. Yet the vast majority of academia has been belaboring these points — while apologizing, distorting and especially ignoring Islam's most authoritative texts regarding Jews. "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism" is a welcome contribution, in that it at least brings balance.

Hamas pounds Israel with 50 missiles, rockets, and mortars Thursday June 12, 2008, Debka.com [adapted]

Hamas, today, greeted Israel’s decision on Wednesday to accept a ceasefire with the heaviest Palestinian barrage in months.


Canadian trial reveals Islamist plot to attack the CDC in Atlanta [excerpt]

[T]wo Georgia men, Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee, had been arrested after visiting Toronto in March 2005... [O]n April 25, 2006 the alleged ringleader of the Toronto 18 ... went on to reveal that the Americans were planning to attack the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Sheikh Qaradawi unmasked is no moderate

Leading [Muslim] clerics urge Muslims to learn about other faiths in drive to promote harmony Riazat Butt in Mecca June 7 2008 The Guardian [excerpt]

. . . There were signs that dialogue with other believers, specifically Jews, would be problematic….

Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi said he would only talk to Jews who denounced Zionism… His impromptu speech, lasting 15 minutes, garnered the loudest applause, proving his popularity among fellow clerics even if the west views him with suspicion.
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Who is Sheikh Qaradawi? Hamas, as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, has for many years looked to Qaradawi as a religious authority and relied upon his rulings

What does Sheikh Qaradawi say?

The unexpurgated views of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi about Israel, Jews, Zionism and Palestine have been revealed for the first time in an English translation [released in Britain] of a book he wrote in Arabic four years ago. [Jewish Chronicle article]
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“Qaradawi personifies the combination of theological anti-Judaism, modern European antisemitism and conflict-driven Judeophobia that make up contemporary Islamist attitudes to Jews. “ .

..Qaradawi's classification of 'every Jew in the world' (p. 42) as an enemy may refer to contemporary events for its justification, but it has a deep theological purpose.

A chapter of the book is devoted to a discussion of the hadith [a record of a saying or deed of Muhammad] that reads: "The last day will not come unless you fight Jews. A Jew will hide himself behind stones and trees and stones and trees will say, 'O servant of Allah – or O Muslim – there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

This hadith is used by many radical Islamist groups to incite conflict between Muslims and Jews. It is quoted in article seven of the Hamas Covenant... Qaradawi refers to the hadith as 'one of the miracles of our Prophet' (p. 76) and then goes on to describe how this battle between Muslims and Jews is one of the preconditions that needs to be fulfilled before the Day of Judgement can come. He carefully explains, though, that the current fighting between Israel and the Palestinians is a start, but is not sufficient to fulfil the requirements of the hadith:

Quote from Qaradawi: “ [W]e believe that the battle between us and the Jews is coming … Such a battle is not driven by nationalistic causes or patriotic belonging; it is rather driven by religious incentives. This battle is not going to happen between Arabs and Zionists, or between Jews and Palestinians, or between Jews or anybody else. It is between Muslims and Jews as is clearly stated in the hadith. This battle will occur between the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews i.e. all Muslims and all Jews. (p.77)

...Fatawa on Palestine includes Qaradawi's standard line on Palestinian suicide bombing, which is now well known. Suicide bombings are, in Qaradawi's words, '[O]ne of the greatest types of Jihad … valid heroic martyrdom operations and very different from suicide.' (p. 6) The suicide bomber '[H]as sold his soul to Allah and placed his heart on gaining martyrdom and purchasing Paradise.' (p. 7) Women suicide bombers '[A]re doing a remarkable deed that is blessed by Almighty Allah and considered an act of Jihad for the sake of Allah.' (p. 21)

From http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/stephenpollard/734631/alqaradawi-in-his-own-words.thtml

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It’s worth reading the following review by Gardner and Rich of Qaradawi’s book, Fatawa on Palestine, in its entirety. http://www.democratiya.com/review.asp?reviews_id=172

Israel likely to stop attacks from Gaza soon.

The Israeli military said on Friday that Palestinians fired more than 2,300 rockets and mortar bombs at Israel in the past six months.


Report: Abbas informed of Israel's plan to retake Gaza

Al-Quds Al-Arabi quotes Palestinian sources as saying that Abbas called for renewed talks with Hamas in effort to thwart Jerusalem's plan to launch broad military operation in Strip, gradually transfer control over to Palestinian Authority

Ynet Published: 06.07.08

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to call for a 'national and comprehensive dialogue' with Hamas after being informed of Israel's plan to launch a wide-scale military operation in Gaza and recapture the coastal enclave, according to a report published Saturday by the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
The newspaper quoted Palestinian sources as saying that Israel plans to gradually transfer control over the Strip to the Palestinian Authority, adding that Abbas expressed his objection to the move during last week's meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and demanded that Jerusalem take a positive stance toward Egypt's efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
According to the sources, Abbas warned Olmert of the possible ramifications should Israel decide to take over Gaza and is attempting to thwart an Israeli invasion by resuming talks with Hamas.

The report said Israel is looking to re-conquer Gaza, annihilate the Palestinian resistance groups, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and then gradually transfer control over the Strip to Abbas. However, the newspaper said, the Palestinian president is wary of regaining control in Gaza following an Israeli operation.

Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Abbas had no other choice but to resume negotiations with the Islamist group "after realizing that all of his other options, such as the attempt to isolate Hamas and participate in the blockade on Gaza, had failed".